Townsend Miller was a unique character who was larger than life. This article is our attempt to recreate his signature drink, Townsend’s Treacherous Treat, which he carried in a flask while making the rounds of Austin’s honky-tonks in the seventies. To learn more about his extraordinary life, click here.
“Townsend’s Treacherous Treat” is a legendary Austin libation that rose to fame in the early seventies. It was a mysterious drink carried by an extraordinary character. Townsend Miller kept a flask of the treat in his hip pocket during the decade he covered country music for the Austin American-Statesman. His patronage made it a well-known drink in Austin, and when the Chicago Tribune featured him in a nationally syndicated profile in 1976, the concoction flirted with national fame.
As the decades passed, the drink faded from memory and was almost forgotten. The only traces remaining were scattered references in the dusty archives of the Austin American-Statesman. It was in the dark recesses of these archives that the Cosmic Culture Club discovered this mysterious concoction and resolved to revive its presence in the Austin cocktail scene. Townsend was always happy to share his flask, but he never shared his recipe, and little is known about his secret formula. All we know is that it contained a mixture of vodka and crème de menthe.
You were probably with me until that last sentence. Crème de menthe is not en vogue with today’s drinking society. It’s a distinctive mint-infused liqueur that most people associate with a sickly green syrup that tastes like over-distilled mouthwash, but it’s an interesting spirit with a long and prestigious history in the cocktail world. It is the defining ingredient in the classic Stinger, and Townsend’s Treacherous Treat sprang from those aristocratic bloodlines.
The History of the Stinger
The exact origin of the Stinger cocktail remains a mystery, though it’s believed to have emerged in New York City in the late 1800s. The cocktail is a simple mixture of cognac and (clear) crème de menthe. It was the drink of choice for Reginald Vanderbilt, who promoted it as a sophisticated beverage favored by society’s elite.
Reginald, known for being a bit of a scoundrel, stirred up controversy with his use of the concoction. Crème de menthe originated in France, where it was traditionally used as a digestive aid, sipped at the end of a long meal or as a palate refresher between courses. Common sense dictated that any drink mixed with this liqueur was a digestif—but Reggie served the drink before dinner! Despite the mild scandal, he insisted that the drink was a cocktail, and eventually, the arbiters of taste begrudgingly agreed that it could be both a cocktail and a digestif.
The Stinger weathered Prohibition with its sophisticated reputation intact and continued to rise in prominence throughout the following decades. During the Golden Age of Hollywood, it was often ordered by debonair men at library bars, and its presence in films helped underscore a character’s class and sophistication. This mutually beneficial relationship between the cocktail and its refined image enhanced the drink’s high-society reputation, making it a staple in every bartender’s repertoire at the height of its popularity.
However, the 1960s ushered in a cultural revolution whose reverberations reached the cocktail world. Where the Stinger had once been regarded as elegant and sophisticated, the new generation saw it as old-fashioned and stuffy. “Exciting” drinks like the Mai Tai, Piña Colada, and Harvey Wallbanger began to replace the old standards on cocktail menus, and by the 1970s, the Stinger had mostly faded from existence.
The rejection of the Stinger coincided with a broader shift on the cocktail landscape. The new generation was turning away from the rigid rules of whiskey and brandy production, embracing the modern, free-spirited approach of vodka, which could be distilled from anything, anywhere. Its clear color and lack of distinctive flavor made it a versatile liquor that could serve as the base for nearly any drink. Vodka’s meteoric rise saw it go from relative obscurity in 1950 to becoming the most widely consumed liquor in America by 1976.
There were many reasons for vodka’s rise, but the coolest was secret agent James Bond. When he leaned on a bar and ordered his vodka martini “shaken, not stirred” – he solidified the perception of vodka as a suave and modern spirit. It’s a perfect analogy for how culture was evolving at the time. We were going to the moon, and we weren’t sure what we were going to find. There was a rejection of old, stuffy traditions and an embrace of a modern future. A refined spy, who drank vodka and used high tech gadgets to defeat super-villains was the hero the people needed, and even Hollywood was rejecting their traditions.
