So cute, but she can’t sing! So plain, but what a voice!  The unfortunate Lin Miaoke and Yang Peiyi.

There may be people out there who got all excited about the Beijing Olympics, purchased an extra big television, invited both of their friends over, then suddenly realized they had no idea what to mix up as their Chinese-themed Olympic cocktail.  Since this blog has featured a few Chinese-themed drinks, I thought I would dust them off and line them up for the world to appreciate.

This is just a simple little listing.  Links to all vaguely Chinese drinks I have blogged about are listed below.  I have not worried about whether they were Yang Peilis or Lin Miaokes.  Perfect or imperfect, every cocktail made the cut.  While tough, I have tried to avoid getting too excited.  I resisted the temptation to imitate the opening ceremony choreographers and list an auspicious 2008 drinks.  I knew that if I started down that route I would only end up going still further and shooting for 5,000 cocktails, one for each year of China’s long and glorious history.  No, this is just a simple little list, warts, crooked teeth, and all.  Consider it an Uncle Zhang in his underpants kind of list.

China Blue: An authentic Chinese themed cocktail from Asia. This drink may have really been invented in Japan, but it is a staple drink in Japanese bars in China and Taiwan.
http://bunnyhugs.org/2008/04/14/china-blue/

Fort Zeelandia Cocktail: My own invention, more Taiwanese than Chinese themed, and a bit of a pain to make since it involves infusing Genever with Oolong tea.  Worth the trouble though.
http://bunnyhugs.org/2008/02/29/oolong-tea-infused-gin/

Shanghai Cocktail:  A retro offering that seems to date from the early 20th Century.  Surprisingly you can still order this at a few bars in Shanghai.  Though I like to say ‘still’, it could just as easily have arrived in Shangai during the last couple of decades when some local barman flicked through a cocktail manual and found it.  However, judging by the grubby state of some of the menus that list the drink I would say it has been served in Shanghai for at least a decade or two.  They tend to make it with Pernod instead of anisette though.  A sort of slightly sweet, anise spiked rum punch.  Not bad if you have the anisette handy.

http://bunnyhugs.org/2007/03/11/shanghai/

The Flying Tiger: A drink that celebrates Sino-U.S. friendship.  This one is named after the US volunteer aviation unit based in South-West China during the Sino-Japanese war.  This is another of those drinks that mix rum and gin, with interesting results.

http://bunnyhugs.org/2008/03/19/the-flying-tiger/

Chysanthenum and Puer Tea Infused Pisco Sour: An invention of mine.  The fact that I only made it once or twice may indicate it needs a little refinement.

http://bunnyhugs.org/2008/03/27/chrysanthe…-infused-pisco/

Five drinks to choose from there.  Not too bad.

There is surely no other writer with the same number of drinks associated with them. From absinthe to vodka, if it contained alcohol Hemingway drank it, and chances were he wrote about it too. Of all the drinks Hemingway enjoyed, the Daiquiri is probably the one in which his spirit endures most strongly. I wrote a post on the Daiquiri and Hemingway here. The post includes some cool photos so check it out if you haven’t already. Of course there were many cocktails Hemingway enjoyed besides the Daiquiri. Martinis featured prominently. He was also partial to absinthe topped with champagne, a mixture he dubbed Death in the Afternoon.

Recently I obtained a copy of Charles H. Baker’s “Jigger, Beaker and Glass: Drinking around the World”. Flipping the pages I was surprised to find a drink called Ernest Hemingway’s Reviver, or Death in the Gulf Stream. Interestingly, Baker and Hemingway appear to have been friends. Baker introduces the recipe as follows:

“One January 2 years back we took MARMION in a howling no’theaster along with the, then, 4 year bride, a companion, and an insane steward, and pointed her down to Key West to get some receipts from Hemingway for the cookery book. We fished the Gulf Stream by day, and ate and drank and talked half the night. Even by the second day we were withering slightly on vine, and along with raw conch salad, or “souse,” listed in Volume I, we got Hemingway’s other picker-upper, and liked it.”

Both men spent time living in Florida so I guess it makes sense that they should have known one another. No doubt their mutual interest in drinking helped.

