1 oz Yellow Chartreuse
1/2 oz Martini & Rossi Dry Vermouth
Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.
quality versus quantity does not have to be a winner-take-all proposition.
Atlantico Platino - aromas of coconut and melon; flavors of vanilla with a sharper clove-like note at the end.Of the three, Andrea picked the Platino as her favorite and I leaned towards the Reserva as mine. While the Private Cask has some elegant wood notes, the 15+ years in wood has diminished some of the more intriguing fruit elements seen in the other two expressions. As for price, the Private Cask sells for around $35 a bottle, and I believe that the Reserve and Platino will be $25 and 20, respectively.
Atlantico Reserva - aromas of pineapple, caramel, slight fusel oil note, and vanilla; flavors of vanilla, tropical fruits, and coconut.
Atlantico Private Cask - aromas of coconut and lime; thinner on the sip than the Reserva with a lot of barrel-aged notes on the swallow.
The Morning DelightFirst off, I have to admit that I made a pair of these at night and did not try to evaluate them as a morning drink proper. It seems slightly disingenuous, but it fit into my schedule better. The Fizz started out with an anise aroma from the absinthe. The sip was rather gentle and contained sherry and lime flavors with a hint of the absinthe, and the swallow showcased the absinthe a little better along with the whiskey flavors. Originally, I was afraid that the absinthe was going to dominate the drink in an unpleasant way; however, it was not overpowering. Indeed, the drink was light and smooth from the soda water, egg white, and orange juice, and I could definitely see drinking this in the morning as we have done with Ramos Gin Fizzes.
• 1 Egg White
• Juice of 1 Lime (3/4 oz)
• Juice of 1/2 Orange (3/4 oz)
• 1 spoon Sugar (1/4 oz Florida Crystals)
• 1/2 pony Absinthe (1/2 oz Kübler)
• 1 pony Whiskey (1 oz Bulleit Bourbon)
• 1/2 pony Sherry (1/2 oz Lustau East India Solera)
• 2 dash Calisaya (1/4 oz Amer Picon)
Stir citrus with sugar until sugar is dissolved. Add rest of ingredients and dry shake. Add ice and shake again. Strain into a Fizz glass, top with soda water (2-3 oz), stir, and add a straw.
If the bitterness makes you wince, there is a surprising way to reduce its impact. The mistake most people make when they're being tentative about Campari is to overdilute it, thinking that this will give it a gentler taste. It doesn't. Our perception of bitterness is very acute and is barely affected by increasing the dilution. What does change, though, is our perception of the sugar concentration, which you will notice decreasing with more dilution; and without the sugar to balance the bitterness, it will make you flinch even more.Not that the bitterness bothered me, but it was definitely noticeable how the drink shifted over time. Andrea was not bothered by the Campari either, but she felt that the Smith & Cross gave the drink a bit of a rocket fuel note (an aspect that does dilute well with ice melt).
Pumpkin SyrupFor Thursday Drink Night on the Mixoloseum, the theme was Fall and I decided to prep for the event by making a pumpkin syrup. After trying a few different methods to make it, I found that the sugar extraction aided by heat did a good job of pulling out the pumpkin's juice. When I tasted the syrup, it had a funky, earthy, and herbal quality to it that I felt perfectly matched one of our piscos. French vermouth functioned well to dry out the balance a bit and a rinse of Becherovka added some extra fall spice.
• 1/2 pound Sugar Pumpkin (1 cup grated)
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 1/4 cup Water (optional, see below)
Grate a 1/2 pound of sugar pumpkin to produce 1 cup of shredded material. Add pumpkin and 1/2 cup of sugar to a pot. Heat on a medium flame for 5 minutes while stirring. Add 1/4 cup (2 oz) water and simmer for 5 more minutes. Let cool and strain. Produces a syrup that is under 1:1 in sweetness. Skipping the water addition will produce a syrup closer to 1:1 which will work well in Sours and other drinks (or to make the Headless Horseman in a sweeter fashion). Aproximate preparation time is under 15 minutes.