Astral Plane
Recipe:
- 30ml white port (preferably Quinta do Infantado)
- 30ml Salers gentiane liqueur
- 30ml fresh lemon juice
- 22.5ml simple syrup
- 2 dashes Peychaud's bitters
- Soda (to top up)
Shake the first 5 ingredients on ice, fine strain into a collins glass over ice, top up with soda. Garnish with a grapefruit crescent.
Death & Co strikes twice, because there are two closely related drinks in their first book, the Astral Plane and the Parachute, and that's not all. There's the Astral Plane, which seems like the best known if you look through the blogs and pages online, and then there's the Parachute, also from D&C, identical in terms of proportions, but with Suze instead of Salers and tonic instead of soda. Suze is also more bitter than Salers (which is also a gentian liqueur), so it makes sense to "counteract" with a more intense filler. And then there's this one. It's virtually identical to the Parachute, but was apparently created again later separately at Tin Tin in Atlanta.
The drink is indeed exactly my taste, gentian unsurprisingly dominates, but it has this nice, sweet, bright and grapey note underneath. Together it almost reminds me of wine aperitifs rather than gentian liqueur + white port, fresh, bitter, very light, silky body. However, the combination of white port and herbs in general and then made into a highball almost always works, also a great match with food.
Source: Tyson Buhler, Death & Co, NYC, USA
