Name: Bending Blades cocktail
Total time: 3 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 45 ml Blanco tequila; 15 ml Manzanilla sherry; 7.5 ml Gentian liqueur; 22.5 ml Pamplemousse liqueur; 10 ml Chilled water

Bending Blades cocktail
Jump to

Serve in a Coupe glass

Ingredients:
1 ¹⁄₂ oz	Patrón Silver blanco tequila
¹⁄₂ oz	Lustau Manzanilla Papirusa Sherry
¹⁄₄ oz	Gentian liqueur (e.g. Suze, Salers etc)
³⁄₄ oz	Giffard Pamplemousse liqueur
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 lemon zest twist.
STIR all ingredients with ice.
FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
EXPRESS lemon zest twist over the cocktail and use as garnish.

Allergens:

Recipe contains the following allergens:

Manzanilla sherry - Sulphur Dioxide/Sulphites

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

More cocktails with similar strength and taste profile

Review:

Tequila-based, zesty and bitter before turning bittersweet. In March 2022, I cut the volume of gentian liqueur from 15ml (½oz) back to 7.5ml (¼oz) so fans of bitter gentian my want to stick with the original spec.

View readers' comments

History:

Adapted from a recipe created in 2015 by Christopher Day at General Lee's in Los Angeles, USA.

Nutrition:

One serving of Bending Blades cocktail contains 179 calories

Alcohol content:

1.4 standard drinks
19.96% alc./vol. (19.96° proof)
20 grams of pure alcohol

More Aperitivo/aperitif cocktails
More Bittersweet (e.g. Negroni) cocktails
More Herbal cocktails
More Short & stirred cocktails
More Spring 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 3 comments for Bending Blades cocktail.
See discussion in the Forum

Please log in to make a comment

John Morris

4th April at 07:05

Made this with mijenta tequila and my last dribble of suze saveur d’autrefois. Added a bit of grapefruit and chamomile bitters and a couple of drops of saline. Couldn’t be happier. Bitter and sweet and surprisingly full mouthfeel - presumably from the grapefruit liqueur. Banging.

Frederic D.

22nd March 2024 at 01:12

I absolutely loved this drink. Made with Olmeca Altos Plata and Fino sherry, because I don't use enough sherry to justify keeping two bottles open concurrently. This was a great drink regardless, with a distinct evolution from bitter grapefruit to herbal tequila to sherry salinity. It's complex and well balanced and overall delightful.

Steve Erwood-Heijselaar

20th March 2022 at 16:23

Interesting comment about cutting back the Suze, Simon. The first time I tried this cocktail, I was unfamiliar with gentian and found it quite a challenging taste. Here I am, another spring, another Bending Blades... and now I can't imagine it without that Suzean slap. So I'm definitely sticking to the original 15ml, but I hope others will try it either way and add another favourite cocktail to their cabinets!