We’d been threatening to make this drink for a while, because it looked like a lopsided & unbalanced mess of too many strong flavors, but it was surprisingly how much we liked it.
Tasting Notes
Rory: This is good! I don’t know what I was expecting - I guess something wild and loud, verging on undrinkeable - but it’s really good!
The roughness of the Batavia gets smoothed out by the Falernum and Strega into an interesting but easy-to-like texture. The coolimg herbal notes from the Strega come through strong - fennel? grass?
I’m beginning to think of Falernum as just better simple; it’s a simplification (so to speak), but I feel like it does great work tamping down on wild & erratic flavors.
I sorta expected the Batavia to be the loudest part. This expectation is maybe mostly based on that one not-so-well-balanced Charanda & Batavia drink; every time I have Batavia arrack, I’m surprised at how mild it is compared to my memory.
Ryan: I took a pass on this drink because an equal parts drink with Batavia arrack seemed like it’d be too much for me. It turns out the falernum goes a long way towards smoothing out the Batavia arrack, so, I sorta regret not having it. I just had a Last Word. Happy to find a drink with a significant proportion of Batavia arrack that I like.
Recipe
- 3⁄4 oz Batavia Arrack Van Oosten
- 3⁄4 oz John D. Taylor’s Velvet Falernum
- 3⁄4 oz Strega
- 3⁄4 oz Lime juice
Source: Cocktail virgin slut