New Cocktails: the Broken Bicycle

One of Jeffrey Morgenthaler's many contributions to modern bartending has been the reintroduction of batch cocktails. Beginning with barrel aged cocktails, he later moved on to carbonated, bottled cocktails. All of these have the benefit of both creating new flavors and drinking experiences while also improving bar service.

One of the drinks to come out of these effects is the Broken Bike, a modification of the Italian Bicicletta, a drink composed of Campari, white wine, and sparkling water. This trades out the Campari for Cynar and carbonates the whole drink.

The only downside is that it is designed as a batch cocktail, so it's a bit hard to do if you only want a single drink. So I scaled down the ingredients and replaced the white wine with prosecco to give it a bit more fix without having to use a CO2 charger.

Broken Bicycle

1.33 oz Cynar
1.75 oz sparkling wine
2.5 oz sparkling water

Build over ice in a chilled rocks glass. Add a thick strip of lemon peel, then briefly stir to combine.

The nose is relatively restrained and dominated by the lemon peel. The sip largely bounces back and forth between the savory notes of Cynar and the brighter vinous notes of the prosecco, with a bit of extra snap and dryness being provided by the soda water. The finish is dominated by the Cynar, leaving a gentle but persistent bitterness.

This is very much a classic aperitif drink, being light enough to drink without becoming intoxicated and bitter enough to stimulate the palate without completely obliterating the taste buds. I first tried the Broken Bike at Clyde Common and have been wanting to make more ever since. I foresee many of them in my future.

New Cocktails: Tres Jolie

One of my favorite cocktail trends in recent years is the growth of low alcohol drinks that use aromatized or fortified wines as their base. With a growing number of options (thanks in no small part to Eric Seed's obsession), there's is now a broad palate to work with, a far cry from the basic sweet or dry vermouth that were just about it at the turn of the millennium.

This drink comes from The Modern in NYC, which produced a number of low alcohol drinks for their menu.

Tres Jolie

2 oz dry vermouth
1 oz quina (Punt e Mes)
0.5 oz orange liqueur
2 dashes orange bitters

Combine all ingredients, stir with ice for 15 seconds, then strain into a chilled coupe and garnish with lemon or orange peel.

The nose is a nice balance of the two wines, orange notes from the liqueur and bitters, plus citrus oils from the garnish. The sip begins with grape sweetness, picking up orange notes around the middle, then sliding into citrus and savory bitterness near the back.

This is a really good choice if you want a drink with solid flavor density but not too much of an alcoholic punch. The liqueur and quina perfectly balance the dry vermouth so that the resulting drink is neither too sweet nor too bitter.

I also think this could be constructed as a long drink over ice with soda water to give it a bit more snap and push it even further towards being a session drink. Either way, it's perfect for a warm spring or summer afternoon.

New Cocktails: the Romanza

This drink comes from Jacques Bezuidenhout at Pesce restaurant in San Francisco, which appears to have first been recorded by Gaz Regan a decade ago.

More recently I had a number of them at the Liberty Glass bar in Portland, which made for a very pleasant evening. Because I enjoyed it so much, I knew this was a drink I had to figure out how to make at home. While the recipes I've seen online have precise measurements, the ones I had at Liberty Bar were free poured and seemed to work out rather well, so that's how I made them myself.

Romanza
1 part Campari
1 part orange liqueur
1 part grapefruit juice
1 part soda water

Build over ice in a chilled rocks glass, then stir briefly to combine ingredients.

It's hard to get much of a nose with all the ice, but it's mostly the grapefruit talking. The sip begins bittersweetly, with the orange liqueur and grapefruit balancing each other, while the Campari brings the bitter bass near the back.

This is a case where you really want an orange liqueur with a characterful base. Most of the recipes I've seen suggest Grand Marnier, which has a brandy base. I quite like it with the rhum agricole-based Clément Creole Shrubb. Even better, make your own. But an orange liqueur with a neutral base like Cointreau or even Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao isn't going to cut it here.

But no matter how you make it, this is an almost perfect warm weather cooler. The Campari and grapefruit give it some snap while the orange liqueur smooths out the more assertive elements. This is right up there with the Americano and other classic session drinks for me.

Aperitif Review: Byrrh Grand Quinquina

Byrrh is a French aperitif wine that is made bitter by the addition of chinchoa bark, which also gives tonic water its bitterness. It is made from a mixture of mistelle (similar to port - partially fermented wines from Carignan and Grenache grapes with neutral spirit added to halt fermentation and retain sugars) and dry red Roussillon wines. This mixture is flavored with chinchona and then aged for at least three years in large wooden vats.

As with many aromatized wines, this one began as a purported health tonic. Two brothers created it in the region of Thuir in southern France in 1866. It went on to significant success, becoming one of the most popular aperitifs in early 20th-century France. Its star faded somewhat during the second half of the century, more or less disappearing from the States. But with the uptick in interest in pre-Prohibition cocktail ingredients during this century, it was brought back to this side of the Atlantic by Eric Seed.

Byrrh

Nose: raisins, fresh grapes and apples, raspberries, light oak, rhubarb,

Taste: grape, apple, and raspberry sweetness up front, fading into a berry tang, light oak tannins, and cacao/chinchona bitterness

Finish: dry but light chinchona bitterness, berry residue

While not a particularly complex aperitif, Byrrh is one of the few that I enjoy all by itself. While it is often served with a splash of soda, it is perfectly good neat as neither the sweetness nor the bitterness are overwhelming. This makes is a fairly good introduction to the category, though it won't disappoint the seasoned drinker.

Le Negociant
1 oz Byrrh
1 oz rhum agricole
0.5 oz St. Germain
0.5 oz lemon juice

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The nose is dominated by the rhum's grassy notes, with some of the fruit and floral elements of the Byrrh and St. Germain peeking around the edges. The sip begins with subdued sweetness, as the liqueur and Byrrh battle against the grassy bitterness of the rhum, which gives way to lemon pith and chinchona near the back.

In some respects, this isn't the best display of Byrrh as the wine takes a supporting rather than a leading role, but it is a very good drink. You might be able to highlight it a bit more by using a softer rhum like Clément Première Canne, but I like the bigger punch that La Favorite Blanc provides.