Rock of Sages
Recipe:
- 45ml Cognac
- 15ml Vermouth di Torino
- 25ml pineapple juice
- 1 bsp syrup from maraschino cherries
- 3 whole maraschino cherries
- 4 fresh sage leaves
Muddle the cherries intensively in the base of your shaker, activate the sage leaves with a slap and add to you shaker, add other ingredients, shake on ice until sufficiently chilled, fine strain over ice into your prechilled rocks glass.
Garnish with maraschino cherries and sage leaves.
As is so often the case, something had to be used up, in this case sage. After some research, the "Rock of Sages" was the drink of choice for it. I was pleasantly surprised and also in anticipation reduced the pineapple juice slightly to 25ml. On the nose some nice cherry, dried fruit, pineapple, some fresh sage and grapes, quite the unique combo to be honest, but not bad at all.
Then the taste test, fresh grapes, first sweet, then slightly tart pineapple, dried fruit and some rancio from the cognac come through nicely. After that the fresh sage nicely integrated in the last third, overall very round, not super deep but still with enough complexity, clearly better in that respect than other drinks with too much juice or similar problems.
A cognac with character and a little more power would be recommended here, if you have one, definitely try a Brut de Fût (cask strength)!
Source: Diffordsguide
