Tiki Classics: the Captain's Grog

This drink comes from the Hukilau Room of the Captain's Inn in Long Beach, CA, sometime around 1962.  For a glimpse at the bar's 1961 menu, check out Arkiva Tropika's archive.

Captain's Grog (modified from Remixed)


1 oz dark Jamaican rum
1 oz light Puerto Rican rum
1 oz gold Puerto Rican rum
0.5 oz lime juice
0.5 oz grapefruit juice
0.5 oz maple syrup
0.5 oz falernum
0.5 oz orange liqueur
3 drops vanilla extract
3 drops almond extract
1 oz soda water

Combine all ingredients except for soda water, shake with ice then strain into a chilled double rocks glass and top with soda water, then stir briefly. An ice cone is a nice touch and will help to keep the drink cold.

Since this is such a rich drink, I lean towards something like Appleton 12 Year for the dark Jamaican rum. It still has that distinctive dunder funk note, but also brings a lot of rich molasses and oak flavor to the drink without being as assertive as, say, Coruba Dark. For the gold Puerto Rican rum, something like Ron Abuelo 7 Años, Bacardi 8 Años or Flor de Caña 7 Year would all be good, not terribly expensive choices. While the recipe calls for grade A maple syrup, I'd lean towards the more flavorful grade B, as it integrates nicely with the falernum. Speaking of which, this is a situation where you want to use an alcoholic falernum, like Blair's Dark Falernum, rather than a falernum syrup, which will make the drink too sweet. Lastly, be careful with the vanilla and almond extracts. Anything more than the called for drops will overwhelm the delicate balance of the drink.

The sip leads off smoothly with sweetness from the maple syrup and liqueurs, leading into a touch of sourness from the lime juice and spice from the falernum, followed by the dunder funk of the Jamaican rum and finishing smoothly with mild sweetness. Overall this is a very nicely integrated drink given the plethora of flavors going into it. With that said, I'm glad to have tweaked it because even with the bump in volume for the three rums, they aren't exactly pushing themselves to the front. However, you might want to make sure that you don't have anywhere else to be for a little while after having one of these.

Whisky Review: Arran Sherry Single Cask #391

This is another whisky from the Isle of Arran distillery. While the previous offerings I reviewed were standard age dated bottlings of whisky from both ex-bourbon and ex-sherry casks, this one is a single cask whisky aged exclusively in an ex-sherry cask. My bottle comes from cask #391 which was distilled on 3/19/97 and bottled on 6/16/08 at its full cask strength of 55.4% ABV. Though I was able to get in touch with the distillery, they weren't able to tell me whether this one came from a first fill or refill sherry cask. Sadly it seems that the info got lost somewhere in the intervening years. Given that it was distilled only a couple of years after they opened their doors, I can't begrudge them a few slip ups.

Arran Sherry Single Cask #391


Nose: big milk chocolate, Oloroso sherry, raisins, brown sugar, maple syrup, rum, chili pepper, malt, floral perfume, a healthy slug of vanilla. After adding a bit of water it becomes maltier and more bourbon-like with a hint of cinnamon

Taste: honey, brown sugar and sweet milk chocolate tinged with chili pepper up front, which becomes drier and slightly more bitter chocolate with sherry mid-palate, leading into a huge explosion of chili pepper

Finish: sweet chili pepper, malt, sherry, and bittersweet chocolate

As I mentioned above, I wasn't able to find out definitively whether this was from a first fill or a refill cask, but my guess is that it was a refill, maybe even third fill, cask. The nose reminds me a bit of Aberlour's double cask whisky, both in terms of the malty floral perfume notes in the nose and, more importantly, in that the sherry is a obvious presence, but doesn't overwhelm the whisky. This is still distinctively Arran.

The flavors in this whisky are simply immense. Everything is cranked up to 11. While definitely a sweet whisky, the explosion of pepper near the back of the mouth keeps it from being unidimensional and reminds me a lot of Mayan mousse (chili pepper dusted chocolate). The chili pepper flavor actually confused me initially because it was so strong that I thought it was just the high-proof of the spirit coming through and burning my mouth. Not a bit of it, as this whisky is actually shockingly smooth for all its burley character.

This whisky is an interesting contrast to some of the Speyside cask strength sherry bombs I've had before. As I mentioned above, the sherry influence on this Arran is less in your face. My guess is that the Speysiders contain a significant amount of whisky that is aged in first-fill ex-sherry casks, which means that the sherry influence on those whiskies is much more assertive. This makes me interested in trying Arran's Premium Sherry Cask whisky, which is aged in first-fill casks, for some good ol' compare and contrast.

