This drink ws made when I was on a yellow chartreuse kick. I don’t think it gets as much attention as its other half green chartreuse. This I attribute the the popularity of the Last Word. Yellow chartreuse is still floral, but much more subtle. Mixed with the gin and cocchi they stand in the background to let the apricot brandy come forward.

When I first tasted this at Waterpocket I instantly thought of this drink. The slight smokiness of the mezcal really compliments the Cocktail nicely. I do like to keep classic cocktails simple, but the standard 1:1:1 ratio for the Negroni just didn’t work here. The Maenad I found to be much more delicate than a Campari and so I did two things. I used Cocchi Americano which I find to be lighter than most vermouths. Second I pulled it back as equal parts made the drink too smooth and I wanted to keep some bitterness there.

This drink was created spontaneously one night and came out fully formed. First time I was able to do that. Most of my drinks I’ll balance and try over and over again. Maybe this one was just being refined in some corner of my mind for awhile.

The idea was to use a bottle of liquer 43 that I had on my shelf for awhile. The only recipe I knew of was a “little beer” that is just the liqueur topped with cream. The result of this turned it into something reminiscent of root beer or sarsaparilla.

Splitting the Sazerac Rye/Brandy isn’t a revolutionary idea and I know others have done it, most notably Dale DeGroff. The Sazerac’s roots are in cognac and it can be made with all brandy as well. I’m sure this 50/50 combo has been used for over a century. So I’ll I did was balance it for my taste and add a touch of cardamom.

So old tom gin and rooibos tea go amazing together. Karl introduced me to this infusion before I moved back to Tucson from NYC. We had been working on a recipe together, but never completed one. I finished it off when I set up my home bar in Tucson. For the infusion use 4-5 Rooibos tea bags to 750ml of gin. It only needs to steep for 30-45min typically. You want to taste it as it infuses to get the balance right. Err on the side of under infused. Over infusing something is always worse. If you want to throw some rosemary into the pot when making simple syrup it really rounds out this drink. It’s still a solid drink with plain syrup as well.

When I first tasted this at Waterpocket I instantly thought of this drink. The slight smokiness of the mezcal really compliments the Cocktail nicely. I do like to keep classic cocktails simple, but the standard 1:1:1 ratio for the Negroni just didn’t work here. The Maenad I found to be much more delicate than a Campari and so I did two things. I used Cocchi Americano which I find to be lighter than most vermouths. Second I pulled it back as equal parts made the drink too smooth and I wanted to keep some bitterness there.