Lisa and I recently compared 3 different types of Chartreuse on the podcast and it reminded me how much I love the stuff. I looked through my recipe books for Chartreuse cocktails, and found the simplest one ever. This is a vodka-and-green version of the Alaska, a gin-and-yellow Chartreuse cocktail. Try it out, but sip it slowly – vodka’s 40% alcohol and green Chartreuse is 55%!
Green Dragon
I mentioned in a recent podcast episode that a great cocktail would be an Amaro shot and club soda. Amaros are sweet and bitter and if you’ve developed the palate for it, they can be really refreshing.
For this drink, you’re not limited to Campari – substitute any other amaro of your choosing (I bet Aperol or Averna would be really good choices). Obviously, the recipe is very simple: a two-ingredient refresher!
Campari Soda
I suppose that a couple of centuries ago, cocktail names were pretty easy to get confused. In a world where you couldn’t use the internet to look up ingredients, many recipes traveled by word of mouth, and I imagine that some morphed into different recipes entirely. Take, for instance, the Martinez cocktail, which some believe developed into the Martini (trust me, they’re very different drinks). And in this case, the Club Cocktail, which is almost nothing like the more popular Clover Club.
The Club is very much like the Obituary Cocktail: a gin martini with the addition of an herbal flavor modifier. In the case of the Obituary, it’s Absinthe, and here, it’s Yellow Chartreuse. Let me know how you like the Club Cocktail:
Club Cocktail
I have written about Fernet Branca in the past, an increasingly popular and pretty legendary bitter liqueur. BrancaMenta is a companion liqueur, Fernet Branca combined with mint syrup, which makes the liqueur mintier and sweeter (obviously), but actually changes the taste of the whole thing a bit.
While Fernet Branca is more bitter and is a stronger alcohol experience, BrancaMenta is a sweeter and more palatable drink for many. In side-by-side tests at my home bar, folks who didn’t like Fernet Branca usually liked BrancaMenta when they tried it. One said it “tastes like a Thin Mint,” and that’s not too far off the mark as BrancaMenta is more chocolaty and sweet than it’s big brother.
I was challenged to come up with some original cocktail ideas with BrancaMenta, and it’s a surprisingly easy liqueur to mix. Since it’s not overly sweet, you can use it in place of a liqueur or a base liquor. I made two types of recipes: BrancaMenta plus and cocktails with BrancaMenta. Try these out:
Creamy Mint Stout (by Greg Mays)
Branca Moji-Tea (by Greg Mays)
I’m going to be really straight with you here: I didn’t expect these next two drinks to be as great as they are. They looked good when I was photographing them, sure, but when I tasted these cocktails, they were excellent, simple, balanced, and refreshing. I’ll be making these regularly at the home bar for sure:
White Italian (by Greg Mays)
CocoMenta Cocktail (by Greg Mays)
Recently, a friend gave me a bottle of Crème de Banane, a banana liqueur and a staple ingredient in several Tiki drinks. Since I’ve never had a bottle of this liqueur, I had some fun looking up classic recipes and experimenting with them. These are my favorite Creme de Banane cocktails:
Elephant Lips
Bananarama
Let me know in the comments what your favorite Crème de Banane cocktails are.
I’ve covered Chartreuse before and it’s an amazing, storied liqueur. It’s the only spirit that’s still actually distilled by monks, and it even had a color named after it.
So what is this small medicine bottle – the Élixir Végétal variety of Chartreuse? The 10 cl (3+ oz) bottle is packaged in a custom-carved wooden sleeve, this 69% alcohol elixir is meant to be used in small doses. Ignoring it’s questionable legality in the U.S., how do you use this elixir in cocktails?
