145 replies to this topic

[weinoo]

Way cool - I'd drink any of John's suggestions - and have!

[Chris Amirault]

It would seem that turning back to the Savoy, Patrick Gavin Duffy, et al would be the thing to do, so as to get the benefit of pre-1978 ratios. Yes? No?

And save Wondrich, do others have old bottles of this stuff?

[eje]

Crap!

So those bottles were there at Gasbarro's when I was there 2 years ago?

Sigh.

I suggest, from the Savoy Cocktail Book:

Creole Cocktail

1/2 Rye or Canadian Club Whisky.
1/2 Italian Vermouth.
2 Dashes Benedictine.
2 Dashes Amer Picon.

Stir well and strain into cocktail glass. Twist lemon peel on top.

Yeah, ignore Canadians and use a decent vermouth.

Please take a picture and post when we get to the Creole Cocktail the Savoy topic.

[JAZ]

Damn you, Chris!

If I were you, I'd immediately make a Picon Punch, but that's because I used to drink them occasionally at my old neighborhood bar, which had a stash of the old stuff (little did I know at the time how rare it was).

Coat a collins glass with grenadine, fill with ice. Add a couple ounces of Picon and top with soda. Float a little brandy on top and serve with a lemon twist.

[bostonapothecary]

Damn you, Chris!

If I were you, I'd immediately make a Picon Punch, but that's because I used to drink them occasionally at my old neighborhood bar, which had a stash of the old stuff (little did I know at the time how rare it was).

Coat a collins glass with grenadine, fill with ice. Add a couple ounces of Picon and top with soda. Float a little brandy on top and serve with a lemon twist.

don't do anything until next years tour de france or you will jinx us all....
root for euskaltel euskadi, drink picon, and be merry.... next year we will take the yellow jersey....

[scratchline]

This is an old tax-strip bottle (4/5 qt.) of the 78 proof Picon. We found it in a dusty liquor store in California, and brought it to its current happy home in NYC. Wish we had more...

Mike & Jenny

[eas]

my bottle is much the same as the one in the immediate prior post. the taste is definately different than the current picon

[TBoner]

Found some current (actually, early 1990s) Picon today here in TX. $10/L. I bought it, even if it is only 42 proof. It'll give me at least some point of reference when my replica recipe of the old stuff is finished.

I tried a Brooklyn today with Overholt, Vya dry, Luxardo, and the Picon. Very good drink, and I can't wait for the replica to be ready. Alas, two more months!

[Chris Amirault]

I had a little something to celebrate tonight, so I decided that it was time to break out the Amer Picon and a back-of-the-cabinet bottle I hadn't used in a cocktail before.



Liberal Cocktail from cocktaildb: 1 1/2 oz rye (Sazerac 18 Years Old 2006)
1/2 oz sweet vermouth (Punt e Mes)
1/4 oz Amer Picon
1 dash orange bitters (Regans' Orange Bitters No 6)
orange twist
Splendid.

[bostonapothecary]

Liberal Cocktail from cocktaildb: 1 1/2 oz rye (Sazerac 18 Years Old 2006)
1/2 oz sweet vermouth (Punt e Mes)
1/4 oz Amer Picon
1 dash orange bitters (Regans' Orange Bitters No 6)
orange twist

Splendid.

i have had that drink and it is delicious... i am wondering if the sugar contents on the amer picon changed at all when the proofs changed... maybe someone with an old bottle and a refractometer can help us out...?

[KatieLoeb]

Chris:

You suck. I'm beyond envious. That looks delicious.

Amer Torani is coming to PA in two weeks. I can hardly wait. There have been some clandestine trades of not-on-the-shelves liquors and aperitifs of late amongst the Philly bartending cognoscenti. I swapped a small bottle of Aperol for some "suitcase import" Amer Torani about a week ago. I should have some time to play with it at home tomorrow evening. Looks like a Brooklyn in my near future...

Edited by KatieLoeb, 04 September 2007 - 12:07 AM.