I would highly encourage you to seek out Arran Sherry Single Cask. As single barrel releases, they're obviously going to vary from cask to cask, so the smells and flavors might not be exactly the same as what I reported above. Additionally, they were all limited release and are getting a bit tricky to find, but are well worth it if you can put your hands on a bottle.

The PDT Cocktail Book

I picked up a copy of the PDT Cocktail Book a few months back as a sort of late Christmas present. While I was initially pulled in by the excellent design, I've found it to be generally well written and to contain quite a lot of good drink recipes.

PDT (Please Don't Tell) is a faux-speakeasy bar in New York City. It is accessed by entering a phone booth at the back of Crif Dogs and dialing the appropriate number, which causes the door to open. I'm sufficiently plebeian to find the idea of a bar that semi-intentionally hides itself to be a little off-putting, but I will admit that they've put out a rather nice book for use at the less exclusive place I like to call home.

The book is written by Jim Meehan, one of the bartenders at PDT, and illustrated by Chris Gall. The book opens with a set of suggestions for setting up a bar, ranging from design to equipment and supplies. There's a fairly strong slant towards professionals rather than the home bar, but much of the information is still applicable. The recipes are laid out in a standard alphabetical fashion, interspersed with recipes for any specialized ingredients (infusions, syrups, etc.). There's also an index in the back that lists all of the drinks by base spirit. Near the end there are sections with suggestions for varieties of spirits, liqueurs and other ingredients, a section talking about how to build seasonal cocktail menus, and finally a list of other books that will be useful to an aspiring bartender.

Overall I think this book is a reasonably good value for money. It's not the first book I would suggest to someone looking to set up a home bar (The Joy of Mixology wins hands down), but for those with a handle on the basics, the selection of recipes is broad and doesn't too often require fussy home made ingredients. One of my main quibbles with publications like Imbibe is that a too-large percentage of their recipes require making infusions or syrups that may not have a significant amount of utility except in that one drink, which is fine for a bar, but less useful at home. The PDT Cocktail Book does ask for some of them, but the percentage of recipes requiring that is fairly low.

And just to give you a taste of the kinds of drinks contained in this book:

Harvest Sling (by John Deragon)
1.5 oz Laird's Bonded Apple Brandy
0.5 oz sweet vermouth
0.5 oz Bénédictine
0.5 oz Cherry Heering
0.5 oz lemon juice
0.5 oz ginger beer

Combine all ingredients, shake with ice and pour unstrained into a chilled rocks glass.

This is a deliciously complex drink, evolving in stages across the mouth. The initial sip is only slightly sweet, with the liqueurs gaining force towards mid-palate, along with a hint of fresh apple flavor. The herbal notes of the Bénédictine come in strongly, leading smoothly into the finish. The finish is a wonderful melange of the sweet vermouth's bitter wine notes coupled with dark, dry cherry from the Heering and the oaky apple of the applejack. With time and dilution the bitter notes of the vermouth become somewhat more subdued, giving way to the applejack. A certain nuttiness also appears, which, when combined with the wine flavors of the sweet vermouth, remind me a lot of a good oloroso sherry. Overall this is a taste roller coaster.

Whisky Review: Highland Park 15 Year and Grant's Blended Scotch

Another set of provisional reviews, this time from a trip to the best scotch whisky bar in the Portland area, the Highland Stillhouse.

Highland Park 15

Nose: good Oloroso sherry influence, gentle peat rides under and over the sherry

Taste: more sherry than the 12 year up front, almost liquid raisins, nutty peat near the end, which gains some lovely raspberry chocolate mid-palate after adding a few drops of water

Finish: very light, pepper, slightly bitter peat and a touch of sherry

I had high hopes for this dram, but sadly couldn't dig as much out of it as I was hoping to find. Highland Park 12 is easily one of my favorite whiskies and a few more years in a slightly different mix of barrels seemed like it could produce an interesting product. Instead what I mostly got out of this was Macallan 12 with a layer of peat smoke on top. Not bad, but not terribly exciting either. Admittedly this was a single dram drunk at a bar, so I didn't get to sample it under ideal conditions, but it didn't make me want to rush out and buy a whole bottle. I probably will some day, but it's not high on the 'to buy' list.

