Aksom (AKA Velvet Slammer)

Serve in a

Garnish:

None

How to make:

POUR ingredients into chilled glass.

Review:

They obviously like their drinks sweet in Lithuania, the home of this simple sparkling peachy shot. To make a tad drier, reduce to 15ml (½oz) peach schnapps liqueur and top with a brut sparkling wine rather than prosecco.

History:

A popular shot in Lithuania where Aksom translates to something similar to "Velvet". In March 2022, Kristijonas Juknevičius, bar manager at Trinity Bar in Vilnius, Lithuania, first told us about the Aksom, a phenomenon he played a part in starting.

"In the past four years, across the whole of Lithuania, one shot became so popular that I could never even dream possible. It all started maybe 6 years ago when my colleague (Justas Aleksiunas) and I were only a junior bartenders. A group of 10 girls came into our bar for a bachelor party. I forgot their order for 20 minutes before suddenly noticing them staring angrily at me. I ran to my colleague saying: "Man, I need 10 shots super quick!!" Also panicked, he asked me: "What should I do?" Then I noticed a bottle of Peachtree on the shelf and told him to pour half a shot of it into ten glasses. It was his Idea to top up it with prosecco.

Later on, those girls fell in love with this new shot and drunk them until we ran out of Peachtree. A week or so later another group of girls and ordered the same shots. Everyone suddenly was ordering these shots. Not just in our city, but also 300 kilometres away in Klaipėda.

We call it "Aksom" because in Lithuania it means super soft material as a velvet. And the taste is really smooth."

Nutrition:

One serving of Aksom (AKA Velvet Slammer) contains 78 calories.

Alcohol content:

• 0.5 standard drinks
• 14.09% alc./vol. (28.18° proof)
• 6.3 grams of pure alcohol