[Chris Amirault]

I wanted to try something a bit less complicated, and snooping around cocktaildb I found The New Deal Cocktail #2, a built cocktail with a 3:1 bourbon or rye to Amer Picon ratio, sugar, and an orange peel. Sticking more or less to those ratios, I put together this (Not So) New Deal Cocktail #2b:

1 1/2 oz rye (Rittenhouse 100)
1/2 oz Amer Picon
scant 1/2 oz demerara simple syrup
dash orange bitters (Fee's for the nose; I'm out of oranges)
Stir, strain.

It's really wonderful; getting the Punt e Mes out of the way helps bring out the Amer Picon. It's making me think also that a scotch-based drink might be intriguing, a version of The Bairn with AP instead of orange bitters....

[eje]

Adapting Jamie Boudreau's Amer Picon recipe...

7 oz vodka
1 orange
10 oz Ramzzotti Amaro
2 oz Stirring's Blood Orange Bitters
1 drop orange oil

Microplane the zest of 1 orange into the vodka. Let stand a few minutes. Filter through 4 layers of cheese cloth into a clean bottle, squeezing out as much liquid as possible.

Pour Ramzotti Amaro through cheese cloth and orange zest, again squeezing out as much liquid as possible.

Add Blood Orange bitters and orange oil.

Mix.

I like it better than the Torani Amer. It seems to have more spice notes and be a bit more complex than the modern Amer Picon that I've tasted recently.

Make Creole Cocktail (above).

Juice orange and drink juice for Vitamin C or make 4 Bronx cocktails.

[weinoo]

I had a little something to celebrate tonight, so I decided that it was time to break out the Amer Picon and a back-of-the-cabinet bottle I hadn't used in a cocktail before.



Liberal Cocktail from cocktaildb: 1 1/2 oz rye (Sazerac 18 Years Old 2006)
1/2 oz sweet vermouth (Punt e Mes)
1/4 oz Amer Picon
1 dash orange bitters (Regans' Orange Bitters No 6)
orange twist

Splendid.

Nice looking drink, Chris!

[eje]

It was interesting to me to try the Creole cocktail and Liberal side by side with the same ingredients.

I actually preferred the slightly simpler Liberal to the busier Creole.

Though, oops, it looks like I screwed up the proportions of the Liberal slightly...

1 1/2 oz Sazerac Straight Rye
3/4 oz Cinzano Rosso Vermouth
1/4 oz homemade Amer Picon
dash regan's orange bitters

stir, strain...

[David Santucci]

Anybody else follow Splificator's advice and try Amaro Ciociaro as an Amer Picon substitute? I picked up a bottle and have really enjoyed all the recipes I've tried (Brooklyn, Picon Punch, Liberal), but I've never had the real thing. Or the current version. Or the replica. Would be curious about other people's impressions.

[bostonapothecary]

Anybody else follow Splificator's advice and try Amaro Ciociaro as an Amer Picon substitute? I picked up a bottle and have really enjoyed all the recipes I've tried (Brooklyn, Picon Punch, Liberal), but I've never had the real thing. Or the current version. Or the replica. Would be curious about other people's impressions.

wow, never heard of it... will look out for it. i like me a good amaro. my collection has grown quite large.

a life spent looking for perfect blossoms is not a wasted life.

[TBoner]

Never had that amaro, but I've certainly looked around here. I have a replica recipe going and snagged a liter of the current stuff a couple of weeks ago. I'd like to have some of the original to taste, but I doubt much of it ever made it to TX, let alone survived this long.

[David Santucci]

wow, never heard of it...

Here is Splificator's post on the subject.

Here is a picture of the bottle.

[eje]

I have yet to find the Amaro Ciociaro in Northern California.

The fine folks at LeNell's tell me they're hoping to have it back in stock next week.

[eje]

A online acquaintance and Amer Picon enthusiast informed me that he is finally getting some "bites" from Diageo regarding Amer Picon.

He suggested a few more inquiries and friendly nudges from the cocktail community, might tip them in the direction of returning the product to world wide distribution (and maybe its original formulation.)

If you've got some free time...

[bostonapothecary]

A online acquaintance and Amer Picon enthusiast informed me that he is finally getting some "bites" from Diageo regarding Amer Picon.