Baker mentions that before trying this drink he had an aversion to Genever, which he considered to taste like “fermented radishes mixed with spirits of turpentine”. As someone who traveled the world to gather cocktail recipes, Baker was obviously no slouch when it came to drinking. His feeling the worse for wear and needing a “picker-upper” after an evening with Hemingway therefore speaks volumes. Meanwhile, the fact that Hemingway’s “picker-upper” converted Baker on the matter of Genever confirms that Hemingway was more than your average boozer. Papa’s drinks were generally pretty damn good.

Death in the Gulf Stream

Recipe follows:

“Take a tall thin water tumbler and fill it with finely cracked ice. Lace this broken debris with 4 good purple dashes of Angostura, add the juice and crushed peel of 1 green lime, and fill glass almost full with Holland gin. . . . No sugar, no fancying. It’s strong, it’s bitter – but so is English ale strong and bitter, in many cases. We don’t add sugar to ale, and we don’t need sugar in a Death in the Gulf Stream – or at least not more than 1 tsp. It’s tartness and its bitterness are its chief charm. It is reviving and refreshing; cools the blood and inspires renewed interest in food, companions and life.“

Given my recent experiments with Genever I was pleased to come across this recipe. I made the drink up and found it to resemble a citrusy and summery pink gin. The drink is refreshing, aromatic, and a little bitter, with the Genever providing malty body and a slight funk. This is a good drink for appreciating the character of Genever. London Dry will make an serviceable drink, but will lack the essence of the original. Use an Oude Style Genever if at all possible.

To build the drink to best effect I suggest proceeding as follows: fill the glass nearly full of crushed ice; add two or three dashes of Angostura; quarter the lime, squeeze the juice from the wedges directly into the glass and drop each spent wedge into the glass; add a dash of simple syrup (if desired); top off with Genever and stir everything up; finish with a little more ice and a final dash or two of Angostura. Made this way the final addition of bitters will create a lacework effect in the ice on the top of the finished drink. To me this seems a nice touch.

Mixology Monday (hosted at Scofflaw’s Den) has suddenly sprung on me, bringing the theme of bourbon. I feel a bit inadequate about my effort this time round. Recently I have hardly been drinking bourbon. Mostly it has all been gin, with occasional detours to explore French aperitifs. This state of affairs is a bit odd now I come to think about it. When I first got into cocktails I drank plenty of bourbon drinks (mostly Manhattans and Old Fashioneds), with rum thrown in for variety. Things seem to have changed, and consequently I am low on creative ideas for bourbon. Mind you, when it comes to bourbon I sometimes wonder how creative you need to be. Isn’t an Old Fashioned about as good as it gets? Posting about the Old Fashioned seems redundant though, so I am going to throw together a new (to me) bourbon cocktail from Ted Haigh’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails.

My original plan had been to do something out of Charles H. Baker’s “Jigger, Beaker and Glass: Drinking Around the World”. Amazon delivered a copy a couple of days ago and I had thought I would take a leisurely flick through and select whatever unusual and tasty bourbon concoction happened to catch my eye. Alas my plan was torpedoed by the near absence of bourbon drinks from Baker’s wonderful book. Why couldn’t the theme this month have been rum or gin? Or maybe even kummel? Baker seems to be heavily in to that sort of thing. Oh well, never mind.

So off to pick up Ted Haigh’s book it is. I have had this book for about a year but for some reason I have never got around to making the Derby. On paper it looks a perfectly fine drink. Somehow though it has never excited me enough to get shaking. I blame the absence of exotic ingredients.

The Derby

1 oz bourbon (Bulleit)

1/2 oz sweet vermouth (Martini & Rossi)

1/2 oz orange curacao (Marie Brizard)

3/4 oz lime juice

Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a mint leaf.

A tasty concoction, even if it does not quite blow me away. Being a cross between a Manhattan and a whiskey sour, the vermouth provides the interest. I think I remember complaining that vermouth does not always mix well with sour things. It works fine here.

Using a more robust or higher proof bourbon might help the bourbon assert itself a little more. The other solution could be to increase the quantity a notch. That said, it is pretty tasty as is.

I won’t be rushing to make this one again. But if anyone was offering I wouldn’t say no.

Cynar has has one of the coolest label designs out there

La Cosa Nostra

2 oz Cynar

1 oz Kola Tonic* (Roses)

½ oz grappa (Carpene Malvolti)

¼ oz lemon juice

¼ oz coffee liqueur (Tia Maria)

A dash of Angostura Bitters (optional)

Build in an old fashioned glass over a couple of large ice cubes.

