Here’s another one from a San Francisco menu. This menu has so many drinks I want to make for Dane: lots of things with Mezcal and gentian root liqueur (Suze). This was nearly undrinkable for me, but Dane immediately loved it. Very smoky and bitter, I feel like the port really only gives it a bit of color more than anything else.
I was heating up some leftovers of this amazing soup for dinner, so I decided to find a tequila drink to go with it. If you search for “tequila cocktails” most of what you get back is some kind of margarita. BORING. I looked in the Death & Co book and happened upon this, which was apparently made up on the spot when a regular asked for something using his favorite things. Well, to quote the book: “The problem was that he likes a lot of weird shit.”
This is definitely a weird, weird drink. I used Punt e Mes instead of Carpano as suggested, which may have made it slightly more bitter than advertised. Still, this was all over the place. Bitter, smoky, with a bit of a sweet chocolate after taste.
Shake all ingredients, then strain into a coupe glass and garnish.
This is the first time I’ve made this. Dane was making a Mexican-inspired salad for dinner and I wanted to make a Mexican-inspired cocktail that wasn’t just a Margarita. I found this recipe for a Devil’s Garden that includes a chipotle-infused mezcal. While that sounded interesting, I didn’t have time to wait for an infusion. Dane loves smokey drinks that aren’t very sweet, so I decided to up the tequila content and lower the agave in the recipe. He was very impressed with this one. I tasted just enough to know it wasn’t to my liking. Mezcal is often too smokey for me, while Cynar is too bitter.
I’m always on the lookout for drinks that include some of my more esoteric liqueurs, so this one is going in the file for Cynar.
