A Modern Classic

I wrote a couple of weeks back about the True Originals campaign from Bacardi and the Global Legacy Cocktail Competition that hung off the back of it.

Well, the first contest has wrapped in Barcelona and the gorgeous looking drink in the photo above is the winning drink. It’s a rethink of the Ramos Gin Fizz, swapping gin for rum and orange blossom water for something deliciously herbal and made by monks.

Marco’s Bacardi Fizz
by Marc Bonneton

50ml Bacardi Superior rum
40ml Cream
15ml Green Chartreuse
15ml Lemon Juice
15ml Lime Juice
15ml Simple Syrup
1 egg white
Top with soda water
Mint sprig for garnish

Dry-shake the egg white in a shaker with no ice, then add all the other ingredients and ice and shake for a long time to emulsify to egg white and the cream. Fine-strain into a tall glass and top with soda water. Garnish with a sprig of mint.

Hat Tip Camper English at Alcademics, who actually was on the ground in Spain watching it all unfold.

A Collins for Tom

I was reminded on Saturday night of the beauty of simple recipes. Talking the guys at Velutto through making a spectacular Tom Collins and seeing it bring a smile to the face of the guy drinking it reminded me once again why I love cocktails enough to spend my spare time writing about them.

They are at their best transformative, little windows into something else and a spark of inspiration. I had taken my friend, also called Tom, to such a window that night.

Sitting through Tom’s window was, amongst other things, an Apple Tom Collins. While I couldn’t put one together for him on the night. I came home inspired to make one. Most of the recipes asked for Applejack, and having none, I went in a different direction.

A Collins for Tom.

45mls Smirnoff Black, 15mls Sour Apple Syrup†, 7.5mls absinthe, 30mls fresh lime juice. Combine in a large glass, stir well. Ice the glass, top with soda and garnish with an apple fan.

†Sour Apple Syrup is made by first making a plain 1:1 sugar syrup and once it has cooled, the addition and steeping of 3 Granny Smith Apples, macerated as finely as you can be bothered. If you add the apple while the syrup is still warm, the fructose will stew and turn to glucose, making your syrup more poached apple than sour apple.

MixMarch #7: The Possum Hunt

I’ve been a massive fan of 42 Below Feijoa for a long time. The wintergreen note is addictive, like licking deep heat and tiger balm off a mattress. It sounds bad at first, but once you’re into it there is no turning back.

Mostly this isn’t a flavour that does well with North Americans, and while if I’m being proper, this is a mixed drink and not a cocktail, and finding an American willing to try and convert people to the gospel, I just had to add it here.

The Possum Hunt.

Double shot of 42 Below Feijoa over lots of rocks.
Top with a mere splash of soda.
Double squeeze of lemon.
Get huntin’.

Thanks to the fine cocktail blog in the empire city for sharing this first. Embury Cocktails.

Johnnie Walker Gold Label Reserve

It seems that the use of single malts in cocktails has finally shaken loose a few of the world’s whisky drinkers and opened them up to a new level of blended whisky, one that offers an extremely smooth finish and an interesting complexity. Coupled with the strength of the Asian whisky market. It’s not hard to see why Johnnie Walker has just bought this new product to the market for Christmas.

The Gold Label Reserve is premium from the start. Well boxed and with a heavy foil closure, it delivers on a great ritual opening the cap for the first time. The shadow moulding of Johnnie walking is raised from a heavy and nicely designed piece of glass and filled with a great color of liquid. One tiny misstep before the whisky hit my lips, one of those annoying anti refilling device thingies but it works well once you give it a shake.

The tasting notes talk of vanilla and honey and they’re there along with the expected Walker smoothness, especially when you take it simply, over ice.

I mentioned a drink before that I think suits the new arrival beautifully, The Stengah. The drink harks back to a time when the British had an Empire, not a soccer marketing franchise stretching around the world. An administrative bureaucracy forced on people’s left many hours free to be filled with tennis, mixed race love affairs and grain spirits from mid afternoon.

The Stengah.

Fill a highball glass with ice, add whisky to taste and fill the glass with soda.

The drink opens up the flavour of the spirit and the length and ice in the drink make it a lovely way to spend an afternoon. I might even try and shake it up into something later today.

Scotch isn’t my beverage of preference, but I really like this. It goes on sale tomorrow, and at $120 it would make a great gift. Diageo owns the brand, so you can probably expect distribution to be reasonably wide.