One of the most famous statements in modern history goes as follows, “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no it’s Superman!” In the 1920s and 30s, there was another flying machine, that has since almost entirely gone by the wayside, the airship. Also known as a blimp or zeppelin depending on size and shape, the aircraft has practically gone instinct in the modern world, and most of the reason why has to do with one blustery night in New Jersey.

This is the Steel Balloon, it is the cocktail I have made for you based on the disastrous demise of the Hindenburg, the airship which crashed in New Jersey in 1937. It is a cocktail made with three simple ingredients, Jägermeister, Jack Daniels Honey, and Ayinger Dark Dunkel Beer. It is a delicious combination of sweetness and bitterness.

The Hindenburg began construction in 1931 and made its maiden voyage in 1936 with 86 passengers. The first successful airship was developed by Frenchman Henri Giffard in 1852. Over time, there remained a constant danger with the operation of the airship, namely in its means of buoyancy. Airships maintained their ability to fly mainly by using hydrogen gas. Of course, hydrogen gas has the issue of being highly, highly flammable, so airships were susceptible to explosion. Sounds safe. And yet there is something utterly majestic seeing these floating behemoths drift through the skies, like galleons on the sea.

Noting these issues, the maiden voyage of the LZ 129 Hindenburg still had 80 passengers in it’s first trip with non-crew, most of them were passengers flying from Friedrichshafen to Lowenthal.

With successful flights coming one after another, the Hindenburg was ready to offer transatlantic commercial flights. In 1937, the Hindenburg scheduled several transatlantic flights to America as well as other nations. They even partnered with American Airlines at the time to take passengers from Lakehurst to Newark for connecting flights. You may ask, isn’t this when the Nazis were in power, yes it was, but of course it was before Germany’s aggression leaked into Poland and started WWII.

On May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg was coming into Naval Air Station, Lakehurst in Manchester Township, New Jersey. The 97 passengers had been coming in from their initial flight in Frankfurt, Germany. At 7:00pm the Hindenburg was making its final approach into New Jersey. It had been storming all day and the poor weather had delayed the landing of the airship. As they came in the crew of the Hindenburg would drop their landing ropes for the grounds crew to take and secure the ship to the station. Coming in at a sharp left turn the crew readied for landing while battling the difficult winds. One can only imagine how susceptible to turbulence a ship of that size must be. Soon after gaining position, however, the winds shifted from east to southwest, causing Captain Pruss, to order a sharp turn to the starboard or right side. At 7:21pm as the ship was adjusting and trying to become level to mooring lines were dropped to the ground crew below.

As the ground crew worked to secure the lines, witnesses saw a blue flame, whether static electricity or some other spark, they noticed a subsequent fluttering in the fabric as if the gas inside was weakening. Moments after the initial flame was noticed at 7:25pm, flames engulfed the rear of the airship some of the mooring ropes snapped and disaster had begun. Flames engulfed ventilation shafts in cells 4 and 5 and the ship fell stern first to the ground. Once colliding with the turf flames shot up through the nose on the bow and quickly the rest of the ship was engulfed in flames. Catastrophe happened in an instant from the first flame being sighted to the crashing to the ground in 34-37 seconds and total destruction thereafter in 16 seconds, this was quick and deadly. Incredibly despite all of this horrifying spectacle, of the 97 aboard, only 35 passed away and one grounds crewman lost his life. This disaster, as freaky and quick as it was quickly garnered the attention of the press everywhere and it spelled the end of the airship.

Another grim reminder of why history is better with a drink. With that, let’s get into our drink. We will start with 1 oz of Jack Daniels Honey. We will follow that up with 1 oz of Jägermeister. Now when I was figuring out this cocktail, I wanted to evoke two things. The darkness surrounding any tragedy and the unfortunate souls who lost their lives that day, and the crash itself. Our dark coloration can be achieved by our ingredients, but how do we show an element of the crash? Well instead of fire and steel crashing into the ground, let’s have the two most iconic liquors from each country crash into each other. So therefore, we have, Jägermeister and Jack Daniels coming together.  Germany and America crashing into each other.

But was a crash without some smoke, so here we will add an additional element before we finish our build, Smoke! To remember the end of the airship era we will smoke our drink using woodchips. This will alter the flavor and aroma of the drink, so I won’t be looking to do too much here.

Now that it is smoked, we will add the final ingredient to our cocktail, beer. Yep that’s right, beer. I am using Ayinger dark Dunkel here which has a nice coffee, malty flavor that is robust and the bubbly will lighten the feel of the drink since there are some sweeter and heaver elements. We will throw in an 1 ½ oz to that, and garnish. There you have it, the Steel Balloon! It looks good, almost as majestic as those airships flying back in the 20s. Let’s give it a try!