In my quest for more Kummel drinks I came across this one. I picked it out because the recipe looked interesting and unpredictable. What was a caraway, vermouth, whiskey and bitters flavored sour going to taste like?

 

1 oz Italian vermouth (Martini)

½ – ¾ oz Irish whiskey (Jamesons)

½ oz lemon juice

¼ oz Kummel (Wolfschmit)

1 dash Angostura bitters

 

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

 

Regarding the quantity of whiskey, the Savoy suggests ½ oz while Ted Haigh’s CocktailDB suggests ¾ oz. I went with the latter suggestion. You can never have too much whiskey.

 

This is a very odd drink. It smells mostly of vermouth. The taste is an interesting mix of caraway and vermouth. There is something worthwhile happening in that combination. The whiskey is a little lost but I guess it helps give the drink backbone. The lemon juice is the part that doesn’t quite work for me. Maybe this drink would be better if it wasn’t a sour? Personally I find the sour aftertaste too much of a contrast to the herbal-caraway flavor. It’s an interesting drink and might work for a few people. I am not one of them though, despite usually enjoying herbal tastes.

If you want a caraway and herb flavored sour this is just the thing.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 1:11 am and is filed under aromatic bitters, cocktail bitters, Irish, kummel, lemon, Recipes, sweet (Italian), vermouth, whiskey/whisky. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.