Reginald Vanderbilt, the early-20th-century millionaire often credited with inventing the Stinger, described it as “a short drink with a long reach, a subtle blending of ardent nectars, a boon to friendship, a dispeller of care.” (At least that’s what a syndicated 1923 newspaper article reported, though in his updated edition of Imbibe, David Wondrich describes the article as “gossipy.”) It’s a difficult promise for any cocktail to live up to, and I doubt that most people these days would consider creme de menthe, one of the cocktail’s two ingredients, to be an “ardent nectar.” (Though I’ve been discovering recently that it can make a very good mixer.)
Every recipe I’ve read calls for white creme de menthe, presumably because the bright green version mixed with brown spirits would look disgusting (from what I’ve read, they taste the same). What I had, though, was homemade, a greenish-brown color that wasn’t all that different from the brandy. It’s also traditional to shake the Stinger rather than stirring it, but I can tell you from experience that stirring works just fine. And while it’s supposed to be served neat, three ounces of almost straight alcohol is a lot to drink before the cocktail warms up too much. In the future I’ll either make the drink smaller (1½ oz of brandy to ½ oz of creme de menthe) or serve it over a large ice cube.
