Name: Edison's Medicine cocktail
Total time: 4 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 6 fresh Basil leaves; 45 ml Cachaça; 15 ml Chartreuse Yellow; 22.5 ml Lime juice; 15 ml Agave syrup; 10 ml Chilled water

Edison's Medicine cocktail
Jump to

Serve in a Coupe glass

Ingredients:
6 fresh	Basil leaves
1 ¹⁄₂ oz	Cachaça
¹⁄₂ oz	Yellow Chartreuse (or génépy liqueur)
³⁄₄ oz	Lime juice (freshly squeezed)
¹⁄₂ oz	Agave syrup
¹⁄₃ oz	Chilled water omit if using wet ice

Read about cocktail measures and measuring

How to make:

Select and pre-chill a Coupe glass.
Prepare garnish of basil leaf.
SHAKE all ingredients with ice.
FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
Garnish with basil leaf boat floated on cocktail.

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

More cocktails with similar strength and taste profile

Review:

Cachaça leads with basil and Chartreuse herbal notes, zesty lime and agave richness.

View readers' comments

History:

Adapted from a 2011 recipe created by Pete Gugni at The Bedford in Chicago, Illinois.

More After dinner/digestif cocktails
More Herbal cocktails

Difford’s Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.

Join the discussion

Showing 10 of 14 comments for Edison's Medicine cocktail.
See discussion in the Forum

Please log in to make a comment

Christopher Jameson

13th June at 18:27

Didn't have any Cachaca, so used Resperado tequila. Very nice indeed similar to a naked and famous, the basil works so well. Delicious 😋

Caspian Berggren

21st November 2024 at 15:58

Honestly, a fantastic cocktail. I like to serve my cocktails dumped, rather than served up, and the extra infusion of basil was really nice.

Kelvin Liu

17th November 2024 at 04:37

Would an absinthe rinse or replacing with green chartreuse work well?

Simon Difford

17th November 2024 at 07:20

A little absinthe influence could work well, but I'd stick to Yellow Chartreuse.

Juan Simon

19th July 2024 at 00:16

This is great! I agree that your choice of Cachaça will impact the end result. I used Paranubes, and honestly it imparts an aged Cachaça vibe with strong cane aroma, albeit with a higher ABV. Great drink!

Florian Ruf

10th June 2024 at 13:58

I am not overall convinced. I think the quality of the drink depends more on the Cachaça used than the relations.

Brian H

7th November 2023 at 02:27

This is another of my all time favorites. I quite enjoy it with 1/2 oz of the cachaça being barrel aged. I also tried a variation with tequila which was not good.

Ben Hall

6th October 2023 at 18:29

I tend to agree with others. I had it tonight, and thought it was lovely. But I think I will try upping the cachaca and lowering the agave syrup next time - I would say not by too much though. I definitely wouldn't add bitters.

John Hinojos

12th June 2023 at 23:53

Really like the herbal nature of this cocktail. Did read the reviews and upped the cachaca to 1 3/4 oz and halved the agave syrup. Still found it a bit sweet for us, so we added 4 drops of Difford's Daiquiri Bitters. Still had a nice sweet touch, but the herbal notes came out stronger. Delightlful.

Charl Engela

6th November 2022 at 21:52

It’s nice but not great. A bit like an undercooked Last Word/Final Argument. But I could drink two or three of these, unlike the others ???

Ignacy Szczupal

22nd September 2022 at 21:57

I like it very much. However, it's a bit too sweet and lacks a bit of kick. I think that as in the basil smash, it is better to increase the amount of Cachaca to 60 ml and decrease the agave syrup to 5 ml,