Grant's Blended Scotch

Nose: macaroni & cheese, sour wine, brown sugar and oatmeal underneath, alcohol

Taste: sugary sweet vanilla up front, fades into porridge, bitter sherry going into the finish

Finish: sweetness returns, brown sugar

A drunk guy sitting next to me at the bar picked up and left before he had finished his dram, passing it off to me. While I was a little dubious, I wiped the rim with the whisky to kill any lingering germs, figuring that nothing was going to survive within the whisky itself.

Overall, I'd say that this is a mostly inoffensive blend. There are a few odd notes on the nose, but it mostly accomplishes its goal of being sweet in an uncomplicated fashion. If you're looking for something to drink on the cheap, you could do a whole lot worse than Grant's. With that said, you could also pay a bit more money and get a bottle of Isle of Skye 8 Year or, you know, some really good bourbon or rye.

Cocktail Camp PDX, Part I

This last Sunday I attended the Cocktail Camp event held here in Portland put together by Basil & Co.

Thankfully I was alerted to this event by the fine people at the Reddit Cocktail forum, as I hadn't heard anything about it even a week beforehand.

The event was held in the Pearl District in a rather nice space that had both a lounge-style area with a bar, where the cocktail social hours were held, and a larger space with tables where the presentations were made. You can find lots of photos of the event from the official Flickr stream.

Things got off to a bit of a late start, but this was also reasonably early on a sunny Sunday morning when I'm guessing many of the attendees would have otherwise been eating brunch outside. The first talk was given by Colin Howard of House Spirits and Tony Devencenzi of Bourbon & Branch in San Francisco. They explained some methodology for tasting and how to determine whether or not a given spirit will work in a particular cocktail. They began with the basics, such as selecting good glassware with a tulip shape that will simultaneously give the spirit a large amount of surface area for vaporization and a narrow neck to concentrate the vapors for nosing. In terms of methods, they described a few techniques such as:

• smelling up the nose - carefully drawing the vapors from the spirit further and further up the nose to find different smells in different parts of the nose
• rinsing the mouth with the spirit you're tasting to clear out any other lingering flavors from previously consumed items
• letting a bit of spirit rest under the tongue to let some of it vaporize
• allowing the spirit to move in a directed manner across different parts of the tongue to find different flavors

Tony on the left and Colin on the right discuss tasting with Stone Barn Brandywork's Hard Eight Dark Rye Spirit

What I found most interesting was the discussion of how to think about how a spirit will contribute to a cocktail. One of the fundamental concepts was that you often want to pick spirits that leave room for other flavors. If a spirit is going to crowd out the other elements of a cocktail then it won't integrate in a harmonious fashion. So you want to pick spirits that will contribute to but not overwhelm the cocktail. Another concept was making cocktails either point or counterpoint, which is to say picking ingredients that either reinforce each other or play off each other. The example used was the Manhattan. Making it point would be to pick a whiskey like Rittenhouse, which is bold and spicy, and pairing it with a bold and spicy sweet vermouth like Punt e Mes. On the other side, but still point, would be using a whiskey like Maker's Mark, which is soft and sweet, and pairing it with a gentle sweet Vermouth like Vya. Counterpoint would be swapping those around, such as Rittenhouse with Vya or Maker's Mark with Punt e Mes. In that case each ingredient would offer opposite characteristics, which means that one will probably dominate the other. You can still balance a counterpoint cocktail by shifting the proportions, such as using more whisky and less sweet vermouth in the Maker's Mark/Punt e Mess combo. While these are notions that I've picked up over the last couple of years in an intuitive sense, I'll be thinking about it more consciously from now on.

