We saw a Jungle Bird riff with suze, and tweaked it a bit to our tastes
Tasting Notes
Rory: It’s a good idea; refreshing, light. A little sweet and a little strong on the gentian. I think it maybe does want to turn the suze down a quarter oz? Maybe, additionally, less demerara syrup / pineapple juice. On the other hand, a jungle bird is very campari, so maybe the hella gentian is fine, teleologically speaking. The aggressive gentian is getting toned down, so maybe i’m wrong there. It’s a third or so gone already.
It’s not a super exciting drink, but it’s like the fourth time we’ve used suze in a week. I like it too much still to let go, but also my tastes are still so narrow, so all the things we’ve made have been in some sense samey.
The denizen 3 year has kinda disappeared; I’m not sure it was the right choice, but again, teleologically, it wasn’t supposed to be at the front.
I’ve written all this and it makes it sound like i’m not a fan of the drink, but I like it a lot. It’s almost all gone and I’m sad about that-aaaand it’s gone. I feel pretty sure that we’re going to have it again at some point, though we’ll wait a bit.
I see a couple of directions to go. Swap the rum? Increase the rum? Drop the pineapple a bit? Drop the syrup a bit? Drop the suze a bit? Up the lime juice?
Ryan: Initially, very Suze forward and, despite the bitterness, a bit on the sweet side. Initially my take is that it’s not quite right because of that–I suggest more lime, Rory says perhaps a bit less Suze. But on the other hand, the Jungle Bird is pretty strong on the campari, so perhaps this is actually the right balance?
Shannon Mustipher has a riff that swaps the pineapple for soursop juice, which we tried to get from a Jamaican corner store today, but they didn’t have any. We still wanted a riff along the same lines, but were hesitant to go with funky rum. I do wonder that a small amount of overproof unaged Jamaican rum would still do well here? The funky note plus the bitter sounds really interesting.
As the drink warms up a bit, the suze fades out just a touch, though it’s still definitely the dominant component. The bite of the pineapple shows up a bit more, and the sweetness seems to fade out just a little bit.
Recipe
- 1 1⁄2 oz denizen aged white rum
- 2 oz pineapple juice
- 1 oz suze
- 1⁄2 oz lime juice
- 1⁄2 oz demerara syrup 2:1
Shake and strain into a collins glass over crushed ice
Source: Based on the Smuggler’s Cove Jungle Bird from Reddit