Made this with Beefeater, Luxardo Maraschino, Dolin Dry, & Aperol. Very tasty! I got notes from the gin, spice/flavor of the maraschino liqueur, sweetness and herbal notes from the vermouth, orange-bitter from the Aperol, and of course lime. All well-balanced for my palate! Disappeared quickly. Definitely going to the top of my favorites.
To see whether it would work from a flavour comparability perspective, we experimented by using Empress Elderflower Rose Gin and were happy with the outcome.
When we (there were two of us) compared against the original recipe, the original is truer to the taste profile of a Last Word. There’s a subtle, but notable, difference with the gin we used (a bit more layered and interesting, flavour-wise). When the votes were tallied, the Empress variation came out victorious.
I personally improved texture on my shaken cocktails by using one big rock and 2/3 ice cubes for the shake (cf Liquid Intelligence by Dave Arnold, of course).
It's...alright. It's nice. It tastes a lot closer to a last word than I expected but it's in a weird place that it's not as good as a last word (for a tangy, complex gin/chartreuse/herbal cocktail) and it's not as good as a paper plane (for a tangy, complex aperol/fruity/bittersweet cocktail).
Spot on. I thought about playing with the proportions or swapping ingredients but why bother when those alternatives exist.
That said, it does only require common ingredients so if you don’t have a bottle of nonino or charteuse handy (the latter always a challenge these days) it’s a reasonable alternative.
I learned about the shortage from The Wall Street Journal, which ran the Last Word recipe with it, just as it had done a dozen years earlier. I was able buy a bottle here for HK$498.
The Monks Who Make Chartreuse Don’t Care About Your Fancy Cocktails
Their decision to cap production to focus more on prayer has enthusiasts stockpiling bottles of the French liqueur
Hadn't heard anything about a shortage down under - but still took some proactive action! A bottle of Yellow and Green on their way. Find it hard to imagine a satisfactory substitute for the real thing.