The second talk was on the histories and varieties of scotch whisky, given by Stuart Ramsay, a Scottish transplant to Portland who runs whisk(e)y classes in the area. He began with a quick overview of the state of scotch whisky, noting how much of the demand is currently being driven by drinkers in India, China and Brazil, which also means an emphasis on blended whisky rather than single malts. This led into a bit of history. Whisky is likely a by-product of the much older local beer industry, which would have been made with malted barley and any other grains that would grow in the area (bere, oats, wheat). When distillation arrived in the British Isles in the late 11th century, Scottish farmers were quick to realize that it could be used to concentrate their relatively weak beer into a potent and compact drink. It remained a mostly local drink up until the mid-19th century. Two events at that point in time had a profound impact on the scotch whisky industry. The first was the introduction of the Coffey or continuous still, which allowed for much lighter-bodied whiskies to be distilled. The second was a change in the availability of international spirits in England. Brandy and Irish whiskey were the drinks of choice among fashionable Londoners until the Phylloxera outbreak of the 1850s wiped out almost all of the grapes in France, crippling the brandy industry. Entrepreneurial Scottish merchants tried to sell their local tipple down south, but few consumers were interested in such a harsh, unrefined spirit. Many of those merchants, such as John Walker, the Chivas Brothers and Whyte & Mackay, were grocers who also sold fortified wines such as sherry, port and Madeira. It was suggested that aging the harsh, unaged 'clearac' whisky in used fortified wine barrels would help to take the edge off the spirit and produce a more marketable product. The combination of aging and blending in lighter grain whisky produced by Coffey stills made whiskies that were enormously popular, especially when mixed with soda water. However this meant that most of the malt whisky ended up in blends rather than being bottled as single malt scotch. The popularity of single malts is a much more recent phenomenon, having become a real trend only around the 1980s or so. With that said, roughly 90% of the malt whisky made in Scotland is still used in blends.

Stuart Ramsay's props, including malted barley, peat, cask wood, miniature still and Strathisla samples

As demonstrations, he passed around jars of malted barley, including a variety usually used for making beer, the variety usually used for making single malt whisky, and a peated version of the malted barley used for making whisky. He also passed showed us a lump of peat and talked about how it is formed in bogs and its use in drying malt.

After the history lesson, we were led through a series of tastings of single malt whiskies. I jotted down notes furiously, but the pours were small and time was tight, so I wasn't able to get as much out of them as I would have hoped. He began by passing around three samples from the Strathisla Distillery (the base for Chivas blended whisky), which I was able to smell briefly:

Unaged Clearac - vegetal, a touch fruity

Ex-Bourbon Barrel Aged - bourbony sweet, nuts, maple syrup

Ex-Sherry Barrel Aged - heavy maple syrup, spicy, sherry

Then we began with two lighter single malt whiskies from the Lowlands and Speyside:

Glenkinchie 12


Nose: floral, just ripe fruits a hint of malt and a touch of sherry

Taste: barely sweet, very grainy, sour and slightly floral/herbal at the back

Finish: floral/herbal, slightly bitter

I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed this whisky more than I feared, given some of the less than stellar reviews I've read. While it's definitely light, the floral emphasis was quite nice and made for a whisky that I can imagine sipping on a warmer day. However, Stuart did bemoan the demise of Rosebank, a now shuttered Lowland distillery, which produced superior whisky until it was bought and shut down by Diageo.

Glen Grant 10


Nose: medium sherry, sweet, floral, rather fruity, a touch of chocolate

Taste: very light, not very sweet, a bit malty, floral and bitter near the end

Finish: floral and bittersweet

While not my favorite Speyside whisky ever, this wasn't half bad. Everything was just a bit too light for my taste (which could probably be solved by bumping up the bottling proof from 40%), but it made a nice bridge from the very light Lowlander to the heftier Highland and Island single malts that we were about to consume.

We then moved to two different Highland whiskies from Glenmorangie (which I've reviewed before).

Glenmorangie Original


Nose: fruity, malt, brown sugar, chocolate

Taste: sweet, floral, slightly bitter at the end

Finish: light

This is almost always the first whisky I suggest that people new to single malt whisky start with. While relatively light, its flavors are still sufficiently bold to hold my interest, but not so complex that it requires a lot of attention. A truly classic whisky.

Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban


Nose: port, chocolate, sweet

Taste: very spicy, port wine

Finish: port wine

Sadly I was quite rushed on this one and wasn't able to get many notes, but I've sung paeans to it for good reason. This is one of the most delightfully lush whiskies I've ever had the fortune to sip and would still recommend it over a lot of other sweet, unpeated whiskies. An excellent example of what wine-finishing can do for whisky.

Next we moved to two medium-peated island whiskies from Skye and Islay.

Talisker 10


Nose: peat, barbecue, creamy malt, brown sugar, floral

Taste: sweet up front, big spice further back, surprisingly light

Finish: pepper, peat

This was my first time trying Talisker 10 and it did not disappoint. While not quite as rich as its sherry cask finished sibling, it was still quite a tasty whisky. I have two 200 mL bottles of this waiting to be reviewed, so I should be able to come back with something much more in depth in the not too distant future.

