Wednesday, May 2, 2012

cradle of life

3/4 oz White Rum (Banks 5 Island)
3/4 oz Spiced Rum (Kraken)
1/2 oz Orgeat (BG Reynolds)
1/3 oz Lemon Juice
1/3 oz Orange Juice
1/3 oz Lime Juice
2 dash Angostura Bitters

Shake with ice and strain into a rocks glass containing crushed ice. Garnish with an inverted spent half lime shell filled with a 1/2 oz Green Chartreuse. Ignite the Chartreuse. Half a minute or so later, blow out the flame and mix in the Chartreuse before drinking.

Two Saturdays ago, we were in a bit of a Tiki mood, so I decided to make the Cradle of Life from Food & Wine: Cocktails 2011. The recipe was the creation of Karin Stanley, a bartender at Long Island City's Dutch Kills, for Manhattan's PKNY that was opened by two of her old co-workers. Besides being stunning, the flaming Chartreuse helps to warm and extract aromatic oils from the lime shell.
The Chartreuse and lime oils filled the drink's aroma even after the flame was extinguished and I had dumped in the liqueur. The sip was a pleasing combination of citrus, almond, and spice, and the Chartreuse and funky rum blend wrapped up the swallow. Indeed, the Chartreuse definitely added a bit of pizzazz to the drink as it had in other Tiki libations including the Pago Pago and Bikini Atoll.

2 comments:

Jordan said...

It's a real shame that PKNY has pared back their website so much. You can still find an old version of their site on Archive.org, but it's sad to see such a useful bar website get dropped by the wayside.

frederic said...

The changes in PKNY might have to do with changing owners. At least one of the owners has moved on to his next project, Golden Cadillac) which he is opening with Greg Boehm in Manhattan.

Or maybe it had to do with the Pusser's lawsuit and the site redesign, and they just didn't have the time or money to do another site to the same level of excellence.