After Hours (Recipe by Satvik Ahuja)

 

I was in the mood for kummel on a gray day last weekend and stumbled on this recipe on Difford's Guide. The drink makes me think of Covenant's song "After Hours" with its distorted electronic hum, slow beats and creepy stalker lyrics. And it was designed as an after dinner drink, but I found it much closer to an Aviation without the lemon juice. In fact, citrus notes are hinted at here, but omitted entirely for a spirits-forward punch sweetened by maraschino and honey in the kummel.

I'm working with my homemade kummel here, which is the same recipe as whatever akvavit I have on hand plus added honey syrup. I only make as much as I need on any particular day because it is a specialty ingredient. I also am having fun with the French gin, Citadelle. You could certainly go with a heavier gin, like an old tom or Ransom and make this a dessert drink. I felt that while Citadelle is a light, dry gin, it also has the heft of 18 botanicals that give it more weight in the nose than many American gins, especially after mixing them with Luxardo maraschino.

Difford's Guide is a good place to find new inventions like this, and many of the cocktails call for chilled water as an option. This is the first time I took that option, and I feel like it was a good call. The flavors are very packed in this cocktail and water gave them room to express. 

• 1 1/2 oz. dry gin (Citadelle used)
• 1/3 oz. kummel (homemade used)
• 1/3 oz. maraschino liqueur
• 1 dash orange bitters
• 1/3 chilled water
• maraschino cherry (Bada Bing used)

Combine all ingredients except cherry in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a speared cherry.

Crazy Crossing

 

This beauty of a cocktail is intentionally French. It calls for Dubonnet rouge, which is an aromatized wine from Paris, but having none, I intentionally went with another French aromatized wine that fits the bill--Byrrh.

I've mixed with Byrrh before and found it a little softer than Dubonnet, and a little less fruity. All the fuss about it being made with many kinds of quinine botanicals seems overplayed. Byrrh is mild and floral and adds a lovely rouge color as well.

This is the first time I've mixed with Citadelle gin from France, and I have to say it has such a fresh botanical scent and flavor. Eighteen botanicals puts it in league with the Botonist from Scotland or Glendalough gin from Ireland, and it has that same kind of freshness I associate with the UK gins. I don't know if Citadelle is unfiltered, but I would assume that its brightness comes from not filtering away the brightest juniper and citrus notes.

The cocktail? This is a very French version of a Martinez. An impressive gin and several kinds of sweet and dry vermouth as well as Mandarine Napoleon to give it rich cognac and spiced mandarin orange notes instead of using orange bitters. In fact, it is a Martinez down to the maraschino liqueur, which I love.

• 1 1/2 oz. gin (Citadelle used)
• 3/4 oz. Dubonnet rouge (Byrrh used)
  
• 3/4 oz. dry vermouth (Dolin used)
• 1/3 oz. maraschino liqueur (Luxardo used)
• 1/12 Mandarine Napoleon (homemade used)
• maraschino cherry (Bada Bing used)

Combine liquid ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a speared cherry. 

Escoffier Cocktail

 

This cocktail is named after the famous French chef school started by Auguste Escoffier. The concept is simplicity and elegance, like French cuisine. A lot of French cocktails, made for cafe sipping, are pro-forma calvados or apple brandy mixed with some aperitif wine, and this is no exception. Laird's Applejack 86 is as rich as any apple brandy. And while it doesn't have that dry French oak whiff of Normandy calvados, there's nothing wrong with mixing it with Dubonnet rouge and bittering it up with Angostura. 

• 1 1/2 oz. apple brandy or calvados (Applejack 86 used)
• 3/4 Cointreau (triple sec used)
• 3/4 Dubonnet rouge
• dash Angostura bitters
• maraschino cherry (Bada Bing cherry used)

 Combine liquid ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the cherry.