Bowmore 15 Darkest


Nose: sherry, surprisingly light peat

Taste: sweet sherry, nuts, pepper

Finish: gentle smoke, pepper

I was pleasantly surprised by how good this whisky was. Most of the reviews noted it as being rather tepid, but I find it pretty enjoyable even after the spicy punch of the Talisker. While it probably would be even better at a higher bottling proof, I'm just intrigued enough to keep my eye out for a good deal on this one. Hopefully I'll be able to snag a bottle some day and give you a more complete review.

Lastly, a bruiser from Islay.

Ardbeg 10


Nose: lovely peat, very fresh, sweet grain, mouthwash

Taste: very sweet up front, pepper, peat and smoke further back, minty

Finish: smoke and peat

All hail peat. Seriously, I used to be downright scared of the stuff, even from a relatively mild whisky like Highland Park 12. But I have seen the light and Ardbeg is delicious. The whipsaw from intense sweetness at the beginning of the sip to the blast of spice and peat was utterly delightful. I'm a convert.

Overall I thought that these were very well selected whiskies for displaying the range of what single malt whisky can offer. While the pours could have been a bit healthier, it would have been nice to have better glasses for nosing (tumblers are about as bad as it gets), and I really would have liked to have had more time to spend with each whisky, it was extremely well put together given the constraints. I'm quite interested in checking out some of the other whisky classes that Stuart offers here in the Portland area.

That's it for Part I of my Cocktail Camp report. Coming up I'll talk about the second half, when I finally got around to drinking some cocktails and got some really great information about how to host a cocktail party and what to do with bitter aperitifs and digestifs.

Whiskey Review: Weller Antique 107 vs. 12 Year Bourbon

Weller bourbon occupies a relatively small niche in the American whiskey universe, being one of the few wheated bourbons along with the ubiquitous Maker's Mark, lesser known Old Fitzgerald, Rebel Yell and the lauded Van Winkle bourbons. Wheated bourbons take the usual bourbon formula of corn, rye and malted barley and replace the rye flavoring grain with wheat. This makes for a less spicy but generally sweeter bourbon, because rye tends to mask the underlying corn sweetness in the whisky. Wheat lets the sweetness shine, which makes them very approachable spirits.

Weller bourbons are owned and made by Buffalo Trace. BT acquired the brand during the breakup of the old Stitzel-Weller distillery and has been producing wheated bourbon in the same mold ever since. As best I can gather from a bit of research, all of the wheated bourbons I mentioned above except for Maker's Mark are made with the same 75% corn, 20% wheat, 5% malt mash bill, which is also a legacy of the Stitzel-Weller distillery. There are four different bottlings of Weller bourbon - a 90-proof, No Age Statement (previously 7 year old) Special Reserve, a 107-proof NAS Antique 107 (also previously 7 year old), a 90-proof 12 year old, and a barrel proof NAS (but roughly 11 year old) William Larue Weller that's part of the yearly Buffalo Trace Antique Collection. Here I'll be reviewing the middle two, the 107 and the 12 Year.

W.L. Weller Antique 107


Nose: caramel, corn, wheat, a bit of vanilla and oak, cinnamon brown sugar, which becomes sweeter and creamier with more prominent corn and vanilla after adding a couple of drops of water

Taste: sugary sweetness up front, transitioning into sweet cinnamon and spice, then pepper, oak and wheat further back, which becomes smoother with more pronounced pepper after dilution

Finish: good length, pepper and oak, somewhat drying and astringent

If you want to try a wheated whisky, this is what I'd direct you towards. It's usually in the mid-$20 range, which is a very reasonable price given the bottling proof and the intensity of flavors. I was rather surprised by how much pepper shows up in the palette and finish, given that there's no rye in the mash bill, but it does lean more towards black pepper, rather than the chili pepper that I tend to get out of rye-recipe bourbons.

W.L. Weller 12 Year


Nose: sweet wood, caramel, toffee, slightly fruity bubblegum candy, vanilla, a whiff of corn and wheat, which becomes grainier, with fresher toffee, baked apples and brown sugar after adding a few drops of water

Taste: not too sweet, toffee and caramel, softer than the Antique, slight pepper, transitory oak, a touch of wheat, which becomes sweeter and smoother, but with less pepper and reduced complexity after dilution

Finish: medium, pepper and oak

The 12 year old Weller is unsurprisingly more barrel-driven, with heavier toffee/caramel and oak flavors. The lower bottling proof also means that it has a bit less punch than the 107, though this can also be seen positively as increased smoothness over its younger sibling. Given that there's only about $5 between the two whiskies, I'd say that it's going to come down to personal preference rather than value when deciding between the two. I lean towards the 107 because I like bolder whiskies, but for a nice evening sipper, the 12 Year is going to be a good companion. Either way, don't let the somewhat low-rent packaging turn you off of these fine bourbons. While I'm usually wary of plastic screw caps, in this case they hide some really well-made American spirits.

