Di Saronno

With a heady and unexpected smell, my first drink of Disaronno a few weeks back was delicious. I had always thought of it as a little too flashy of a liqueur because of their commercials a few years back. The cocktail I was making was the penultimate on my goal to try all 10; The Godfather. I have no plans currently to try the Zombie, though I'm sure I will eventually. If it warrants, perhaps it will return on a post about the undead?

Found on Drink Studio

Much to my surprise, Disaronno is a delicious and unique drink. Dating back hundreds of years, Ameretto now appears to me to be a nice addition to the homebar. While not yet worthy of a 'core' liqueur status, I certainly don't regret adding a bottle of Disaronno like I do that bottle of Floe Gin from a while back. Update: DON'T expect a post about making my own Sloe Gin, that stuff is not good.

Git' Drunk

Additional Amaretto A-Links
Cocktail DB on Amaretto

Wikipedia on Amaretto

Actual Wikipedia on Disaronno

A Day of Rosiness - Midday Tincture

That's right, it's time for the second installment of rosy drinks to get you through the day. Hopefully your Morning Effusion has put you in a perfect place to appreciate your very own Midday Tincture:

This drink started its life as a Rosy Deacon, but quickly morphed into something different. At first taste, the Rosy Deacon is a little jarring to me. The gin and grapefruit juice certainly pair nicely, but the sloe gin is too sweet and thick in your mouth and throat. Instead of leaving you hungry for more, it almost makes you want to - gasp - clear your mouth with some water.

Rosy Deacon
3/4 oz Gin
3/4 oz Sloe Gin
1 oz Grapefruit Juice
Sugar to Taste

Rosy Deacon (Try 2)
1 oz gin
1/2 oz Sloe Gin
1 oz Grapefruit Juice
Sugar

For the second try, I went with frosting the glass with sugar rather than actually mixing any into the drink, as the original was more than a little too sweet. This one was better, but still not a cocktail I'd recommend. I liked the dryness of the grapefruit juice, but since I know I won't usually have grapefruit juice on hand, I tried out a new recipe that substitutes vermouth for the fruit juice. The result is a cocktail I could happily drink to keep me Rosy.

Rosy Layman
1 oz Gin
1/2 oz Dry Vermouth
1/2 oz Sloe Gin
1/4 oz Grenadine Syrup
Sugar

Once again, I frosted the glass with sugar, which was very successful. The Rosy Layman has a sour taste, but the sugar from the rim sweetens it up just a little bit. The combination of dry vermouth and gin are crisp enough that they cut through both the sloe and the grenadine. I was a little afraid that this would be little more than a gin martini, as the scent when I make it is very similar. That ended up being a totally unnecessary worry, and the Layman is its own beast.

Until Alpenglow, stay rosy.

Midori Challenge

I bought a bottle of Midori in a weak moment a few months back - I'd heard quite a few recipes that used them, and though none of the recipes seemed like they were my type, I figured it had to have some redeeming qualities.
 When I got to the end of the Behind the Bar episodes I was interested in, I listened to some of the ones that didn't interest me at all - and since I can usually trust a Mr. Martini recommendation, I was unwisely swayed to buying Midori (Episode 27).  After several recipe tries, I can't yet find any that work - and this is in part because of its color.  It has that sickening sweetness of other products like sloe gin and Ecto-Cooler.  Ugh.  But worst of all, it's alien green.

One bad decision led to another - I took my first try directly from the little booklet that comes with a bottle of Midori. I figured, hey, that ain't a bad place to start...

And that leads me to the CHALLENGE:
Design and test a Midori drink that works.
Name it, post it here in comments, or send me an email with the details. I'll test it out if the ingredients aren't too hard to come by, and if I agree, I'll put it up.

Satanic Cocktails - 吃 火 魔鬼

This installment of Satanic Cocktails is the Meehouland - The Fire Eating Devil.

吃 火 魔鬼
1 1/2 oz Sloe Gin
1/2 oz Sweet Vermouth
1/2 oz Dry Vermouth
1 Dash Orange Bitters
Lime Wedge


Stir and strain.

I would suggest that you pour this into a thin, curvaceous glass, rather than a more angular glass like a rocks glass.    I'm not sure about the taste, because of the Sloe Gin, it has that sticky sweetness that a fake colored liqueur gives, and it stays coloring the glass.  I've come to love the effect perfect vermouth has on most simple liquor mixtures.  I'm glad my distaste for dry vermouth in my martinis (which endures) did not prevent me from learning to love vermouth in all sorts of cocktails.

Sloe Gin - Not The Gin I Expected

You'd think with a name that included "Gin" there would be some simularity between gin and sloe gin.  Well, if you did think that (if, in the unlikely case, you'd ever heard of sloe gin before), you'd be wrong.

Sloe comes from sloeberry, but even with the 'berry' added in, Sloe Gin still sounds kinda like a mix of the sugar from candy-wrappers and bathtub gin.  I figured it would be brutal like bai jiu.

Well, it's not at all the gin I expected.  It took only one whiff of the 5$ bottle to determine that it was a sweet liqueur and not a hoary liquor.

As a replacement to sugar in my bourbon cocktails, it is changing things up.  It also plays a starring role in the last few margaritas I've had in the last two weeks.


If you're interested, take a look at the CocktailDB note on it or the Wikipedia article, both are useful.  At some point in the future, expect a detailed post where I make some homemade sloe gin!