Few days ago I received an email from Bols, containing all the scores and the feedbacks for my entry to BATW 2013. My drink was the “Yankee and the Dutch“, a Jerry Thomas’ inspired punch, which got me as far as the final national heat: the feedbacks on the drink were more than positive, unfortunately I got mixed reviews on the video we had to submit for the final heat. It was my first video submission and I made few key mistakes.. well you live, you learn.. anyway I had great fun filming the whole thing and I hope to make it at least as far next year.
With this good result in store, I can continue carrying on my new year resolution: participating in any possible cocktail competition. The end of April marks the deadline for the Disaronno Mixing Star, and that means we have a drink ready for the folks at Disaronno.
The theme for this year is “movies”, and I chose to pay a tribute to a character in a modern days classic: “Pulp Fiction” definitely one of my favorite film of all time.

Mr. Wolf

Ingredients:
1.5 oz. Glenlivet 15 French Oak Reserve
0.75 oz. Disaronno Amaretto
0.25 oz. Creme de Cacao white
0.5 oz. Maple syrup
A pinch of citric acid
Vaporized espresso

Prep:
Pour maple syrup and citric acid in a mixing glass with one ice cube. Stir quicly to dissolve the citric acid and then add all the spirits along with more ice. Stir quicly for a dozen of seconds and thrn double strain on an iced coupe. Spray on top a mist of freshed brewed espresso coffee and garnish with an orange peel and coffee beans.

My first choice for this competition was a drink based on smoke, then I moved onto a julep garnished with cotton candy (both these drinks were a tribute to Django), but it turned out I couldn’t submit any of those, as the rules forbid homemade syrups and non-edible garnishes (smoke is non-edible but definitely inhalable if you ask me). I had many ideas for this competition but couldn’t  carry them out. And it was a problem for me. That’s when I thought about Mr. Wolf, Pulp Fiction’s character, played by Harvey Keitel: I needed a problem solver like Tarantino’s elegant, smooth and witty middle-age criminal consultant. The drink I finally decided upon was something resembling a godfather, but a little bit sweeter and with more depth, especially on the nose, thanks to the vaporized espresso. The maple syrup bonds with the scotch in a great way, and the little amount of Creme de Cacao is definitely noticeable after the sip; the drink was born without citric acid but after the first try I thought that a bit of acidity would have helped Amaretto and tone down the whole sweet profile of this drink, helping it to turn into something resembling good old drinks of a bygone era, a drink for smooth criminals…

Here the link to the two videos I created for BATW 2013 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK7XBZ2ZXGw, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tst640f56s