Another sharp veer away from Tiki / sweet and tropical to a riff on a pre-prohibition drink.
Tasting Notes
Ryan: Lots of (mild) bitter notes from the Byrrh, and some sweetness and herbal flavors which mostly feel like they’re just enhancing and filling out what’s missing from the gin. And since I like our current bottle of gin, I like this drink a lot. I took the first sip but we realized we’d forgotten the orange bitters. To me, the orange bitters add a good citrus note that I hadn’t realized was missing. I like this quite a lot.
Rory: It has the same profile as a vermouth-based drink. Which isn’t a problem; I like vermouth. It feels a bit more balanced and louder on the sweet:bitter dichotomy than the dolin rouge things we’ve had, maybe, though it’s been a bit and I can’t say for sure. I’ve made it a little sweeter than spec—I only had rich syrup, so I did a scant .5oz for the two drinks. Due to density differences between rich and simple, I understand I probably didn’t overshoot too much.
I’m not sure that the gin we used was quite the right kind; it calls for an old tom and we used spirit works, which is more of an American maybe? I think that they mostly overlap in botanicals, though the Spirit Works has cardamom and hibiscus in it. It’s probably fine, right?
I’d been about to write some nice things, but then I realized I’d forgotten the orange bitters and had to go back to add those… and oops, I liked it more without the bitters. I don’t know if that means the orange doesn’t really go, or if I’m not a fan of our specific orange bitters.
Anyway, unsurprisingly, I can definitely detect both of the main ingredients. there’s gin! there’s byrrh! I think I would say the byrrh is the stronger flavor to me, actually, despite it being only ~40% to gin’s 60%. I like both of the components, but I’m not sure that the combination of the two is better than either individually.
While I liked this drink a lot at first, I’m not so into it by the end. I’m happy that our first byrrh drink was so good, because the second two were underwhelming.
Recipe
Stir with ice:
- 1 1⁄2 oz Gin (Spirit Works Gin)
- 1 oz Byrrh Grand Quinquina
- 1⁄4 oz rich syrup (scant)
- 2 dash orange bitters (Bitter Truth)
Strain into a coupe.
Garnish with lemon peel.
Source: Haus Alpenz