There are rich aromas from the grappa, an interesting interplay between the grappa and coffee (these two are always a nice match), and of course the mysterious bitterness of the Cynar. The Kola Tonic works as a pleasant sort of glue, taking the edges of the various elements and holding them all together.

The name is a bit weak. But hey, what’s in a name? I’d drink this again. It is an interesting sweetish aperitif that makes a change from the regular stuff.

Robert Simpson at Off the Presses just posted another Cynar drink. My post had been sitting around waiting to go up on the site for a few weeks, so I figured I would throw it up and declare today International Cynar Day. It may be a few years before this one becomes a statutory holiday, but get the ball rolling now by checking Robert’s drink out. It looks pretty cool. I am just going have to salivate since we don’t have Carpano Antica here in New Zealand.

UPDATE:  Sloshed just contributed this Cynar based Negroni variation.  Cynar seems to suddenly be flavor of the month.

* Kola tonic is basically cola syrup. Besides Roses (popular in South Africa), you might also find Claytons (popular in Barbados). I can’t comment on Claytons, but Roses seems a little more bitter than regular coke, and the syrup is not that concentrated (i.e. it does not require too much dilution, and pours and mixes very easily). You could probably try reducing regular Coke in a saucepan to get an approximation of kola tonic. I never tried this myself, so don’t blame me if you end up with a gruesome and unappetizing mess.

The Rough Riders take a break on top of San Juan Hill

Mixology Monday has rolled around and get and brought with it the theme of rum. The host of Mixology Monday XXVII is Trader Tiki. To be honest, this was never intended to be a Mixology Monday post. However, since the drink includes rum I guess I get a handy Mixology Monday entry for minimal effort.

I was rearranging my booze cupboard when I remembered I had a bottle of Kola Tonic that had never been used other than to make the Filmograph – from Ted Haigh’s Vintage Cocktails and Forgotten Spirits.

A few posts ago, while talking about the Early Fogcutter, I mentioned how small quantities of gin can do great things to rum cocktails. I mentioned the splash of gin found in early versions of the Cuba Libre. I repeated the story of how Teddy Roseveldt’s Rough Riders supposedly invented the Cuba Libre, noting that they could not have done so since Coca Cola was not sold in Cuba until some years after their departure. My eye fell upon the bottle of Kola Tonic and I wondered whether the Rough Riders might not have taken some type of Cola concentrate to Cuba with them.

This novel hypothesis offers a neat solution to the debate about the Rough Riders and the invention of the Cuba Libre. If they mixed the drink using a concentrate bought from the U.S. there would have been no need for coke to be available in Cuba at the time – simply mix the concentrate with soda water and voila! The locals were probably so impressed they decided to import Coca Cola themselves. Naturally, being Caribbean types who lacked the drive provided by a sense of Manifest Destiny, the Cubans let several years elapse before placing their order with the Coca Cola Corporation.

It makes perfect sense for the Rough Riders to have carried cola as a concentrate. They were on a military campaign, not a Caribbean holiday. Naturally they had to pack lightly – rifles, ammunition, rum, gin, bitters, Kola Tonic, silver cobbler shaker (no Boston shakers since glass was fragile and could become a hazard in the field). They would probably have been trained to live off the land for their lime supply.

So here is the concentrated version of the Cuba Libre, suitable for military campaigns, camping trips, and other occasions where circumstances demand you pack light. Note that this is indisputably the original version of the drink, as enjoyed by the Rough Riders themselves. You could equally well build this on ice and top with soda, but I think I like it served up. You can’t be fussing around with soda siphons as you prepare to assault San Juan Hill.

Rough Rider

1 ½ oz Cuban rum (Havana Club Blanco)

½ oz gin (Tanqueray)

½ oz lime juice

1 oz Kola Tonic (Roses)

1 dash Angostura Bitters

Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Charge up nearest hill.

Kola Tonic is more or less a concentrated Coca Cola taste, but seems less sweet and more bitter. This product was once widespread, but today only remains a staple in South Africa. Fortunately Auckland has a large South African community so it is easy to find here.

