Trinidad Sour
It’s easy to fall into a rut.
Ruts are comforting. They provide predictability and structure in a chaotic world with too many unwelcome surprises.
So it’s easy — for me, at any rate — to fall back on simple utility cocktails, made from three ingredients; four if you count ice. Some sort of spirit, something sour, and something sweet — this is the basic structure of a daiquiri, a gimlet, a margarita or a sour.
But a rut — no matter how comforting — can close you off from new possibilities. In this case, the mind-expanding novelty is using Angostura bitters as the main alcohol. Normally bitters are used — extremely sparingly — bring a bitter flavor to help balance out an otherwise sweet drink. Most of them, though, are suspended in a base that averages around 45 percent alcohol, or 90 proof. So, there is no reason why you couldn’t drink them in more substantial amounts.
1½ ounces Angostura bitters – you will probably want to use a knife to pry off the plastic cap that limits you to a dash of bitters at a time, or you’ll spend the next 15 minutes shaking your wrist to fill a jigger
½ ounce rye whiskey
¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 ounce orgeat – this is a sweet almond syrup, usually used in tropical drink; here it is used to balance out the bitter herbiness from the bitters
Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker.
Shake it. At this point, you know how to do this.
Strain into a coupé or Nick & Nora glass.
Ask your digital assistant to play “Pressure Drop” by Toots and the Maytals.
Spend the next two and a half cocktails trying to identify what it is you’re tasting.
Probably the least useful word to describe this particular drink is “delicious.” It is actually delicious in fact — that’s not the issue. There’s a sweet, sherry-like, almost raisiny flavor that isn’t actually all that much like raisins or sherry. There’s a sweetness in the front end, but a bitter aftertaste that is nothing like dark chocolate or anything else you would call “bittersweet.” There are herbal notes from the Angostura — but not mint or rosemary, or any herb that you’re probably familiar with. You can try reading the label, but the Angostura Co. has kept their ingredients secret for over 200 years with the kind of secrecy usually reserved for nuclear codes.
So what are we left with?
Bittersweet fruitiness with herbs and the tiniest bit of rye in the background. This is the kind of cocktail you would drink with — OK, I don’t know what the day-to-day life of a monastic abbot is, but if he gets any vacation time and were to take a holiday in the Caribbean, this is what he would drink, wearing sandals, and a tropical shirt covered with pictures of little monks on it.
He would have checked into the hotel under the name Costello — a tiny, private joke that would make him smile to himself. The staff would greet him with fondness, and he would greet them by name in return.
At the bar by the pool, the bar manager would tap the young woman on duty on the shoulder and send her to wait on other customers, while he would mix this cocktail without needing to be told.
“Long flight?” he’d ask the abbot. “You look like you could use this.”
“Bless you, Leo,” the abbot would say, with a look of relieved fondness on his face. “You, sir, are a saint.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Leo would say.
