Dazed and confused? Not me. I’m just Lost in the Cheese Aisle.

Monday, August 27, 2012

COCKTAIL DU JOUR

Aviation Cocktail
The Aviation.  (That little dark purple thing in the bottom of the glass is the maraschino cherry.)

Today’s cocktail is the Aviation.  It’s named for its purplish-blue color, imparted by crème de violette... but the name is also appropriate because a couple of these gin-based babies will have you flying high.

The Aviation was created sometime prior to 1916 by one Hugo Ensslin, and today numerous variations exist.  Here’s the one I made:

2 oz gin (many recipes specify Plymouth gin; I used Hendrick’s)
Juice of ½ lemon, freshly squeezed
½ oz Luxardo maraschino liqueur
¼ oz crème de violette

Add ingredients to ice in a cocktail shaker.  Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with a cherry.  (If you can get your hands on Luxardo maraschino cherries, even better.  They are the Real Thing, small, dark purple, and intensely flavored - a far cry from the fluorescent red horrors we all think of when we hear the words “maraschino cherry.”)

Crème de violette can be hard to find, for which reason many recipes for this cocktail omit it, with no major ill effect.  But if you can score a bottle, it does add an interesting sweet floral note to the drink... and, of course, there’s that characteristic color, the color of a high-altitude sky.  Cheers!

3 comments:

Jim - PRS said...

Great Googa Mooga, that looks delicious. Problem is finding Luxardo maraschino liqueur, Luxardo maraschino cherries or creme de violette in Southern Ocean County.

Easier to find a sack of hen's teeth.

Elisson said...

If you say "pretty please," Jimbo, I'll bring all of that crap to the Hysterics with me.

Titan Mk6B said...

And it is pretty much the same color as avaiation fuel. The 110/130 LL