New Cocktails: Jamaica Farewell, Counterfeit Collins, Ferdinand's Flowers

NEW COCKTAILS 5/16/2017

86: Angel 75, Negroni Sbagliato; both can still be made!

Jamaica Farewell $12

2 oz Amaro di Angostura

.5 oz Orgeat

.75 oz lime

.25 oz Averna

Shake.  Dbl strain over ice to rox glass.  Cocktail parasol

This cocktail is a play on the Trinidad Sour, invented by Giuseppe Gonzalez in New York.  The Trinidad Sour is an odd duck as it’s primary spirit base is actually Angostura Bitters (yes, those puppies are alcoholic, clocking in at 100 proof).  From there, the classic citrus and sweet combination of a sour holds, with the use of orgeat to create the creamy, soft texture associated with the egg whites in traditional sours.  Orgeat itself is an almond and orange blossom syrup found in a variety of classic tiki drinks.  We make ours here in house from real almond milk.  Please be aware of that allergen existing on our back bar!  Angostura recently released an amaro to the market, which we are using instead of the bitters because it captures the same flavors of the bitters with some darker, richer tones.  The final cocktail is dry, richly textured, with a hint of limes and cherries for an awesome patio cocktail.  The name is the title of a song by Harry Belafonte, dubbed the “King of Calypso.”  He was instrumental in popularizing Calypso and Caribbean music in the US in the 1950’s.

Counterfeit Collins $10

2 oz White Vermouth (8 oz)

1 oz Benedictine  (4 oz )

.5 oz lemon (2 oz)

3 dash Orange Bitters (10 dash)

1 dash Hopped Grapefruit Bitters (3 dash)

Soda.

This little gem originated as a Chrysanthemum: a classic cocktail made with white vermouth and Benedictine, martini style.  I thought it sounded delicious, tried it with our white vermouth, and it just didn’t work texturally.  So I added a little citrus to brighten it up, some bitters for a bit of depth, And a splash of soda.  And realized I made a collins-style cocktail that isn’t a collins.  It’s a counterfeit.  Note that in the large format, the amount of bitters added to a pitcher is not proportional to the scaling up of the rest of the ingredients.  This is because bitters tend to intensify as you add them.  If you put the full amount in a large format, they’ll take over and smother the rest of your flavors.

Ferdinand’s Flowers $12

2 oz Pisco

1 oz Fino Sherry

.5 oz Green Tea Oleo Saccharum

.5 oz Lemon juice

Shake.  Double strain, coupe.  No garnish.

We brought PIsco onto the back bar due to popular request amongst our bartenders.  Pisco, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is a grape brandy native to Peru.  It has some briny, funky aromatics, and a fruity yet dry core.  The rest of the cocktail was inspired by capturing the bright, leafy quality of spring.  Fino sherry adds great depth to cocktails.  Oleo saccharum is a traditional base for punches; some experts argue that without oleo, whatever large thing you’re making is not a punch.  It means “oiled sugar,” and you make it by extracting all of the citrus essence from the peels of citrus fruit (orange and lemon, in our case) into sugar.  We then take that intensely aromatized sugar and turn it into syrup by adding a double-strength green tea. Our powers combine, and you have a lovely, floral, leafy, spring concoction.  We have ingredients from Spain, Peru, and Japan, so the name is a nod to Ferdinand Magellan.  It’s also a nod to Ferdinand the Bull, because all I want to do is just sit and smell this cocktail, much like he wanted to sit and sniff the flowers in the bullfighting ring.