My suggestion is that you either use Élixir Végétal in the place of cocktail bitters, or drink it as you would absinthe: 1 oz of Élixir topped with very cold water poured over a sugar cube. If the black-licorice flavor of absinthe hasn’t appealed to you in the past, this herbal liqueur is different enough that you may enjoy it instead. For me, I created a cocktail with it that’s a twist on the Old Fashioned:
Monk’s Old Fashioned (by Greg Mays)
Passion XO is a line of cognac-based liqueurs in a rainbow of primary colors. At about $20 a bottle, previous versions Of Passion XO include Pink and Blue, and the newest version is Passion XO Sun. Sun’s primary ingredient (other than cognac) is passion fruit juice, and it clocks in at an alcohol level between wine (usually about 12%) and liqueurs (usually about 20%).
It would not be wise to dismiss this type of hard-liquor-and-fruit juice mixtures, as they’re one of the largest-selling and most popular bottles on the shelf. Kinky, a competitor to Passion XO, is to date the most popular blog that I’ve ever posted at Simple Cocktails (I know, it surprises me too).
That being said, Passion XO is really a cocktail in a bottle. You can put your bottle of Sun in the fridge and pour it in a glass to serve. Sun tastes pretty good too, a bit like a Bellini or Mimosa, a premade brunch cocktail. While cognac is the base, Sun tastes mostly like a mixture of fruit and wine (which makes sense because cognac’s distilled from grapes), and it’s a bit cloudy like orange juice.
Depending on your cocktail preference, you may want to add some harder liquor to Sun, like cognac or vodka, to tame the sweetness a bit. I personally prefer it chilled on the rocks before dinner, or with absinthe in this simple cocktail:
Sun and Moon (by Greg Mays)
Averna is an amaro, one of the charming Italian bitter liqueurs that are hugely popular with certain groups of people, and nearly unknown to others. Campari is the most popular amaro, and just this week, Campari purchased the Averna brand to include in their catalog of liqueurs.
Here’s a question I haven’t answered yet at Simple Cocktails: why bitter? Mrs. Simple Cocktails refers to bitter as a flavor “she tries to avoid,” yet amari are unique drinks as they can be served as both aperitifs and digestifs. An aperitif is meant to whet your appetite before dinner, and aperitifs are usually dry and bitter. Bitterness causes your tongue to salivate, effectively preparing your mouth to eat. A digestif is meant to finish your meal with both sweetness and aiding digestion. Because amari are bitter and sweet, they fit both definitions, and they’re a fun cocktail ingredient as well.
Amari can have a wide variety of dominant flavors, from vegetal (Cynar) to herbal (Fernet Branca) to citrusy (Aperol). Averna is a sweet cola-like experience, almost like root beer. It’s tasty combination of cherry and coffee, too, and actually leaves a little tingle on your tongue just like soda. It’s closest amaro comparison would be Fernet Branca, though it’s not minty and is much less bitter.
Averna is the most accessible amari that I’ve had yet, and it’s great on the rocks after dinner, or a shot in a glass of club soda makes a great, natural, old-timey “soda.” It’s earned a permanent place in my home bar.
Galliano is a very unique, very….yellow….Italian liqueur that’s most famous as the central ingredient of the Harvey Wallbanger cocktail.
The liqueur itself is an herbal and vanilla tasting drink that’s pretty high in alcohol (for a liqueur), much like Chartreuse. This is not something you’d likely drink on it’s own, but in the cocktail below, it adds some great depth (otherwise it’d just be a Screwdriver). After sipping Galliano on its own, I realized that it would taste great with just a splash into 2 1/2 of gin, stirred and served like a martini.
Either way, this is a classic, tasty, great liqueur to have in your home bar.
Harvey Wallbanger
Because we keep it classy at Simple Cocktails, the arrival of St. Patrick’s Day is more a reason to turn our drinking attention on the products of Ireland briefly, and less of a reason to dye things green and drink terrible beer.
Last year I gave you a few good ideas for simple St. Paddy’s drinks, and this year I focus on one of my favorites: the Caramel Guinness. Try this beer cocktail out for St. Patrick’s Day (or any day that calls for a great drink!):
Caramel Guinness
