metexa

1/4 Tequila (3/4 oz Casa Noble Blanco)
1/4 Swedish Punsch (3/4 oz Homemade)
1/2 Lillet (1 1/2 oz Cocchi Americano)

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. I added an orange twist garnish to the recipe.

On Saturday, Andrea, after returning home from a day of work at the Boston Shaker, announced that she had a new purchase. My guesses did not take into consideration that she might have gone next door to Dave's Fresh Pasta where they had just received their shipment from Haus Alpenz of Cocchi Americano! Cocchi Americano is a quinquina (an aromatized wine that contains quinine) and is rather citrus-flavored like Lillet Blanc. With the quinine firmly in place, it is believed to be closer to the original Kina Lillet than the current day, quinine-light Lillet Blanc. To find a drink, I pulled out our copy of the Café Royal Cocktail Book as it has one of the highest number of Lillet recipes in our collection.

The one that caught my eye, the Metexa, contained half Lillet and therefore seemed like it would make a good aperitif as I prepared dinner. The intriguing part was that the Metexa is an aperitif-style cocktail that contains tequila! Moreover, it is rather odd that tequila appears in an British cocktail book from the 1930's; however, I know that the book contains other tequila recipes such as the Mexican Eagle (2 parts tequila, 1 part Jamaican rum, 1 part dry vermouth) which we made for our International Migratory Bird Day party a few years ago.
The Metexa's nose was full of tequila and orange notes. Overall, it was rather smooth especially for a tequila drink. This speaks highly of either the Casa Noble tequila or the craftsmanship of the recipe's design in general. The sip was spicy from the agave spirit in conjunction with the Swedish Punsch's Batavia Arrack and was full of complementary Cocchi Americano notes. The tequila flavors also appeared on the swallow, and as the drink warmed up, the tequila came more forward in the profile. Lastly, the drink contained the essence of citrus (or citrus minus the bite) throughout from the Cocchi Americano and the Swedish Punsch's lemon infusion.