In some ways this would be good drink for introducing people to Campari. OK, the dose of Campari is kind of heavy for that purpose. Still, the classic Campari drinks (i.e. the Negroni and the Americano) are complicated by the inclusion of vermouth – another problem ingredient for many people. This drink is free of vermouth, Grand Marnier increases the sweetness, and fruit juice lightens things a little. In fact the drink is purely about rich and bitter sweet citrus. The taste is intense but free of surprises. While quite bitter, this drink reflects the current fashion for drinks that are light on spirits and heavy on juices and liqueurs.

Romanza

1 3/4 oz Campari

1 1/4 oz Grand Marnier

1 oz grapefruit juice

Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with an orange twist.

Anyway it is very pleasant – rich sweet orange with an intense bitterness that keeps things interesting. Also, unlike a lot of what I have been posting recently, this recipe requires no hard to find ingredients. Yes, my friends in Shanghai will not need to cry upon reading this. Instead they can march to the booze cabinet and throw one together.

Consider this cocktail a goodwill gesture in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics. Besides tasting good, it proves this blog is not part of a decedent western plot to contain China’s peaceful rise through a series of alluring but impossible to replicate cocktail recipes, each one scoring a deep gash in the morale of the Chinese people. Nope, no such nefarious scheme is being attempted. I guess that is just as well too, since such a scheme would certainly be doomed to ignominious failure, with its perpetrators being ground to a kind of messy paste and smeared across the less interesting pages of history.

Pineau Experiment No. 6 was perhaps the best of the bunch. . .

The next step was to try mixing some drinks of my own using Pineau des Charentes.

Pineau turned out to slightly awkward stuff to mix with, probably on account of it having such a mild taste. My natural inclination was try substituting pineau in recipes that traditionally call for other aperitif wines (i.e. following well worn patterns like Manhattans and Martinis). This approach did not work well.

While I did not come up with anything truly exceptional, several experiments yielded one or two promising results.

Not following any particular plan, I tried the following.

Experiment #1

2 oz bourbon (Bulleit)

1 oz pineau

½ oz suze

1 tsp lemon added afterwards.

This was not a success. First, there was way too much bourbon. Second, I do not think bourbon and pineau are a good match. A spicier bourbon might be an improvement, but rye would be better still, and definitely in a smaller quantity. Calvados might also be interesting. Again a teaspoon of lemon juice proved an easy way of brightening it up a little. The Suze added a little interest but also did not really fit.

Experiment #2

1 ½ oz pineau

1 ½ oz pisco

½ oz lemon juice

¼ oz Cynar

I figured I would try something using pisco, loosely based on the rhum agricole Pompadour, with the addition of ¼ oz of Cynar to give a bitter and complex finish. While I enjoyed this it did not compare with the Pompadour. The Cynar could be toned down and still do its thing. A teaspoon may be adequate.

Experiment #3

2 oz Pineau des Charentes

1 oz pisco (or calvados)

1 oz fresh pineapple juice

2 dashes peach bitters

Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

On first taste this seemed almost too smooth and refreshing – like one of those vodka cocktails. I was not sure it worked. Despite an interesting list of ingredients it tasted boring. I made it again using Calvados instead of pisco, hoping for a better result. The Calvados version did not really work either.

Experiment #4

1 oz pineau

1 oz Cruzan Estate Light Rum

1 drop (not dash) Angostura

½ tsp Kummel

This was good, making a very smooth rum drink that reminded me a little of the El Presidente on account of its soft profile fringed with herbal flavors. It needs to be reworked, but is a decent start. This one deserves repeating.

Experiment #5

1 oz pineau

1 oz rye (Pikesville)

1 drop angostura

2 drops peychauds

This drink pretty much built on my experiences from Experiment #1. It is tasty enough but perhaps a bit mild and uninteresting. A bigger, spicier rye might have helped it.

Experiment #6

2 oz pineau

1 oz dry apricot brandy (i.e. a eau de vie, not a liqueur)

½ oz lemon juice

1 tsp crème de framboise

Tasty. . . The honey taste in the pineau plays nicely with the apricots. The lemon juice and eau de vie keep things dry. The crème de framboise adds some sugar to round things out, plus an extra layer of fruit flavor that contributes to an overall impression of fruity complexity.

Experiment #7

2 oz pisco

1 oz Pineau des Charentes

Dash of Orange Bitters

This was pleasant but unexciting.

I was probably expecting better results from messing around with Pineau. The first drink I tried with the stuff, the Pompadour, set the bar quite high. None of my own efforts came close.

