A cocktail with no clear target audience? It’s not surprising that Haus Alpenz removed it from the back of the bottle.
Tasting Notes
Rory: Is this some sort of soda for gamer teens in the 00s? mountain dew, but fruit punch flavored? the scent of the charanda is a little funky here, not in a great way, but it’s not interfering with the flavor at all… but what the hell does this taste like? what on earth?
It’s just really weird. It’s really weird in a way that I don’t hate drinking, like I’m not suffering here, but also it’s veering on sickly sweet. I’m drinking mountain dew. (I haven’t had mountain dew in a decade, I guess, so I’m possibly lying.)
Buried deep in in my late 00s nostalgia for syrupy soda, I can taste the red wine base of the Byrrh. The cinchona has died and is undetectable. Nothing stands up to the proportion of St. Germain. Is it failing to make any sense because we subbed charanda for the rhum agricole? I don’t know. There’s some grass.
We’re having a lot of problems finding cocktails with byrrh in them, which is a shame, because I do like it straight. I think? I’m not sure anymore. It’s been open a week, but I’m pretty sure there’s more life left in it.
I’m glad we swapped to a rocks glass rather than up, because I’m pretty sured I would’ve bsod’d to drink this from a coupe. It wouldn’t make any damn sense.
Ryan: This is… odd. It’s definitely is missing something—is it too lemony? too fruity? does the charanda not work as a substitute here? I think that the byrrh is supposed to serve as the bitter note in the drink, but byrrh isn’t bitter enough for that. Maybe my bitter tastebuds have been desensitized by the campari and suze cocktails recently?
it’s not bad or anything! It’s growing on me a bit with a second sip, but not enough to really want to come back to it. Despite having a couple of “complicated” ingredients (charanda, byrrh) it feels like it’s totally lacking depth. It sort of… un-grew on me after that sip, though. Oh well.
Recipe
- 1 oz Byrrh Grand Quinquina
- 1 oz Uruapan Charanda (substituting for rhum agricole)
- 1⁄2 oz St. Germain
- 1⁄2 oz Lemon juice
Shake and strain over a large ice cube in a rocks class. (Original recipe called for serving up, but that didn’t feel right to us)
Source: the back of an old bottle of Byrrh, via Kindred Cocktails