suze bramble

3/4 oz Suze Gentiane Liqueur (Salers)
3/4 oz Blanco Tequila (Piedra Azul)
1/2 oz Simple Syrup
1/2 oz Grapefruit Juice
1/4 oz Lemon Juice
1 Blackberry

Shake with ice (I muddled the blackberry first) and double strain into a Highball glass filled with ice. Garnish with a fresh blackberry.

Two Tuesdays ago, we began the cocktail hour with a drink I spotted in the aperitif section of Food & Wine: Cocktails 2013 called the Suze Bramble. The drink was created by Ira Koplowitz and Nicholas Kosevich of Eat Street Social in Minneapolis, and I was drawn to the recipe for I recall how well gentian liqueurs work with blackberries such as in Tyler Wang's L'Année du Mexique. In this Bramble, the fruit element was muddled or shaken into the drink instead of being drizzled over the top in the way Dick Bradsell created the original Bramble in 1984.
The Suze Bramble shared a tequila aroma with herbal notes from the Salers. Next, a grapefruit and blackberry sip was followed by the tequila and a bitter complexity from the gentian liqueur.