He suggested a few more inquiries and friendly nudges from the cocktail community, might tip them in the direction of returning the product to world wide distribution (and maybe its original formulation.)

If you've got some free time...

i have yet to track down lazio's "cio ciaro" but i want ot go by cirace in the north end tomarrow and see if they have it... i've heard it described at "root beer" like in character maybe from sasparilla? that might not be like amer picon but that sounds pretty cool. some of the italian amaros may not be classic as immortalized in famous books, but they are available now, fit into classic ratios, and offer stunning surprises...

i give my enthusiastic recommendation to the underdogs cynar and ramazotti

[slkinsey]

...i have yet to track down lazio's "cio ciaro" ...

I don't know if it is a typo, but there is no space between cio and ciaro -- although I can understand how one might think there is a space considering that that it is capitalized as CioCiaro on the bottle. (I swear there is more to this post than nitpicking spelling.) The reason this struck me as odd is that Amaro CioCiaro is named after a small sub-sub-region in the Southwest of Lazio called Ciociaria and I can't think of why they would capitalize it that way (except maybe because it looks cool?). A person from this region would be called a Ciociaro, which is also the name of the local dialect and would further (as in the the case of the amaro) describe something coming from that region. This name is probably derived from ciòcia (from Latin soccus, which gave us "sock"), which I can best describe as traditional footware of shepherds comprised of a leather slipper bound to the foot with leather straps which are further wound up the legs. Hard to describe, but you would recognize them if you saw them. Anyway, I thought that was an interesting bit of trivia about Amaro Ciociaro that was brought to my mind by the capitalization.

[kvltrede]

I have yet to find the Amaro Ciociaro in Northern California....

Amaro Ciociaro can be found at Vas Foremost on Milwaukee Ave in Chicago (as can the rare-in-Chi Hamm's beer!).

2300 N Milwaukee Ave
Chicago, IL 60647
(773) 278-9420

Foremost has stores all over Chicago but I dunno how many of them carry the Amaro Ciociaro. I live near this one and I'm happy to recommend it but I like the one on Ashland Ave. a little more. Both have some surprising things on the shelves and their prices are hard to beat.

No affiliation, etc.....

Kurt

[scratchline]

Here are a couple more bottles of Picon.



Pre-metric tax-strip 3/4th quarts bottled in Lawrenceville, NJ unlike our previous bottles that are from NY. As you can see in the pics, the labels are badly faded, but the contents taste great. This is the 78 proof formula and probably dates from the 60's some time. Never expected to find more of this, but now we can start mixing it more freely.

Re the CioCiaro: we like it. Doesn't taste like root beer to us. Good substitute for Picon, but lacks the bitterness. Available at several stores in Brooklyn, we picked ours up at Smith & Vine.

-Mike and Jenny

[eje]

scratchline,

Wow, jealous of your finds!

So would you say that you need to add bitters to cocktails made with Amaro CioCiaro to get them closer to how they would be with Amer Picon?

[scratchline]

Definitely, Eje. Next week when I'm off work, I'll sit down and pull out the orange bitters and give it a try, but I think the CiaCiaro with a healthy dose of orange bitters should bring it very close to the Picon.

-Mike

[johnder]

Definitely, Eje.  Next week when I'm off work, I'll sit down and pull out the orange bitters and give it a try, but I think the CiaCiaro with a healthy dose of orange bitters should bring it very close to the Picon.

-Mike

CiaCiaro + Angostura Orange + a Neutral Grain Spirit (to thin it down and increase the proof) give a pretty amazing Picon recplica.

[scratchline]

So where can I get the Angostura Orange?

-Mike

[eje]

Ha, scratchline! That's exactly what I was going to point out to johnder!

Kind of defeats the purpose of replicating one unavailable orange bitter if you have to find another unavailable one!

Fortunately, over on DrinkBoy, Robert Hess posted the following update from Patrick Sepe, CEO for Angostura USA:

We have patiently awaited label and FDA approval based on the alcoholic content, we hope to receive the first container in early November.  I average about 250-270 emails weekly looking for the product as well as phone calls.  I will let you know as soon as it hits the U.S.

Hopefully soon!