loreto swizzle

4 Coffee Beans
1 oz Cachaça (Cuca Fresca)
1 oz Pisco (Macchu Pisco)
1/2 oz Lime Juice
3/4 oz Pineapple Juice
3/4 oz Simple Syrup

Muddle the coffee beans in a mixing glass and add pisco and cachaça. Meanwhile, add the rest of the ingredients to a tall glass filled with crushed ice. Next, fine-strain the coffee-tinged pisco and cachaça into the tall glass (to remove coffee grounds). Swizzle to mix. Garnish with 3 dash Angostura Bitters and a lime twist, and add a straw.

For Thursday Drink Night two weeks ago on Mixoloseum, the theme was "summertime." I decided upon the Swizzle as my summery drink format and in scanning the shelves, my eyes set upon pisco and cachaça. Since Peru and Brazil share a border, perhaps mixing the two spirits would work especially since one has a funky grape and the other a funky grass aroma and flavor. To add some extra pizzazz to the Swizzle, the coffee-infused pisco part of the Zambito came to mind and I figured that a quick muddling would add just enough coffee notes to the drink as muddling caraway seeds did in Corey Bunnewith's Balao Swizzle. For a name, I dubbed the drink after a part of Peru that is on the border with Brazil.

The Loreto Swizzle greeted the nose with lime oil, allspice, and clove aromas. The lime juice seemed to dominate the sip, and the swallow began with the grassy and funky spirits followed by the pineapple and coffee flavors. Towards the end of the drink, the Angostura Bitters garnish began to enter the drink, and thus, things became a bit more spiced and dry at the end.