Wanting a palate cleanser from the very sweet drinks we’d had for a few days, we picked up a bottle of Byrrh.

Tasting Notes

Ryan: We went on a long walk over to what was supposed to be a liquor store with a better selection than our usual one. But they just had a huge whiskey section and we can’t afford that. Everything interesting was behind the counter so we couldn’t browse anything much either (at least not at the moment, due to COVID and not wanting to stick around very much). But we picked up a bottle of Byrrh Grand Quinquina, having heard of it and having liked most things imported by Haus Alpenz before.

Oh right, I’m supposed to talk a little bit about the drink—the Byrrh is a lot more wine-like than I expected (I was expecting a more bitter apertif or amaro or something). The drink is pretty well-balanced and feels very old-school despite being invented like 3 years ago. Our mole bitters (fee brothers aztec bitters) are pretty sweet and cinnamon-y, rather than bitter and chocolate-y, and I think that note isnt quite right.

Rory: It feels old fashioned in a nice way, kinda in the vermouth direction. is the quinquina wine based? (edit: yes) it reminded me of church wine (it’s been uhhhhh 20 years since I’ve had any, so that taste memory is out of date). It’s weird that it’s served without ice, though it has a nice body, like strong tea.

Drinking more slowly, there’s nice bitter notes underneath, though I don’t know what they taste like–probably cinchona? It’s not as overwhelming as when I had cinchona tincture straight that one time. It might mostly be the Aperol, come to think of it; I keep thinking “vegetal? rhubarb?” though definitely it’s not vegetal nor rhubarb, and those are my incorrect associations with aperol.

It’s not too sweet overall; there’s a bit of sweet and a lot of smooth. There’s some smoke, too. I know I had a mezcal drink in the last week where there was just way too much at 1⁄2oz, so it’s funny that this drink feels so much less smoky at 1oz.

We subbed the bitters called for with Aztec chocolate bitters, and I wonder how different it would be with the spec’d ones. Sampling them on their own, the Aztec chocolate bitters were kinda sweet. Given that there’s just two dashes in each drink, it feels like the contribution from the bitters is more the warm red-brown flavor at the finish.

Very refreshing to have after we made a bunch of sugary-sugary buckeyes; the lack of ice is growing on me.

Oh yeah i totally forgot that there was St. Germain in here. We hadn’t cracked that bottle open in, I don’t know, months? a year? I can taste it more on my breath than I can in the drink itself, but I guess that’s where much of the sugar is coming from.

Recipe

• 1 oz Yuu Baal Espadin Mezcal
• 1 oz Byrrh Grand Quinquina
• 1⁄2 oz Aperol
• 1⁄2 oz St. Germain
• 2 dash Bittermens Mole Bitters

Source: Frederic Yarm (Cocktail virgin slut)