Still, I think experiments 4 and 6 have potential. Experiment #6 was quite good, and Experiment #4 hints at a whole world of possibilities using pineau with rum and small doses of liqueurs or bitters. In general, Pineau seems to work well in drinks that are light on the spirits. Small touches of liqueurs also work nicely.

I would like to do more experimenting using Pineau and rums. There seems to be lots of potential there. It might also be interesting to mix Pineau with aromatized aperitif wines, something I did not try.

So that is it. While my experiments were not completely successful I think I showed there are promising possibilities for using Pineau in cocktails. Pineau des Charentes might not be as versatile as vermouth but it is still underrated as a cocktail ingredient. Used in the right way Pineau can make good drinks.

It looked better full. . .

Pineau des Charentes is an interesting aperitif from France that I have only recently tried. It seems to be relatively unknown outside of France. Pineau des Charentes is generally drunk straight rather than being used used in cocktails. However, since I am interested in aperitif wines as cocktail ingredients I picked a bottle up to try it out.

Pineau des Charentes (also known simply as pineau) is said to have originated in the 16^th Century when wine must (i.e. unfermented grape juice) was accidentally poured into a cask containing cognac eau de vie. The cognac prevented the must from fermenting and the barrel was set aside as an unfortunate mistake. However, it was found that extended maturation saw the flavors of the wine must and cognac blend to produce a fine drink. Pineau has been a specialty of the Charentes region ever since. The Charentes region seems to be sub-region within Cognac by the way.

The regulations governing production of Pineau des Charentes are quite strict. For a start the product must come from the Charentes region. The grapes used for the must should be Ugni Blanc, Folle Blanche, Colombard, Sémillon, Sauvignon or Montils. Pressing must be light to ensure the pressed juice is of high quality. The cognac used for blending must be a minimum of one year old, 60% or higher alcohol by volume, and from the same vineyard as the must. According to the Comité National du Pineau des Charentes the finished product must be matured in oak barrels for a minimum of 18 months. Other sources mention minimum maturation of 8 months for red pineau and 12 months for white, so there seems to be some ambiguity on this point. Old pineau can be aged for 10 years or longer. The alcoholic strength by volume must be in the range 16-22%. Most pineau is a blend of roughly one quarter cognac to three quarters wine must, with an alcoholic strength of around 17%.

The vast majority of pineau is either consumed within France or exported to Francophone markets. Less than 25% of pineau production is exported, and over 90% of exports go to Belgium and Canada. In practice France and Belgium together consume almost all pineau production. Canada follows a very distant third, but still consumes several times more than the next largest pineau drinking nation. I am guessing Quebec is the center of Canadian pineau consumption. The French are keeping this one very much to themselves. So enough of facts and figures! It is time to open that bottle and see what the French are hiding. . .

The taste is mild but interesting, and unusual compared to other aperitif wines. No herbal flavors, bitterness or spice leap out at you. There is also little of the matured complexity of aperitif wines like port or sherry. This stuff is simply sweet, full bodied, and extremely ‘fresh’. It tastes like a very fruity wine, but also reminds me strongly of mead (honey wine). It is hard to believe it contains no honey since the honey taste is so strong. There is also some apple aroma, though again no apples were harmed in its manufacture. It has an unusual ‘primeval’ character, reminding me of the opening titles in Werner Herzog’s ‘Fitzcarraldo’, which describe the Amazon is described as a place where God never finished his creation. Yep, it tastes ‘unfinished’, in a good way. Pineau seems slightly rough-and-ready, with a plethora of interesting aromas that threaten to erupt all over the place and are disinclined to sit still. This stuff should have potential as a cocktail ingredient. I wonder why it isn’t used more?

In terms of mixing I would tend to think (roughly in order of potential) along the lines of cognac (the obvious choice), calvados, rhum agricole, pisco, Cuban rum, and whiskey. Pineapple juice also springs to mind, and perhaps Cynar could be another idea. This is not experience talking. I am just making some guesses as to what might work. I should also note that I did not dream up the rhum agricole angle. I bought a bottle of pineau partly so I could make a rhum agricole drink, the Pompadour, from the Esquire Drinks Database. Lets start with the Pompadour then. . .

