Quite a few bartenders I know are familiar with the “Black Book,” which is a spiral-bound collection of just about every cocktail known to man. Within that tome are a bunch of horrible, stupid recipes.
This compendium exists only so that nobody’s caught flat footed when someone can’t be bothered to order what’s on the drink menu, or at least a standard cocktail known to everyone on the planet. Supposing someone sidles up to the counter and orders something like a “Pink Missile” (yes, it’s in there), this tells them how to make it.
While the Four Horsemen isn’t necessarily gross, like many of the cocktails in the black book, it is most certainly dumb. In truth, it had some notoriety before I was gifted a black book of my own, but it’s emblematic of what you’ll find in the 100+ spiral-bound pages of bad ideas.
So what is it? Well, it’s a half ounce of Johnnie Red, a half ounce of Jameson, a half ounce of Jack Daniels, and a half ounce of JP Wiser. SO MUCH WHISKEY, RIGHT? “I mean, do the math, bro! That’s 160 proof!”
Who orders this? Smart money is on dudes in their twenties looking to impress their similarly dumb buddies. Or, those same kinds of dudes who want to signal to a woman how much liquor they can handle. And the ploy might work, supposing that their dates never ended up getting that high school diploma.
If you didn’t yet figure it out, the Four Horsemen is a cocktail that depends on people being really bad at math. You’re not ordering four times the amount of whiskey a person would usually order. You’re ordering a regular amount of whiskey (2 ounces), since 4 pours of half an ounce of 80 proof liquor is equal to 2 ounces of 80 proof liquor.
Again, it’s all 80 proof. To use a (true) metaphor: my mom is half Italian, and my dad is half Italian. As a result, I’m half Italian. I don’t wake up each morning sipping tiny cappuccinos and I’m not buying a Vespa anytime soon, because the two halves don’t add up to a whole. Instead, it’s more accurate to say that I’m two-fourths Italian. Or think in terms of test grades. A kid gets a 50% on his test. Supposing that he earns two separate grades of 50%, they don’t average together to get a perfect score: instead, now he’s definitely failing.
I would reason you’ll be charged significantly more for ordering a Four Horsemen, since bartenders will probably silently hate you for making them grab four bottles from the back bar, measure out four different pours, and then mix them all together into basically indistinguishable swill built from a mélange of whiskies that each have a reputation of being middling.
Maybe one day I’ll mix one for myself out of morbid curiosity (or site content), but I’m pretty sure it’s just going to have a vague, oaky whiskey taste. And honestly, it probably won’t burn going down, because Jameson, J.D., and Canadian whiskey are known for being pretty mellow as a general rule. (If anything, they all might be improving Johnnie Red through the weird amalgamation, like the booze equivalent of Captain Planet or Voltron.)
I’ll tell you the god’s honest truth—if I ever open a bar, I’m putting this on a menu and charging three times the price of a regular 2 ounce pour of any of these individual whiskeys. People will order it and think it’s a bargain.