The Rise of Townsend’s Treacherous Treat
Townsend straddled two eras. He was old enough to remember when drinking Stingers was cool, but hip enough to know that vodka was the future. In all aspects of life, Townsend demonstrated he was willing to embrace the new. He wasn’t a progressive country music enthusiast—he liked Bob Wills and Ernest Tubb. That was his music. But when he started exploring Austin’s nightclubs, he discovered Doug Sahm, Willie Nelson, Asleep at the Wheel, Kinky Friedman, and all sorts of other freaky hippie cowboys. He was 51 when he started writing his column, but not old enough to be set in his ways, and he quickly became one of the primary cheerleaders for this new generation of music.
Around the time of Townsend’s discovery of outlaw country, the Vodka Stinger (aka White Widow) was invented. It was identical to a Stinger but gave the classic a modern twist by replacing the cognac with vodka. We have to consider the possibility that Townsend Miller invented the Vodka Stinger. You can’t put it past a man who caught the world’s largest longnose gar to also invent a named cocktail, and taking a classic recipe and blending it with a modern liquor is just the kind of thing Townsend would do.
The Revival of Townsend’s Treacherous Treat
We reject that possibility based on the evidence that “Townsend’s Treacherous Treat” is too great a name to be left off the invention, and Townsend fondly referred to it as his original recipe. At the Cosmic Culture Club, we decided that if we can’t precisely replicate his elixir, we can at least stay true to his spirit of originality and create a cocktail that uses a classic approach while appealing to the modern drinker. We don’t want to stray far from his original recipe, but our goal is to revive rather than recreate.
The choice of base spirits is non-negotiable—we must use vodka and crème de menthe. This presents the first challenge. As culture continues to evolve, vodka, once seen as fresh and modern, is now regarded as bland and tasteless. Crème de menthe also suffers from a poor reputation, and as a result, the most accessible options tend to be cheap, sugary, and green.
For our research, we collected the available varieties from liquor stores in downtown Austin. The least expensive was a neon green bottle priced at $11 from Urban Liquor, while the most costly was a $40 amber-colored bottle of Branca Menta, which we picked up at Wiggy’s. It turned out not to be a competition; the Branca Menta won 100% of the blind taste tests and was universally embraced as the spirit of choice.
It’s a mint flavored liqueur made by the same company that produces Fernet; in fact, it is Fernet infused with a hefty dose of Piedmontese peppermint. It was invented in the 1960’s at the request of a famous Italian opera singer. She kept asking for her Fernet with mint until they decided to finally bottle it that way. Branca Menta trades some of the crispness of creme de menthe for a more complex flavor, without sacrificing the mint forward profile. It still tastes like robitussin, but like a special hipster vintage that would brag about the Slovenian oak casks it is aged in. Technically, they were bottling it before Townsend invented his concoction but it is extremely unlikely he would have been able to get his hands on a bottle.
The superiority was further established when we moved on to a basic Vodka Stinger. The amber hue and depths of flavors in the Branca Menta version did not taste like a traditional vodka based cocktail. While not using any of the same spirits, it is vaguely reminiscent of a Martinez, and a suitable launching pad to build the treacherous treat from.
Robitussin and vodka are tricky flavors to build a cocktail around, and there were a few failed attempts that I won’t commit to print, along with many more decent drinks—but none that were worthy of carrying the “TTT” name. Then, inspiration struck. What if we blended the essence of Townsend’s drink with Austin’s most beloved cocktail of the modern era—the Margarita? Was there a happy intersection where the beloved drink of yesteryear and the current cocktail king could exist in harmony?
One sip in, and we knew this was the one—an interesting drink that was both familiar and surprising at the same time. It’s tangy, minty, and refreshing, yet also has deep and complex flavors. It’s Townsend’s Treacherous Treat.
The Recipe
Ingredients:
- 2 oz vodka
- 1 oz Branca Menta
- ¾ oz fresh lime juice
- ½ oz Cointreau
- ½ oz honey syrup
Directions
- Rinse a martini glass with cold water and set in the freezer to frost.
- Add vodka, Branca Menta, lime juice, Cointreau, and honey syrup to a shaker full of ice.
- Shake well for 30-45 seconds, and strain into frosted martini glass.
Townsend’s Treacherous Treat is paired with a live album from one of his favorite country singers in the Listening Lounge. Check that out here.