The Pompadour
1 ½ oz rhum agricole vieux (I used St. James Ambre)

1 ½ oz pineau

½ oz lemon juice

This shows off the characteristics of both the rhum and the pineau. It is weird and unlike anything you are likely to have drunk. It is also fantastic. There is a full on aroma symphony, with the fresh and aromatic characters of both ingredients getting a chance to shine. You should seek out Pineau des Charentes for this drink alone.

Next up are a couple more pineau cocktail recipes I found online. I will include some experimental recipes of my own in a subsequent post. This next recipe is from the website site of a producer of Pineau des Charentes.

Charentais

2 1/2 oz pineau

½ oz cognac

¼ oz crème de framboise

1 tsp lemon juice

This smooth and tasty refresher is just lightly spiked pineau. The source of this recipe was unclear on whether a liqueur or eau de vie framboise was called for (mentioning both in different places). I did not have an appropriate eau de vie so I went for a liqueur. The lemon juice was added by me as an afterthought to give it some zing since it tasted a bit flat.

The next was something not unlike the above, but with the addition of a dash of pineapple juice and the whole then being brought to life with champagne. Again the recipe was from the website of a pineau producer.

Reaulais

2 oz pineau

½ oz cognac

½ oz pineapple juice

1 dash grenadine

2 oz champagne or sparkling wine

Shake everything except the champagne over ice. Strain into a glass and top with champagne.

A very rich yet slightly lively drink. There are no real surprises but it is most pleasant.

The next recipe was from a French language website – hence a little ambiguity over what liqueur is meant.

Ambassade

1 ½ oz pineau

½ oz gin

½ oz ‘orange liqueur’ (I used Grand Marnier)

Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Another “take Pineau des Charentes and spike it with a little hooch” type of drink. It tastes good though. French style cocktails, by which I mean drinks that are heavy on aperitif wines and light on spirits, are tasty. Made with Grand Marnier the drink is rich and smooth. With Cointreau or some other triple sec it would probably be more fresh and fragrant.

I love the way the French can’t help adding London Dry Gin to things. It has to hurt them, right? Something like an “every time you spike your drink with gin, somewhere in the world a DGSE operative in scuba gear dies” kind of thing.

Sorry, I’m unrelenting about the Rainbow Warrior Affair aren’t I? The French are a fine race, and have punched well above their weight in terms of inventing delicious aperitifs. I’ve had better cocktails than this one, but I’ve also had much worse.

In my next post on Pineau des Charentes I will experiment with some recipes of my own.

I am not certain about the origins of this drink. I suspect it is originally Japanese. The balancing of a bitter element (grapefruit) against a sweet element (lychee) seems Japanese to me. The name ‘China Blue’ applied to an exotic blue drink also only makes sense if the drink originates outside of China. Japan is perhaps the only Asian country to have a developed cocktail culture. Finally, the drink seems relatively unknown in the west but common in Asia, which would suggest an Asian (likely Japanese?) origin. Of course I may be completely wrong. Taiwanese have told me this drink is named after the Taiwanese band of the same name – led by the famous Taiwanese rocker Wu Bai (伍佰). At any rate this is a popular drink in Taiwan (in so much as any cocktail is popular there), and a staple of Japanese bars in both Taiwan and China.

China Blue

2 oz lychee liqueur

Grapefruit juice

1 teaspoon Blue Curacao

Build on rocks in a highball glass. Drop the curacao into the drink to create a blue cloud effect . Pouring the curacao down the side of a straw, spoon, chopstick, or similar will help it travel directly to the bottom of the drink. You can also draw the liqueur out of the bottle by capping your finger over the end of a straw and drop it directly into the bottom of the drink. Pale colored grapefruit juice is best to maximize the blue cloud effect. My photo did not come out very well. I swear the drink was bluer than it appears

If you want a less sweet drink you can also make this with 1 oz lychee liqueur and 1 oz vodka – or 3 parts lychee to 1 part vodka. I tend to go down the latter route myself.

This one is not going to set the cocktail world on fire, but then again it is not bad. The grapefruit stops it tasting like too much of a sugar bomb; there is plenty of sugar but the overall impression is still bitter sweet rather than sweet. The lychee contributes a strong scent that is interesting and refreshing. The curacao makes it fun to throw together and admire.

