Savoy Hotel (Revisited)

I was writing about the Brandy Melba earlier--a drink named after a recipe at the Savoy Hotel--and I recalled that I wanted to take another try at the Savoy Hotel layered cocktail. I have dark creme de cacao, which is necessary for building the heavy sugar bottom layer. Benedictine is less sweet and can sit on top of it.

Martell single distillery cognac is dry and clean tasting, but it isn't much stronger than Benedictine. A lot of care is necessary with this final layer. You really have to be careful. Use a half teaspoon held upside down and placed inside the second layer to do this right. Then pour the cognac down the handle so it spreads out onto the Benedictine. It also helps to up the quantity of the alcohol to make the layers more visible.

• 3/4 oz. dark creme de cacao
• 3/4 oz. Benedictine
• 3/4 oz. brandy (cognac please)

Pour each liquor over a spoon into a pousse cafe glass, gently layering them in the order that they are listed.

Fifth Avenue

Another layered drink, the Fifth Avenue is a nice and easy Pousse-Cafe style cocktail that really would be nice with coffee.

The recipe calls for dark creme de cacao, but I used white because I wanted it to stand out against the layer of apricot brandy, which is also brown. This gives it a sort of candy-corn look, too!

• 1 1/2 oz. creme de cacao (white used)
• 1 1/2 oz. apricot brandy
• 3/4 oz. half-and-half

Pour each ingredient in the order given over the back of a spoon into a Pousse-Cafe glass so that each layor does not mix.

Chocolate Tier Cake

Just like a baker makes a tier cake, this cocktail is layered with a distinct flavor on each floor. You can really see the definition between these layers here because of a technique I perfected; pouring each ingredient down the back of a measuring spoon handle while the spoon rests in the bottom of the glass.

I again had to change the order in which the spirits are poured because I used half and half. I'm sure that the heavy cream that the recipe calls for will work whether floated on top or nestled in the middle because it is fatty and hot brandy will rise over it or lay beneath it. But I wanted to use dark creme de cacao and use the cream layer to help contrast two brown spirits.

• 1/4 oz. creme de cacao (dark used)
• 1/4 oz. heavy cream
• 1/4 oz. brandy

Pour each ingredient in the order given over the back of a spoon into a Pousse-Cafe glass so that each layer doesn't mix. 

Angel's Kiss / Angel's Delight

I got these lovely cordial glasses and have been using them to make these pretty drinks known as Pousse-Cafe. These drinks are very difficult to pour without having the layers mix, especially with certain liqueurs.That has required me to adjust the positioning of layers because the specific weights of liqueurs are different than those in the original recipe. Getting them out of order causes them to flip their positions and mix.

This post is a two-for-one because these drinks are both "Angel" drinks and Pousse-Cafe, which puts them on the same page of the New York Bartender's Guide.

First the Angel's Kiss (left). It begins with white creme de cacao. But sloe gin, which follows is lighter than even fatty half-and-half, it has to come third. Sloe gin is a blend of sloeberry liqueur and gin, so it tends to break up by the weight of its ingredients. You'll see it blend down into the cream and up into the brandy in the tall glass. So the recipes that follow take this into account.

Angel's Kiss

• 1/4 oz. creme de cacao
• 1/4 oz. half-and-half
• 1/4 oz. sloe gin
• 1/4 oz. brandy

Pour each ingredients in the order given over the back of a spoon into a Pousse-Cafe glass so that each ingredient forms a layer that does not mix.

Angel's Delight

• 1/4 oz. grenadine
• 1/4 oz. triple sec
• 1/4 oz. half and half
• 1/4 oz. sloe gin

Pour each ingredients in the order given over the back of a spoon into a Pousse-Cafe glass so that each ingredient forms a layer that does not mix.

Stars And Stripes

This is another Pousse-Cafe layered drink. It is actually one of the easier ones to do and I might recommend it as an introduction to making Pousse-Cafe. That is because the ingredients are all very different and tend to stack with the help of a half-teaspoon measuring spoon.

The problem I had is that the recipe is wrong, and I knew it before I started. To get a red-white-and-blue cocktail for Independence Day or President's day celebration, you need to have the cream in the middle. But cream is fatty and I already knew it was lighter than both other liqueurs that have so much sugar in them. So after trying and failing at the recipe, I did it again in the order shown below. This might make a better drink for Bastille day, but at least it works.

• 3/4  oz. Cherry Heering
• 3/4 oz. blue curacao
• 3/4 oz. half-and-half

Pour each layer carefully over the back of a measuring spoon into a Pousse-Cafe glass so that they remain on separate layers. Refrigerate for a half hour before serving.

Pousse-Cafe

This is the penultimate Pousse-Cafe recipe as listed in the New York Bartender's guide circa 1997. You have to be really patient with layering six ingredients, and you need a good Pousse-Cafe glass. Most narrow cordial or dessert wine glasses will work.

I was not patient, nor were my ingredients standard to 1997 liqueurs. My triple sec is way stronger than the budget triple sec that has a lot of sugar. As such, it absorbed some of the green creme de menthe above it and became green. Also, my creme de cacao was very close in sweetness to the grenadine and became orange. Now that I think about it, dark creme de cacao would have been better for visuals.

But what worked was the creme de menthe, the cream and brandy. And look, there's a clear stripe below the center that is the Luxardo maraschino liqueur refusing to budge.

For all this effort, it is a strange drink with no unifying flavor. Pousse-Cafe are all cocktails that have the failing of being all about the look and the skill--a pretty dessert drink--but they don't have the drinker's taste in cocktail in mine. Rather you are supposed to drink coffee and sip off each layer at a time to flavor each sip of coffee.

Pousse-Cafe was a thing of the 1890s that re-appeared again in the 1990s as the bar scene came up with outlandish and bad tasting drinks for several years before dying down again until the late 2000s.

• 1/2 oz. grenadine
• 1/2 oz. creme de cacao
• 1/2 oz. maraschino liqueur
• 1/2 oz. white curacao
• 1/2 oz. green creme de menthe
• 1/2 oz. half-and-half 
• 1/2 oz. brandy

Carefully pour each ingredient in the order they are shown over the back of a spoon into a Pousse-Cafe glass. Refrigerate for half and hour before serving.

Angel's Tit

A glance at the name, and you know that this rich cocktail belongs to the series of "breast"drinks like the Slippery Nipple and the Bosom Caresser. Take a look at the drink itself, and you see it is one of those layered drinks known as Pousse Cafe. It is designed to look like a nipple on the bottom with a creamy breast above it.

Difficulty with the specific weights of each liquor may determine the exact order you can put the ingredients. The recipe, though is mostly accurate in that it calls for white creme de cacao first because it is heavier, maraschino liqueur next because it is more alcoholic and less sugary, and half-and-half last because it is fatty and floats on top.

My maraschino liqueur is clear, so it is indistinguishable from white creme de cacao. I combined the creme de cacao with grenadine to make it visible and to give more of a nipple impression for the bottom of the glass.

(Now that I think of it, the maraschino cherry is probably intended to be the tip of the breast, so put it in the bottom of the glass, or do as I did with the grenadine and creme de cacao.)

• 1/4 oz. white creme de cacao (colored with grenadine if you wish)
• 1/4 oz. maraschino liqueur (Luxardo used)
• 1/4 oz. half-and-half
• maraschino cherry

Layer the ingredients in order they are listed by pouring over a spoon into a cordial glass. Refrigerate for a half hour before serving. Serve with a maraschino cherry.