Pousse Cafe Discussion

[lemon_twist]

It seems it should be possible to customize a pousse cafe to any particular taste profile by using home-infused (and colored) liquors. The harder part is customizing the specific gravities while maintaining the desired flavor. This seems possible by varying the proof, adding cream, simple syrup, or perhaps some glycerin or some such thing.

One point that may sound silly. When one sips on these drinks from a proper glass - does everything mix together, or do you get the flavors in different doses? Or are they all pretty much shots? If you get "waves" of flavor - then I would think the drinks could be relevant to today's cocktail culture. If there appeal is purely visual... then not so much.

(btw - I'm using us the layered drink definition of PC if that's not obvious)

[eje]

Found this amusing passage regarding Pousse-Cafés in the 1948 edition of "Bartender's Guide...by Trader Vic":

Another ass who makes bartenders blow their corks is the show-off who orders fancy drinks–usually when the bar is crowded and the rush is on–just to impress his companions. I almost lost one of my best men one night; it took three guys to hold him when one such nit-wit ordered an eight-color Pousse-Cafe. The bartender sweat bullets getting the damn thing cooked up; spoiled the first two because he couldn’t remember which liqueurs were the heaviest (you get an order for one of the fool things about once every five years), but he finally sent it to the table with pride. It was beautiful, glowing with color. And what did the guy do but display it to his friends and then down it with one gulp like a straight shot! In case there’s anyone who doesn’t know how to drink a Pousse-Cafe, it should be sipped, one color at a time.

[brinza]

My experience with pousse-cafés is limited, but my first attempts at it were seemingly successful. I received a book called "Shooters" for Christmas, which, if nothing, else was chock-full of pretty pictures. I decided that this could be a fun New Year's Eve activity (at home, mind you!) when our friend who always spends New Year's Eve with us came over. Wisely, we realized that if we were going to make these, it should be done before we got down to more serious drinking, otherwise, we'd just be making a mess (and wasting good liquor).

One interesting point of note that I had never seen anywhere else was that this book suggested freezing your liqueurs beforehand which makes them easier to layer. That seemed to help because the process wasn't as difficult as I'd expected it to be.

First we tried the five-layered Pousse-Café (I've seen other recipes for the namesake drink, but this is how it was laid out in this book):

Grenadine

Green Creme de Menthe

Kümmel

Galliano

Brandy

results:

Another one we tried was the Nuclear Fallout. This one is interesting in that it's what you could call an "action" pousse-café. The idea here is to add the most dense liqueur last, so that it falls down through the other layers creating a maelstrom of color.

Raspberry syrup

Maraschino

Yellow Chartreuse

Cointreau

Blue Curaçao

Duck and cover: