Fix My Drink

[eje]

I've been drinking my way through Dr. Cocktail's entertaining book, "Vintage Spirits..." with friends and recently tasted the French 75. What a great before dinner cocktail!

When I was recently at Whole Foods here, I noticed they carried Eric Bordelet's Poire Granit pear cider. Since I was going with a pear theme for Valentine's day, I decided to try to make a version of the French 75 with pear cider, pear eau de vie, brandy, and some chambord. I could have used grenadine or just a cherry; but, for some reason I'm fond of Chambord and have been looking for an excuse to buy it for a couple years now.

Recipe was:

jigger brandy (Germain-Robin fine)

1/2 jigger pear eau de vie

1/2 meyer lemon, juiced

1/2 jigger chambord

Shake with ice and strain into champagne flute.

Top with pear cider.

It was OK; but, the tannic elements of the pear cider and brandy came to the fore.

What can I do to make this a better cocktail?

Thanks!

Erik

PS. I first tried Eric Bordelet's Pear Cider in Seattle on my birthday five or six years ago. It is amazing stuff and has stuck in my mind and palate for all that time. I'll take the pear granite over most champagne any day. I'd despaired of ever seeing it again until it appeared shining and glorious between the Blackthorn and Ace on the Whole Foods shelf. Thank you Whole Foods buyers!

[divina]

Perhaps I am missing something.. but doesn't the french 75 have champagne..and sugar syrup???

I think both help take the edge off all the alcohol

[slkinsey]

It's hard to give any advice without tasting, but my initial reaction is that it doesn't have very much in common with a French 75. A French 75 is gin, sugar and lemon juice on ice topped with champagne.

The first step in improving the drink would be to decide whether you think it's a good idea at all. If you think it's worth working on, then you should decide what it is that you don't like about it.

From what I can gather, you didn't like the brandy part. Okay, delete the brandy. Maybe replace it with something else, or just leave it out.

Beyond that it's harder to make any guesses. There's an awful lot going on in your drink. If I were you, one of the first things I'd do is thing about ways to simplify it. Even some of the more complex-sounding drinks can often be reduced to three ingredients. For example, Audrey's Tantris Sidecar has cognac, calvados, Cointreau, lemon juice, simple syrup, pineapple juice and Green Chartreuse. Seems complicated. But when you break the drink down, it's just a three ingredient drink: the cognac and calvados combine to be a sort of apple-brandy (that's 1), the Cointreau, Chartreuse and simple syrup combine to be a sort of herbaceous orange liqueur (that's 2) and the lemon and pineapple juices combine to be a slightly different flavored lemon juice (that's 3). Of course, the composite flavors she created for each one of the three constituents work both by themselves and in combination, and that's important.

With your drink, it's not clear from reading it where the flavors are supposed to be going. In my own practice -- and in full recognition of my own limitations in this regard -- I rarely use more than three flavors when trying to come up with a new drink. Fewer flavors means it's easier to make adjustments. Some day I'd like to do a roundtable discussion with a few cocktail pros about methods of approach for creating new cocktails and turn it into an eGCI class.

One question I have is why you're using the pear eau de vie. I would think that the flavor of the pear cider would completely obscure any contribution of the eau de vie. Also, adding pear flavor to pear flavor doesn't seem all that interesting. Not quite sure how the raspberry flavor of Chambord is worked in either.

What would you want to change about it?

[eje]

Perhaps I am missing something.. but doesn't the french 75 have champagne..and sugar syrup???

I think both help take the edge off all the alcohol

←

Mr Bordelet's delicious sparkling Pear Cider was playing the Champagne in this version and I was counting on the Chambord for sweetness.

[eje]

The first step in improving the drink would be to decide whether you think it's a good idea at all.  If you think it's worth working on, then you should decide what it is that you don't like about it.

...

What would you want to change about it?

←

Thanks for your thoughts, Samuel!

Chambord was for valentine's day pink, mostly!

I think my main mistake was in letting the drink be composed by outside factors instead of from my palate.

In any case, I agree the drinks flavors were too complex and also that the chambord detracted from the overall direction.

Another thought is that that particular pear cider is too complex and tannic to play well as a component in a cocktail.

I was looking for something that fit in with the pear theme of the dinner and would function, like a French 75, as a light somewhat dry before dinner aperitif.

[fauxtarga]

I believe that WD-50 does a riff on this with something called a Sevilla 75 that has spanish brandy, cava, and lemon.

[spiritchild]

I am new here but often eavesdrop on the goings on of this board and have only recently worked up the courage to participate.

I once concocted a drink that was a a distant relative to the French 75.

I used cognac, pineapple juice, fresh lemon juice, simple syrup and topped it with champagne. The champagne composed about 1/3 of the drink. I served it on ice. It was quite nice.

[eje]

This version was pretty darn tasty. Only took me a year and a half to come up with a decent one. Seems like I poached at least part of this idea from some bar or restaurant I've eaten at in the last year. Custom House in Chicago, maybe? In any case, this is a fine refreshing cider cocktail for Indian Summer.

Cider Cocktail for 2

-or-

Tra La La Turns 16

1/2 inch peeled ginger root thinly sliced

1/4 lemon

2 teaspoon rich simple syrup

2 oz Apple Brandy (laird's bonded)

lemon peel

Dry French Style Cider (Eric Bordelet Poire Authentique Cider)

Muddle ginger root, lemon, and simple syrup in a cocktail shaker. Add Apple Brandy, ice and shake to chill. Strain (recommend double straining to catch any stray ginger bits) into 2 champagne flutes. Twist (flame if you're up for it) lemon peel over the top and drop in. Top with dry, french style pear or apple cider.

edit - forgot my wife came up with a name for this cocktail.

Edited October 23, 2006 by eje (log)