Sugar and Grass

Ingredients:

1oz Cachaca

.5oz Maraschino

.5oz Domaine de Canton

.5oz Salers

1 dash Angostura

1 dash Lavender Bitters

5 drops Urban Moonshine Bitters (Original)

Lemon Twist

Instructions:

Add the Cachaca, Maraschino, Domaine de Canton, Salers, Angostura and lavender bitters to a chilled mixing glass. Add ice and stir until well chilled. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Drop the Urban Moonshine Bitters on top and then express the oils from a lemon twist, rim the glass with the peel and then discard the peel.

Notes:

Citrus, dandelion, ginger, sugar cane and a hint of anise on the nose. While the mouthfeel is dry and smooth the taste is a bit sweeter with accents of lemon, anise, sugar cane, allspice, lavender and cherry. The finish is dry, floral, herbaceous and just a touch bitter.

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History:

Bout time I got back on the horse. Before we get into this tasty beverage a semi brief explanation of what has kept me so damn busy as of late….

To those that don’t know, my apartment got flooded a while back and they found asbestos in the glue in the floors (not a hazard to me inert in the floor but would be to workers removing to replace them). Thus unfortunately we had to move completely out and live in a seedy hotel in Dupont Circle while they uprooted our floors and replaced them. The good news is I have awesome new floors, the bad news, I was parted from my booze for far too long. Things still aren’t quite there yet but dammit, a guy’s gotta indulge his cocktail fetish.

Anyway, now that I’ve bored you to death with my personal “struggles” lets have a drink…

This was one of those “challenge me” kind of cocktails. We’ve all been there, stuck in a bit of a rut, trying to come up with something new, only to end up with a drink that tastes just like everything else you make, or worse, like crap.

One thing I like to do in such situations is have people weigh in on what goes in the drink. If you haven’t tried it, it’s an interesting exercise. Everyone has different ideas especially with a large range of backgrounds. Some folks know the ingredients and suggest some really cool things, others like the bottles or the way they “sound,” yet still others just burt out random names from the cabinet. Either way, you end up with something you may not of thought of on your own, plus if it tastes like crap, you’ve got someone else to blame.

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Old Tom Gin and genever were also pretty damn good in this one.

Long story short, this one was “make something with Maraschino, Domaine de Canton and Salers.” Having two sweeter ingredients seemed perhaps like overkill, but I decided to embrace it and make something a little off the beaten path. I tried a variety of base spirits, but ultimately Cachaca won (plus my friends at Campari sent me a bottle of Sagatiba a while back, which I have selfishly been hoarding to myself). Plus if you are gonna make a “weird” drink, might as well jump out of your comfort zone a little. The Salers adds some interesting bitterish grassy notes and the bitters combo rounds everything else out.

It’s cold as hell here in DC, might as well stay in and give this one a shot and while your at it why not have a little fun and experiment with your own friends and family and see what you come up with over the holidays.

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