Gee, this IS a Hall of Famer. In the spirit of “everything with Cynar is magic,” I subbed Cynar for Campari. I think it’s *transportive.*
A little note on Cynar from a small ag town in California. Santa Cruz, my home, is hardly known for big city bar manners. It’s hokey. People act like it’s a big deal to order a martini. HOWEVER! Because we grow the nation’s artichokes here, you can find Cynar in EVERY single bar and restaurant, from dive to hotel resort. We know it’s Italian, but so is much of Santa Cruz. It’s the one speciality ingredient that everyone here knows well.
Thanks, Susie. I've added Chile’s Emancipation Day above, and I'll also add a Terremoto to Difford's Guide in the weeks ahead.
Wow, well, thank you! However, I made one crucial mistake in my instructions, which I’m sure you won’t repeat. It’s a drink to build, not to stir. I watched some videos in Spanish and “now” I get it!
Felices dieciocho! It’s September 18, also Chile’s Emancipation/Independence day. I am invited to a fiesta tonight, with Chilean specialties I can’t wait to try. I have learned they have a DEEP cocktail culture, and the most famous one for this particular holiday is the ”Terremoto” — 2 scoops of Pineapple coconut ice cream, 6 oz of good Chardonnay (or Chilean white), 1 oz grenadine, and . . . 1 oz of Fernet! You stir everything together gently until the ice cream is melty and well mixed.
I tried a rift of this with a clear butter syrop and a mix of amontillado and fino. Amazing.
60 armagnac
15 amontillado
7.5 fino
30 clear butter syrop
37.5 lime lemon juice
Pincht of salt
Great drink
I’d love to know your butter syrop recipe! That sounds incredible.
I feel a little scandalous drinking Armagnac any way but neat. But it’s irresistible to have this collection of unusual ingredients, plus the first ripe oranges on the garden boughs.
Moments later . . . It’s really good. The fresh fruit makes it. I’ve always wanted to sit at Mr. Weeks’ bar, what a treat that would be.
Okay, baby, I’ve got your white trash alternative here.
But first, I want to say I *eventually* bought Fee’s Bacon Fat Wash bitters, and for the unsuspecting, it’s such a breeze. Remember to SHAKE the bottle each time before you use it, and you’ll get the full flavor in the glycerin solution.
In the beginning, where I heard about washing bourbon in bacon fat, of course I wanted to do the real thing. Grease me up! For the fat, I turned to my trusty tin can.
Since I was a little girl, my mamma and my grandma always poured extra bacon fat off into jars and cans, to keep by the stove, or in the fridge. Then you’d cook whatever wanted in the fat— the eggs, meats, fish. I didn’t know what “olive oil” was — we were Irish.
So, in the tin can, you’d accumulate all kinds of bacon drippings you’d been cooking, and yes, each one became a fusion of the next. That is what I infused my bourbon with, and it was fantastic.
This is the ultimate Old Fashioned as far as I’m concerned. The pork that was always missing. Add a cherry and a pickle for Great Lakes style.
I am so happy to spend my government check on a bottle of my beloved “Jaune.” It was brutal when it was out of stock. And it’s doubled in price since I discovered it.
Great. Starts as a luscious Carpano Antica Manhattan, with a delayed subtle bitterness from the Cynar. Benefits from a post-swallow inhale by the mouth and exhale by the nose.
I did what you said . . . wow. Thank you.
A friend of mine gave me a bottle of Domain de Canton French ginger liqueur. I tried this recipe using that instead of Grand Marnier. Highly recommended.
This sounds like my jam.
I wonder if it would be possible to replicate something similar oneself by macerating fresh peach flesh and vodka (the neutral spirit) using a sous vide?
Absolutely. Fresh peaches however you can process them
Okay, I’m on a quest with Banana liqueur, and I have the cheap stuff the brand no one here will dare say its name. But I wanted to see if anything rose to the level of buying a full bottle of the “good stuff.”
Tonight, I threw out three experiments with other recipes, after one sip — no, no, and no.
This one! We have a winner. It just pulls the room together, what can I say? I will excite my next supper party.
My first sip, I thought, “Oh, Okay, I guess.” But then, I decided to pair it with a salty snack, in my case a bowl of salted roasted pumpkin seeds, and OH BOY. It’s purrrrfect.
How do I love this cocktail! I was making Ted Haigh’s version in the past, where he uses raspberry syrup and a some slight variations in the ratios, but this is MY FAVE as of today. I live in “berry-growing” country and fresh raspberries, as well as fresh grapefruits, are easy to pick. Go ahead, move to California!
It is late at night but I got it into my head I HAD to have a Scofflaw.
At the last second, I realized all the lemons were used up earlier this afternoon for the teetotalers— they needed a pitcher of Arnold’s.
So, dammit, it’s too dark to wander down the street to pick a lemon from a neighbor’s tree.
But I have a lime tree and it’s fruiting, so I grabbed a Bearss lime off the branch, and I’m here to tell you this Lime Scofflaw is FANTASTIC. I did it!
Boy, did I ever have a happy accident! I was surprised to see I didn’t have any rum in the house EXCEPT Plantation Pineapple. I used that with the two vermouths, *dry* orange curacao, the cheap grenadine and the all important saline spray. It is STUPENDOUS!
I used the tiny dash/spidgen/pinch measuring spoons one can purchase, to get the absinthe, bitters, and orange blossom in perfect Savoy harmony. Wow. It really is a perfect, perfect, drink.
John Le Carré fans: You may remember when George Smiley goes on a drinking binge with Jerry Westerby to get him to “spill.” Jerry’s drink of choice is a Pink Gin, and understanding that he seems to swill them all day, we understand his drinking state of mind. “Pink Gin” also figures quite a bit in Somerset Maugham novels, where it’s the only thing to cut the Malaysian heat.
Hunter was my friend, and he really, really, would have liked reading this. Xoxo YFTR, Susie
I once wrote a column called “Grapefruit is the New Umami” because it’s a leap for cocktail students to grasp. In cocktails, grapefruit juice plays a chemistry role that has nothing to do with the horrid half-grapefruits your mother made you eat, or someone’s lamebrained crash diet. The Grapefruit juice (fresh, SVP) or bitters, “brings the whole room together” as Mr. Lebowski once said. You don’t taste the fruit per se, you taste an experience that couldn’t come together without this dear ingredient. Try it. Not Greyhounds, although those are fine— something more complicated.
Wild woman here: I had bourbon. I had an Amontillado sherry. I had homemade nocino from our walnut tree. It is sooooooo good.
I look forward to trying. Perhaps turned out to be a happy accident! Out of interest, what brand of kummel did you use?
It is “Helbing” Kümmel from the Heinrich Helbing distillery in Hamburg. I hope you will as happy as I was. I am a fan of the caraway seed, and I have used in cooking as well as beverages. Simon, thank you for asking! You’re a constant inspiration here.
Okay, don’t hate me, but having lost my Becherovka in a senseless “accident de cabinet,” I took a discerning eye to my remaining liqueurs and decided to try Kümmel instead. I think it is SUBLIME. Everything else, as described.
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. :)
Absolutely right. This recipe is perfect to the drop. I, too, was tempted to skimp on the sugar syrup, but disciplined myself just in time!