bronx river

1 oz Gin (Beefeater Summer)
1/2 oz Sweet Vermouth (Carpano Antica)
Juice of 1 Lemon (1 oz, perhaps 3/4 oz would have been better)
1/2 tsp Sugar (Turbinado)

Stir juice with sugar to dissolve. Add rest of ingredients and ice. Shake and strain into a cocktail glass. I garnished with a lemon twist.

On Wednesday last week, our sample of Beefeater Summer Edition Gin showed up and I wanted to test it out before the Beefeater Summer-sponsored Thursday Drink Night the next evening. I will speak more about the gin itself in the next post, but for recipe inspiration, I went to the gin section in Patrick Duffy's The Official Mixer's Manual and found the Bronx River. The Bronx River stood out as quirky because it was a sweet Martini crossed with a Gin Sour. Since citrus and sweet vermouth have worked in the past such as in the Fig Leaf Cocktail, I was willing to give it a go. Well sharper citrus that is, since orange is smoother of a juice and meshes well in the Bronx and Bronx Golden.
The Bronx River had an intriguing orange color from a combination of the sweet vermouth, turbinado sugar, and lemon juice, and the nose was dominated by the lemon juice and lemon oil. The drink was pleasantly tart when we interpreted the "juice of 1 lemon" as 1 ounce (instead of the 1 1/2 to 2 ounce lemons on the market now) and perhaps even 3/4 oz of juice would have produced a more balanced drink. The Carpano Antica's grape notes appeared first on the palate followed by the lemon juice. Moreover, the swallow was filled with gin and sweet vermouth botanicals, and this herbal complexity coupled with the lighter alcohol content helped to make the Bronx River a nice aperitif.