I’ve been rehearsing a rum cocktail in my head for about a week now. Turning it over and over and trying to make it come together without getting totally smashed in the process. I enjoy dark liquor, I do, but I do not for the life of me know how to mix it well. Standard cocktails are one things. Batshit inventions are another.
So, understandably, I came back to the gin. And decided that it would be nice to do a sweeter take on the Martini with Yellow Chartreuse in the starring role. Which leads me to present to you, Rainy Day Woman, no. 23.
3 parts Gin (No. 209) + 2 parts Yellow Chartreuse + 1 part Lillet Blanc + sugar + lemon twist
First thing: the color is just, well, embarrassing. I wanted it to be golden and it umm… tends more towards the green yet urine-y look. Apologies. I know no one wants to hear about piss cocktails. But that’s kind of how it looks.
And this is where the name came from. Yellow Chartreuse and Lillet Blanc? Blonde on Blonde. That seemed too obvious and boring a title, so I took it one step beyond. As I am wont to do.
Anyway, a tiny bit of sugar gets muddled into the gin (I have no plain simple syrup? What? Why not?), and then goes everything else. I rub copious amounts of lemon peel into the glass, stir the booze, plop the peel in the glass, and fill ‘er up.
It has that beautiful, ineffable, monk-y European herbal liqueur smell to it, which I dig. Can’t much smell the vermouth, but there is a hint of juniper. For whatever reason I’m wary of this thing (the color, no doubt), but it’s time to jump in.
Aaaand… hmm. Well. My first reaction (courtesy my Twitter feed): “Today’s cocktail is nice. It’s pleasant. It’s just not special. A little sad right now. It sounded so tasty in my head.”
So why the Lillet over my nice dry Dolin? It was meant to be a sweeter cocktail, but not a sweet cocktail. I’m not crazy about Italian vermouth in most situations anyway. Negroni notwithstanding.
The thing is, you have to like herby liquers for this to work for you. I do, so it does. There is little to no universality and that was not the point of this. The point of this was to lightly introduce someone to the wonderful world that is chartreuse (and yellow being milder than green…). It’s sweet, but not sweet enough for a scaredy cat. Anyway, that’s no. 23.
Oh, the taste. Right. It taste like gin and chartreuse. The Lillet gets drowned out a bit and the two main flavors feel like… just that. Two. There’s this herbal mouthwashy aftertaste. Nice if you breathe in cold air. Other than that, no good.
She ain’t a gem, but she ain’t no two bit tramp neither. A once pretty lady a bit down on her luck. Caught in the rain. And so it goes.
