Tanqueray

History is hot these days, at least when it comes to booze, and to tell the fashion-forward young cocktail drinker that his or her drink is made with a spirit whose formula dates to, say, 1793 is to guarantee that he or she will drink it. This was not always the case. In 1997, the people who make Tanqueray gin, a London dry gin in the classic old style—big, strong, and junipery—thought they would introduce something so old that it would be new. Enter Tanqueray Malacca, a lighter, sweetly fragrant gin with a retro-looking label that claimed it was made according to an “original 1839 recipe” from the company’s vaults. Its soft spiciness demanded to be used in old-school Tom Collinses, rickeys, and punches, which would have made for strong sales had anybody been drinking those kinds of gin cocktails back then. Unfortunately, our current cocktail revolution was still in the secret-handshake stage at the time, and the only way anybody drank gin was with tonic or in a dry martini, neither of which was suited to the Malacca. The result: Nobody drank it, and the bottling was quietly withdrawn from the market around 2001. Today, amateur and professional mixologists are clamoring to track down Malacca, with remaining bottles going for about $100 on eBay. On the other hand, it can still occasionally be found on the lower shelf in random liquor stores at retail price. Happy hunting.