Japanese Cocktail
Recipe:
- 60-70ml Cognac (depends on the %)
- 7.5ml orgeat (selfmade or high quality store bought)
- 1 dash Boker's bitters (or cardamom bitters)
Stir everything on ice until sufficiently chilled, strain into a prechilled cocktail glass, express the oils of a lemon zest over the drink, discard.
If you can read German, want to work on your German skills or simply autotranslate it, below you can find a link to an interesting and well researched article from the German Mixology magazine (the biggest cocktail/bar magazine in the German speaking countries) about this drink, why its name is quite funny (since it had nothing to do with Japan), why the sometimes recited story about Jerry Thomas concerning the cocktail cannot have happened, and more.
It is also one of those typical classics from the 2nd, almost 3rd row, which you can find on only very few menus these days. But it is still often in recipe collections & bar books due to its old history, mentioned most of the time quite briefly. The reason? In my experience: Because it can be found all too often in questionable proportions, 15ml and sometimes even up to 22.5ml orgeat is splashed in there, as if it were a Brandy Alexander, while it in fact is simply a Cognac Old Fashioned variant, served straight up.
Here we got the the version recommended by Mixology magazine and because I suspected that the very intense and at the same time light-fruited, slightly exotic GrapeDiggaz VSOP Cognac - which just arrived - could go very well with almonds (as well as the cardamom-heavy Boker's) I decided to try it out. And indeed it does! Given the strength and presence of the GrapeDiggaz with 46.3%, I'd even advise using a 60:5ml ratio or 70:7.5 rather than 70:5 (as per Mixology), otherwise the orgeat really gets overwhelmed. An ingenious upgrade would be to make your own slightly toasted orgeat for even more complexity.
A drink that needs just the right ingredients and measurements, also benefiting as much from the oils of the zest as not many other drinks out there, the little kick of zesty freshness gives it another boost. We got similar notes in the aroma and taste: a slightly exotic combo of bright fruits, pears, grapes, papayas, almonds and almost a little bit of coconut, cardamom and subtle lemon oil.
The bottle of GrapeDiggaz VSOP Cognac was provided by Kirsch Import, thank you!
Source: Mixology Magazine
