Monday, May 20, 2019

the cameo

3/4 oz Plantation Original Dark Rum
3/4 oz St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram
3/4 oz Giffard Orgeat
3/4 oz Lime Juice

Shake with ice, strain into a rocks glass, fill with ice, and garnish with a cherry-orange slice flag.
Around three weeks ago, bartender Jordan Runion messaged me that he had returned to Green Street in Cambridge to take over the cocktail program. After figuring out his schedule, I decided to visit him two Mondays ago. From the revamped small cocktail list, I selected the Cameo that Jordan attributed to his coworker Ann. Jordan's thought was that Green Street used to have a Caribbean food menu when Dylan Black took over the establishment, and Jordan wanted a Caribbean-themed Last Word-like drink on the list to represent that. The end result was the Cameo which reminded me of a less spirit-forward A Tale of Two Kitties; once prepared, it greeted the nose with a nutty almost marzipan aroma. Next, lime countered by the orgeat and allspice dram's richness on the sip led into rum, nutty, and allspice flavors on the swallow.

2 comments:

Tom said...

Thanks for sharing - this is one of my Green Street go-to drinks.

Have you tried Liber & Co orgeat, and if so, how does it compare with Giffard? Haven't tried it myself, but Giffard is hard to come by, and Star Market stocks Liber.

CocktailVirgin said...

Liber & Co. is one of the top craft orgeats out there. Giffard is a shelf stable load of almond extracts, other flavorings, sugar, thickener, and artificial color that happens to taste decent. From a quick web search, Liber's ingredients are "finely-ground roasted almonds, cane sugar, and orange flower water" whereas Giffard's are "sugar beet, flavoured with almond extracts (prunus amygdalus varietal) and thickened with gum arabic (E414)". I can tell you which I'd prefer to put into my drink if price and availability were no considerations.