Riffing on yesterday’s drink
Tasting Notes
Rory: Broadly similar to last night’s, because it’s the same drink other than the Falernum->Pineapple swap.
Not quite but close to right. The pineapple’s making it convex where it wants to be concave? The giffard liqueur is smoother than the juice, but not quite as much as the falernum, so it’s a little bit off-kilter.
I’m not sure what to do to make it work, though… Maybe I wouldn’t be questioning it if we hadn’t had the Biking Atoll last night? I think it needs a bit more restraint somewhere, but I’m not sure where or what or anything.
The lime’s a little too sour, there’s not quite enough sweet maybe, and it’s a little loud. The answer might be a little bit of syrup, now that I think about it, maybe a quarter oz or so?
Okay, yeah, we went and added about a quarter oz of the SC Mai Tai Syrup (demerara, vanilla, salt) to each, and they’re better. They’re pretty good now—sweet enough to stand up to the sour, the flavors meld better. I think it’s brighter than last night’s Bikini Atolls, still less smooth but not in a bad way. It’s still pretty much the same drink, so I’m having a hard time directly comparing them without having them both in front of me right now, but it’s good.
Ryan: As a riff on yesterday’s drink, we substituted the falernum for pineapple liqueur, and added a couple drops of Tiki bitters to get back some of the spices. The drink continues to be good! It’s not all that different from yesterday’s in overall profile, but definitely some different fruity notes show up.
We tasted the falernum versus the pineapple liqueur before doing the substitution. The falernum is a lot sweeter, and definitely the balance of the drink is somewhat different with the less sweet pineapple liqueur, and I do think it needs a little bit of a balance tweak to work with the pineapple–the substitution wasn’t quite the slam dunk I hoped it would be without other changes. i think a small measure of simple would do well.
Yesterday’s felt like a put together drink, and this feels more like “rum fire, with added stuff”
After writing this up, and in general agreement with Rory, we stirred in 0.25oz of smuggler’s cove mai tai syrup (2:1 demerara, with a touch of vanilla and salt), which helped a lot. I think simple might be the right call over demerara, but definitely the missing component from the drink was sweet. With this, it’s a lot more balanced–the flavors are supporting each other instead of competing, and there’s not a significant over-citrusy note.
Recipe
- 1 oz Rum Fire Overproof White Rum
- 1⁄2 oz Green Chartreuse
- 1⁄2 oz Giffard Caribbean Pineapple Liqueur
- 1⁄2 oz Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao
- 1⁄2 oz Small hands Orgeat
- 1 oz Lime Juice
- 3 drops Bittermens ʼElemakule Tiki Bitters
- Added after the fact, see tasting notes: 1⁄4 oz Smuggler’s Cove Mai Tai syrup (2:1 demerara syrup)
Shake with ice and strain into a rocks glass over crushed ice. Garnish with spent lime shell and mint.
Source: Riff on the Bikini Atoll