Let’s take a look back and revise… (Green Lantern and Thor, again)

Hello, cocktail fans! It’s been almost a month since my last post, and publishing a megacompilation of cocktail recipes. Of course it’s still available, please feel free to download it from Recipes and downloads.

Two cocktails published in this post are not included in that PDF, but I’m going to update it pretty soon.

Naturally I enjoy my own recipes on regular basis, but somehow I’ve stuck to 30 or so drinks…now I’ve had time to evaluate my past creations, some of which (I’m embarassed to admit) I’ve almost forgotten.

Some were better than I remembered, but unfortunately some (when I taste them now) are pretty sketchy. I’m not going to take anything back: my friends aka. Test Subjects keep reminding me that people have different tastes, there are some published recipes I was ready to abandon but they were saved by them during our countless Tasting Nights.

Anyway, there are two superheroes who deserve another view for their cocktail…

 

GREEN LANTERN (HAL JORDAN)

I was content with my first take on Green Lantern at the time, decent use for overly-sweet Drambuie… but now I find it kind of “almost finished” cocktail recipe. So I give it another try, skipping Drambuie…

4 parts half sweet white wine

2 parts pineapple juice

1 part Pisang Ambon

Build into highball glass, add some ice. I think 40-grams-of-sugar-per-litre wine works best, so you should buy half sweet which is closer to “sweet” than “half dry”.

This is “very easy” summertime drink! Natural acid of wine should be noticeable from under pineapple’s fruitiness. Pisang Ambon should be somewhere there on the backgroung, supporting the alliance of wine and fruit. Feel free to adjust ratios for your own taste.

Actually this would be great summer punch recipe, but I think it’s too strong for that purpose… of course it’s up to each host what kind of party they want to throw…

 

So, we have a perky drink giving a promise of upcoming spring and summer… but there’s still snow here in Finland, se we have to be realistic…

 

THOR (MJOLNIR)

Remember the first Thor post? How I speculated that Thor’s cocktail should be based on some Nordic alcohol… but how aquavit has too strong flavour to be used in cocktail? How it’s probably best to drink as it is, not to mix it with anything?

Well, I decided to do it anyway! 😀 It was a bit of challenge, to appreciate aquavit’s aroma but still succesfully blend it with other alcohols.

4 parts aquavit (Läckö Slotts Aquavit strongly recommended, see below)

1 part red vermouth

1 part Grand Marnier

Stir with ice and strain into small stemmed glass. Enjoy slowly next to roaring fire, when it’s freezing outside.

I tested the recipe with many aquavit brands, including the legendary Skåne Akvavit. This recipe is final compromise, these ratios produce satisfactory result with many aquavit brands… even with Gammal Norrlands Akvavit, which I personally don’t like much (caraway, anise and fennel are traditional aquavit spices, but please keep sherry out of this).

Anyway, I (and Test Subjects) think that even if vermouth and Grand Marnier blend well with caraway used in the most aquavits, you get the best results using dill-flavoured basic component. Somehow dill associates with “salty” (I guess because of dill-flavoured crisps or fish soup with lots of dill, yummy), with sweet vermouth and liqueur the blend is nice.

Any dill-flavoured aquavit is fine (and caraway-based, too), but Läckö Slotts Aquavit is #1 choice in this one. And it’s Organic, if you find value in that (I do).

 

That’s it for now. I’m working on quartet of heroes, gonna publish all of them in one post… it’s not going to be revision of Fantastic Four, so what on earth could it be…? ;P