Making Fruit Tinctures

One of the fun things that you can do once you start getting into cocktails is making your own ingredients. Syrups like orgeat or lime cordial are pretty easy. A little up the difficulty scale are alcoholic infusions. The simplest are those like limoncello, where citrus peels are soaked in high proof alcohol, then diluted with sugar syrup. In the picture above you can see a couple of those in progress, with both lemon peels and grapefruit peels soaking in 95% alcohol. I usually buy Everclear because it's only $15 for a 750 mL bottle and it can be diluted down to whatever strength I want to use. While you can use 100-proof vodka or something like that in a pinch, the higher the proof of the alcohol, the more oils will be extracted from the peels. The same does not necessarily hold true for fruit infusions. The compounds that give fruits flavor are not necessarily as oily as the aromatic compounds in citrus peels. This means that different compounds will be extracted from the fruit depending on the alcohol concentration used to make the infusion. It's worthwhile to play around with the ABV of your infusion to see how this influences the final product. I usually let infusions sit for about a month, but you can make them go faster by giving the containers a swirl or a shake every so often to help the infusion proceed more thoroughly. 

To finally get into some real chemistry, there's a good reason why agitating your infusion speeds up the process - as compounds are leeched from the peels, the concentration of those compounds in the area directly adjacent to the peels will build up, which makes for a smaller gradient between the solid and liquid phases. Moving things around spreads out the dissolved compounds, reestablishing a stronger gradient and causing the oils to extract more quickly.

After your infusion is done steeping, you need to filter the liquid away from the solids. A mesh strainer is a good first step. If you're using fruit, you may want to squeeze it to get out all of the delicious liquid, but you can also use it for making pie. To further clarify the liqueur, a metal or plastic coffee filter is a good way to get more of the fine particles. Actual coffee filters will also work, but they will also absorb some of the liqueur. Personally, I usually just accept that there's going to be some leftover solids in my infusions. It's not going to hurt you.

Once you're filtered your infusion, you have two options - either dilute the liquid with sugar syrup to make a liqueur or keep the infusion undiluted. The first is more traditional and makes for a handy ingredient that can be drunk straight or added to cocktails directly. As long as the resulting liqueur is over 20% ABV, it should be stable indefinitely without refrigeration. A high sugar content will also help to ward off any microbial growth. I personally tend to lean towards the second option, because I'm rarely interested in drinking liqueurs straight. By leaving the infusion in an un-diluted state, I can easily swap out the syrups that I use to sweeten the drink, with some interesting results. Alternatively, as in the cocktail at the bottom of this post, I can use the tinctures as base spirits instead of as liqueurs.

Infusions will often change in smell and flavor, even after the steeping is over and the liquid has been filtered. While they're technically ready to drink as soon as you've got them filtered, another couple of months will probably help to mellow and integrate the flavors and smells. Additionally, if you take the route of leaving the infusions undiluted, it's normal that you won't necessarily be able to smell a lot from the infusion. The high concentration of alcohol solubilizes the aromatic compounds very effectively. When the spirit is diluted with water, the aromatics become less soluble in the liquid and are then more volatile.

Rangpur Bounty
1 oz gin
1 oz mango tincture
0.5 oz lime juice
0.5 oz grapefruit juice
0.25 oz passionfruit syrup
0.25 oz simple syrup
1 dash Angostura bitters

The sip leads off with a bit of syrupy sweetness, which resolves into the tropical fruits of the passionfruit syrup and mango tincture. Near the end, the snappier flavors of gin, bitters, lime and grapefruit lead into the finish, keeping the drink from becoming insipid. I really like how the flavors flow past either other, blending briefly before passing off to the next set. The bitters, as so often they do, seem to be key to really amping everything up. Finally, for being a rather spiritous cocktail (remember, the tincture is equivalent to more than 2x the volume of normal 80-proof spirit), it ends up being rather balanced and refreshing.

Overall, this is a drink that I'm rather pleased with given that it was mostly an effort to use up some lime and grapefruit juice that I had sitting in the fridge.