It’s fairly difficult to really hurt yourself making cocktails, barring an unfortunate toothpick accident or a loose cocktail shaker. The great exception to this is fire. Bartenders since the beginning of time have been drawn to it like moths to the extremely literal flame, or lazy writers to the overly obvious simile. The best-known early bartender, Jerry Thomas, made his mark on bar culture with the Blue Blazer, a mixture of scotch whiskey and boiling water that was set alight and flung between two glasses, creating a stream of flame and thoroughly impressing any onlooking patrons.

Although the Blue Blazer is no longer found on most bar menus, the tradition continues with modern creations like the Combustible Edison, which has the distinction of being invented by and for the 1990s “Cocktail Nation” lounge band of the same name (perhaps best known for the soundtrack of 1995 Tarantino project Four Rooms).

The Combustible Edison

2 oz brandy

1 oz Campari

1 oz lemon juice

A word about the construction, which occurs in two stages: First you shake the brandy and Campari (an Italian herbal liqueur that I’ve mentioned here before) with ice and strain it into a cocktail glass. Then you heat the brandy, light it on fire, and pour it over the other ingredients. Being, in fact, combustible, the drink’s titular flame is reportedly “the coolest of fires,” and “is extinguished moments after hitting the brisk citrus and Campari.” In my case, it worked this way almost exactly up to the point at which the table caught on fire.

The recipe for the Combustible Edison calls for the brandy to be heated in a chafing dish before lighting. Possessing none, I jerry-rigged my own solution: I would heat the brandy in an improvised double boiler, putting it in a small metal cup and then heating that in a saucepan full of boiling water. This may sound like the problem. It’s not. It worked very well, in fact.

Conduction was the problem. Being no scientist, I had forgotten that brandy, when lit, quickly heats whatever touches it, especially when you’re holding a stainless steel cup with your bare hands. The brandy poured into the glass in a waterfall of flame, but the fumes in the cup kept burning. I did the logical thing and changed the angle, trying to get a handle on something that wasn’t rapidly heating. This turned out to be another problem: There was still some brandy in the cup. It was liberated. At this point, I should count myself lucky that Ikea tables are apparently made of some kind of Swedish asbestos, capable of resisting all but the most persistent of flames. My fingertips, less fortunately, are not.

The moral of this story is probably to use glass instead of steel, or at least something with a handle. The drink, guaranteed to wow your audience with its live flames and bright pink palette, is well worth it: The Combustible Edison looks like a Cosmo, lights like a torch, and gives you a nice burst of fruit and herbals, ending with a slightly bitter finish that belies its lightweight appearance.

So that’s it. The beginning of the semester, and I’m nursing burns on my fingers, dear reader. I hope you enjoy it. RLD