Unusual liqueurs
One benefit of hosting a regular happy hour is the generosity of my friends and neighbors. I am the frequent and grateful recipient of rare or hard-to-find cocktail ingredients. House bitters from the Velvet Tango Room, Cleveland’s premier speakeasy. Amarena cocktail cherries from Italy. Small-batch rum or bourbon direct from the distillery. And liqueurs with unusual flavors.
As an amateur bartender, I’m intrigued by the exotic liqueurs because it’s an opportunity to test my drink-making chops. Often, it’s enough to swap out a similar ingredient from a classic cocktail recipe. But some liqueurs range so far from the standards that it’s necessary to start from scratch. So I take a sip to suss out the flavors, then consider what other components might work. Most of the time I’m in the right ballpark, and it’s simply a matter of tweaking the balance (although a couple of experiments have gone horribly wrong and went straight down the sink – pumpkin is a tricky flavor for cocktails).
For our most recent cocktail party, I created a drink menu that incorporated some of the unusual liqueurs in my collection. R introduced me to the Bourbon Brûlé a few years ago, which calls for ginger liqueur. The other drinks were originals, inspired by the flavors of the liqueurs. The Spring Blossom worked well with a variety of floral liqueurs, like edelweiss or elderflower. Beethoven’s Fifth was a banana-and-apricot riff on tiki cocktails. And my favorite, the Picante Verde, was the perfect marriage of poblano pepper spice and agave spirits.
Now, back to that pumpkin cocktail…
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Spring Blossom
- 1 oz. floral liqueur (I used St-Germain, Edelweiss Floralpina, and Beargrass from Glacier Distilling)
- juice of ½ lemon
- 3-4 oz. prosecco, chilled (I used Adami)
- champagne flute, barspoon, juicer
Steps
- combine liqueur and lemon juice in bottom of flute
- stir to mix completely
- top with prosecco
Beethoven’s Fifth
- 1 ¼ oz. lightly aged blended rum (I used Banks 5 Island)
- ½ oz. banana liqueur (I used Giffard Banane du Brésil)
- ¼ oz. apricot liqueur (I used Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot)
- 1 oz. fino sherry (I used Lustau Jarana)
- grapefruit bitters
- mint sprig, to garnish
- cocktail shaker, barspoon, ice, rocks glass
Steps
- half-fill the shaker with ice
- add the liquid ingredients and stir until cold
- strain into the glass over ice
- spank the mint to release the aroma and garnish
Picante Verde
- 1 oz. tequila blanco (I used Espolón)
- ½ oz. mezcal (I used Del Maguey Vida)
- ¾ oz. Ancho Reyes Verde
- ¾ oz. lime juice
- ¼ oz. agave nectar
- molé bitters (recipe in previous post)
- cucumber slice, to garnish
- cocktail shaker, barspoon, juicer, ice, rocks glass
Steps
- half-fill the shaker with ice
- add the liquid ingredients and stir until cold
- strain into the glass over ice and garnish
