biter cocktail

1 1/2 oz Hendrick's Gin
3/4 oz Lemon Juice
1/4 oz Yellow Chartreuse
1/4 oz Ricard Pastis

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Two Sundays ago, we stopped into Green Street where bartender Derric Crothers was presiding. For a first drink, I decided to revisit the Biter Cocktail which I had tried there before I started writing for this blog. The Biter Cocktail does appear in the Savoy Cocktail Book; however, there it is a Green Chartreuse instead of the Yellow one served at the bar. CocktailDB does support the proportions of the Green Street recipe as well as the presence of this sweeter and less intense sister liqueur. Strangely, the database has the Green Chartreuse version listed as the "Bitter Cocktail."
The Biter Cocktail possessed a lemon aroma over faint anise and herbal notes. The sip was tart with lemon juice's crispness, and the swallow presented the Yellow Chartreuse first followed by the Ricard and gin flavors at the end. Overall, the lemon was rather dominant here and the rest of the flavors were more accents to the citrus. With the pastis and the tartness, the Biter would probably make a rather good pre-prandial cocktail.