Rich apricot and apple with a backbone of botanical gin. Balanced rather than dry or sweet.
This cocktail looks better when stirred, but Harry Craddock's...
Just revisited and still excellent. Added lots of lemon peel and a long.... stir. Tanqueray export strength, Rothman & Winter Apricot, and a decent fruity V.S. Calvados rang all the right bells! ♡♡♡♡♡
The dilution is definitely essential to avoid this becoming overly sweet. The apricot still dominated a little for my taste, and on the sweet side. Perhaps shaking will fix this? Noted Conor’s comments re dropping the apricot and upping the apple slightly…. Next time!
Cocktail really depends on the apple brandy - mine has a very cidery flavor, so I went down to 3/4 and it balanced better with 1 oz dry gin and 1 oz apricot liqueur
Lovely cocktail, one of those favourites I don’t have so often, because, as you say, it might need adjustments depending on the ingredients at hand. My favourite way to do this is 100% “à la française” with Giffard’s Abricot de Roussilon, a very smooth but little oaked Ch. de Breuil calva, and Citadelle dry gin. I sometimes add a splash of Pernod absinthe if I am in the mood for something slightly more on the dry side.
I absolutely love how this cocktail takes equal parts of three seemingly incongruous partners and joins them to make one balanced and harmonious drink. Sad to see it out of the Cocktail Hall of Fame, but it will still have its glory at my little bar!
I enjoyed this drink, but I'm curious to try it with perhaps a splash of Benedictine. I got hints of a honey-esque sweetness, so maybe pulling back the apricot brandy and adding even 5ml of Benedictine could work.
I tried this with a 46.3% Finnish Kyrö rye gin. Boy does it become boozy at that point. Maybe something to try for those who find this with ‘normal’ gin too sweet!
It was a little bit too sweet for my liking. So I dropped the Apricot brandy by .25oz and upped the Calvados by the same amount. Suited my palate much more.
This was another one on my wishlist to use some rarely used apricot brandy and it was very nice , I am wondering however if I could have added a dash of some bitters, maybe next time
What a great cocktail. Smooth and well balanced. The gin and calvados help to balance the sweetness of the Apricot. All three flavours can be detected. Might try the suggestion of using some cold packaged apple juice next time, but an organice one that is not too sweet.