Sunday, January 25, 2026

2019

3/4 oz El Dorado 12 Year Rum (Raising Glasses Moongazer 9 Year Guyana)
3/4 oz Santa Teresa Rum (Zaya)
3/4 oz Punt e Mes
1/2 oz Averna
1/8 oz Crème de Cacao (Bols)
1 dash Chili Tincture (my Hellfire Bitters)

Stir with ice, strain into an old fashioned glass with a large ice cube, and garnish with a lemon twist.
Two Sundays ago, I returned to the online recipe flashcard set for the Blossom Bar in Brookline, Massachusetts, and I spotted the 2019 that reminded me of their Palm Viper that I had there in 2018 with its two rums, vermouth, amaro, and bitters combination. For a time frame, I found a Yelp drink photo from February 2020, and the name reminded me of John Mayer's 2011 at Loyal 149 that he served me in 2013 (although he first called this the Acquired Taste before changing the name in 2012). Once prepared, the 2019 gave forth a lemon and caramel bouquet to the nose. Next, caramel and grape notes on the sip switched into dark rum, herbal, and chocolate flavors on the swallow with a pepper spice and grape finish. Overall, Cynar's funkiness in the Palm Viper added more to the mix than Averna with crème de cacao did here (despite the Punt e Mes donating some depth over regular sweet vermouth in the Palm Viper).
posted by frederic at 8:00 AM
ingredients: , , ,

3 comments:

MT said...

To your comment about the Averna being underwhelming, I have spent some time amping up Averna over the last while and now batch prep 50% Averna 25% Cioccolate Amaro (Truro Vineyards) 25% Cerasum (Don Ciccio & Figli) to add more chocolate and cherry notes and a slight increase in bitterness. Works really well here and I can omit the creme de cacao.

March 28, 2026 at 4:00 PM
frederic said...

I've been curious about the Truro amari. I wrote an article last year for Edible Boston about local amaro producers and visited 3 and bought their products. I reached out to Truro, got a brief email back, but my mention that they exist got cut out of the article. My guess is that they were out of the scope of Edible Boston/Edible Worcester (same editor) and fell in under Edible Cape Cod besides being a long round trip for me.

March 29, 2026 at 10:51 AM
MT said...

They sell online although I forget what originally got them on my radar. Only have the cioccolate. The sea kelp bitterness is unique and can get to be too dominating beyond 1/2 oz or so but otherwise it's a wonderful way to add bitter chocolate notes in many drinks, particularly with bourbon and rye.

March 30, 2026 at 9:44 AM

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