Charlie Forbes

Waiting on a delivery of lemon bitters and pink grapefruit, I made a riff using orange juice and citric acid (to pull the citrus forward and closer to grapefruit) and lavender bitters (to align w/ the floral notes in gin and St. Germaine. Not bad!

Mouthfeel is a little syrupy w/o the champagne - I wonder why this is seen as a passionfruit-driven riff on a Porn Star Martini when a PSM includes two passionfruit-flavored ingredients also? Anyway, I tweaked w/ an oz. of lime juice and 3/4 oz of simple syrup plus a few drops of vanilla extract (to fake a slightly sweeter vanilla syrup).

Perhaps in ignorance or frustration, this might be the most inaccessible cocktail I've found on this site so far. Mexican corn whisky? Haven't ever seen it. Corn/maize liqueur? Nope. Coriander bitters? C'mon, brother! lol

I thought this was great - cognac really pulls out the chocolate and vermouth adds some complexity - but SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) said it tasted like a "Frankenstein" cocktail.

I was stuck w/o orange peel and used grapefruit instead - no matter, as the cocktail was still truly excellent and a rare 5 for this bar.

Unable to find decent fresh passion fruit, I made do w/ 1.5 oz. of puree. Mouthfeel was still a bit viscous for my taste, so doubled up on ginger ale. I imagine this would also be good w/ papaya or mango.

I find this pretty boozy for limited taste/complexity. Any ideas on how to punch things up w/o adding more alcohol to the equation?

From all the research I have done, I have never, ever, seen a Cuba Libre recipe which calls for Angostura, and generally, the proportions for rum to coke are more towards 1:3 (according to the International Bartender's Association, it's 5cl rum and 12cl coke) but of course, this is a matter of preference. Also, there is no muddling in a cuba libre, you just add 1cl of lime juice.

Now, I don't know who adds these recipes, but why is Angostura listed?

I'd venture to say it's to further cut the sweetness of the cocktail in general, and to hew towards the standard that says it's only a mixed drink w/o the bitters, i.e. not a cocktail, strictly speaking.

Don't sleep on the bitters. Or the "Cubata" (dark rum variant).

The "cocktail of the day" intro names Sept 30th, 1912, as an auspicious day in the Robert Scott tragedy. However, his attempt to walk out of Antartica began on actually began on January 19th. He walked the first 300 miles by February 7th. 20 days later, they still had 300 miles to go and reached the spot where they died on March 19th. It is estimated that he died 10-11 days later.

Lots of different ways to get to this destination (or nearby): also fun to make w/ ginger juice for an extra kick, or with just honey (who has time for ginger syrup - honestly), with ginger preserves and half the honey for the same idea. You can also mule this thing up by lengthening w/ ginger beer for a long, spicy, summer refresher.

Eschewed the labor intensive garnish to make a fantastic drink for those who crave sweet. My wife loves it! Used Boston Bitters de Bittermens instead of bonafide lemon bitters. I also trimmed the syrup (brown sugared) a tad, since the limoncello is already dulcet.

Agreed re: garnish. You can get most of the way home w/ a long twist, carefully curled around a straw and then draped languidly across the rim of the glass.

For those who might find a little more tartness preferable (such as She Who Must Be Obeyed), add another half ounce of lemon juice.

When I saw that the recipe called for both Grendine AND simple syrup, I thought, "Let's just go w/ more Grenadine" as a plus up. In fact, it was a plus down. The recipe as stated is better and will be my way to make a BS from this point forward. :)

Rated excellent. Almost worth opening a new bottle of good Pinot! ;)

A light summer refresher. Somewhat subject to the sweetness of your grapefruit juice, tart/bitter notes can get away from you w/o sweet juice and careful measurement. Delicious!

Made it with raspberry puree as fresh fruit was not at hand. Light, well-balanced, drinks like the review and a welcome summer refresher.

What fun! I'm not sure a 9-ingredient cocktail will be showing up for guests too, too often, but definitely interesting from start to finish. I will confess to cheating and using Knob Creek's smoked maple bourbon.