Drinks like this have a place. There is a certain type of girl who will feel extremely short changed if she gets invited out for a cocktail and doesn’t receive a blue drink. Having got the blue drink out of the way she might feel included to venture further and try something else – perhaps a faintly violet Aviation. Hell, plenty of guys feel the same about blue drinks. Blue drinks are simply exotic and cool, even if they do not always taste very good. The China Blue is a good choice for those occasions when only blue will do. It is suitably exotic looking, easy to drink, and has enough challenging bitterness to make a good stepping stone to something more complex – and a good fall back if that more ‘sophisticated’ drink doesn’t work out.

Incidentally, the illustrious London chef Alexis Soyer marketed a blue soft drink in the mid 19th century. The drink, called Soyer’s Nectar, was hugely popular. The fact that soft drinks were considered de facto health drinks at the time helped its popularity further. Soyer’s Nectar even saw use as a cocktail ingredient during the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Soyer’s Nectar Cobbler was rather popular, being simultaneously nutritious, boozy, and blue. If blue drinks were good enough for Alexis Soyer then critics of the genre, before expressing their views, should consider whether they are willing to enter a toe to toe culinary debate with an impassioned Frenchman. Personally I’d just enjoy the blue drink.

Today I came across a creme de violette from Briottet. The Briottet version seems fuller flavored then how I remember the Benoit Serres. The Benoit Serres had a subtle (i.e. diluted) cognac base with a violet overlay, and may have been relatively high proof (25%?). The Briottet seems more like intense violet on a base of lowish proof (18%) neutral alcohol. It has a strong aroma, happily more reminiscent of a flower shop (or maybe potpourri) than a soap factory. On tasting you get a rich, smooth, fairly deep violet taste that lingers on the tongue. The finish is really quite long, and somehow never turns to soap. While I cannot taste anything besides violet, I still would not call the taste one dimensional.

I am hardly a crème de violette expert. I have only ever tasted two brands, and those several years apart. I may completely wrong about this comparison. Both Briottet and Benoit Serres seem to be good products. However, I think Briottet may pack a little more power and be more suited to mixed drinks. Most drinks using creme de violette require only small quantities, so you want to use a reasonably intense product.

After tasting some of the liqueur straight the obvious thing to do was to make an original recipe Aviation.

The Aviation is simply a gin sour sweetened with maraschino and crème de violette. The modern Aviation excludes the crème de violette, partly because it can be hard to obtain and partly because even back in the 1930s the recipe was sometimes printed without this ingredient. Most notably the influential Savoy Cocktail Book printed the recipe sans crème de violette. The Savoy contains many other misprinted recipes so this omission is as likely to have been a mistake as anything else.

Aviation Cocktail

2 oz gin (Plymouth)

½ oz lemon juice (strained – you want this drink as clear as possible)

1/3 oz maraschino liqueur (Maraska)

1/6 oz crème de violette (Briottet)

Shake over ice and double strain into a cocktail glass. If you don’t have crème de violette just use ½ oz maraschino.

You should end up with a potent, refreshing, and aromatic gin drink, colored the faint purple-grey of an overcast sky. Yep, it harks back to the early days of aviation, when planes flew through clouds as often as they flew above them. If it is not sweet enough try slightly increasing the liqueurs. Be careful not to overdo it though; both liqueurs are powerful tastes in their own right and can easily dominate the drink.

The crème de violette version is a definite improvement on the straight maraschino version. There is simply more going on as the violet adds an extra layer of aroma and complements the dry cherry flavors. The subtle purple tinge is also attractive.

The next thing I need to do is find some more drinks that use crème de violette. . .

Update: I also tried the Attention Cocktail from Jamie Boudreau’s site. I did not have a true absinthe handy, so I used Henri Bardoin pastis supplemented with a few drops of L’Extreme d’Absente Bitters. Those bitters are powerful, and using them like this gave a very different taste to using straight pastis. The really interesting thing in this drink is how the creme de violette stands up to the pastis/absinthe. Well worth a try anyway.

* Creme de Violette is hard enough to find that I should probably give the address of the shop, just in case someone else in Auckland reads this and wants to pick some up. The shop is Maison Vauron, located at 5 McColl St., Newmarket. They have a website at www.mvauron.co.nz, and you can phone them on 09 529 0157. Although they are mainly a wine merchant they sell quite a few interesting French aperitif type things – well worth checking out if you are interested in cocktails.