Sometimes I dream about cocktails in my sleep. I have been known to wake up in the middle of the night with a recipe that I just dreamed about and write it down. Trying to convince myself that it's okay to head to the liquor cabinet at 3 o'clock in the morning usually ends up with me rolling over back into dreamland. That decision is probably due to reasoning of "How can anything in your dreams taste good in real life?"
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| Loretta Young |
I have been on a mission lately to create a new cocktail. Being tired of Bourbon, Scotch or Tequila based drinks, I wanted something that forced me out of my comfort zone. I didn't want any of those ingredients to even be considered. I opened my liquor cabinet and took out everything that wasn't whiskey, vodka, gin, Tequila or rum. I turned on the iPod, cranked up some Audioslave and went to "work". The ingredients in front of me gave me no inspiration. I got distracted a little bit until a song came on called "Revelations". The
lyrics got me thinking. I wanted my new found beverage to be bitter. But, I also wanted to sweetness to it, a sexiness, if you will. To me, there isn't much else out there sexier than sweet vermouth in the alcohol world. With pleasant fruit tones, herbal notes and light residual sugar, it reminds me of vintage movies and sweethearts like Loretta Young and Ava Gardner.
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| Ava Gardner |
After tasting different bitters, amaros and digestifs in the liquor industry Fall trade shows, I decided to give a couple of those flavors a shot (no pun intended). After a few blunders, flops and failures. I finally found some flavors that actually worked well together.
Keeping with my vintage movie starlets theme, I wanted to give my little cocktail a name. It had all the sexiness of these ladies. But, it had a slight bitterness that shined right through...kind of like Brigitte Bardot.
The Brigitte Bardot
2 oz Dolin Sweet Vermouth
1 oz Aperol
Combine the two ingredients in a shaker with ice. Stir until well chilled. Strain in a rocks glass over fresh ice. Enjoy. This cocktail just keeps on getting better and better as the ice melts.
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| Sexy Brigitte |
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| Bitter Brigitte |
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