We decided to continue our pineapple trend by picking the first drink with pineapple rum that looked good.
Tasting Notes
Rory: It’s Suze forward! It’s nice! I think it needs some balancing, but only a touch.
The Strega is definitely present, but I can’t attribute any notes to it. The pineapple rum brings more scent than flavor - there’s a pineapple in the room, and I’ve been handling it, but i’m not eating a pineapple.
I think the Suze and Strega bring enough bitterness to balance out the sweet that the quarter-ounce of lime is enough, which is a nice change from how things are often balanced with acid.
I think the Suze (and Strega, to a much lesser extent) is maybe a little overly-strong? it’s not quite right. I’ll happily drink Suze by itself, so I guess I don’t feel a need to have such a Suze-forward drink.
The other flavors are becoming more present halfway through, now that my ability to taste Suze has been overwhelmed.
Ryan had the idea to add some saline at the halfway-to-last-third mark, so one drop has been stirred into each drink … I think it brings out the Pineapple and Strega more than the Suze at this junction? Everything’s a little softer, melded, mellow.
Aaaaand it’s gone.
Ryan: The suze dominates a lot here, and it does make me wonder a bit that the pineapple rum is lost somewhat by playing a mere supporting note. The drink is pleasantly bitter, with lots of herbal notes, and there’s definitely a fruity component in there, so the pineapple rum is doing something–playing up the more fruity notes in the suze? I think it does want a slightly different balance, however… The suze is so far ahead of the other components, at least with the initial sip.
After letting it sit for a bit, the suze dominates somewhat less, and the pineapple shows through just a touch more. The rest of the drink remains similarly balanced. I still think I’d tamp it down a litle bit. After thinking about it a little bit, we decided to add a drop of saline to each (approximately half empty) drink. That seems to have done the trick in tamping down the bitter and bringing out just a bit of fruit.
Recipe
- 2 oz Plantation Stiggin’s' Fancy Pineapple rum
- 3⁄4 oz Strega
- 1 oz Suze
- 1⁄4 oz Lime juice
After the fact, we added one drop of (1:4 salt:water) saline to each half empty drink. I’d probably do 2-3 drops in the full drink.
Source: Kindred Cocktails