Sawyer
Recipe:
- 60ml gin (preferably Beefeater)
- 15ml fresh lime juice
- 15ml simple syrup
- 14 dashes Angostura bitters
- 7 dashes Peychaud’s (or other Creole style) bitters
- 7 dashes orange bitters
Shake everything on ice until sufficiently chilled, strain into a prechilled rocks glass over ice. No garnish (although I think a dried lemon works great).
I am a fan of bitters cocktails (drinks where you use an untypical high amount of our cocktail seasoning) and here you can see how different even two bitters + gin based cocktails can be, despite similar structure quite different from the "Spruce Goose" and a bit more to my liking then the former.
The Beefeater makes sense, as it leaves more room for the bitters with more of a citrus focus of the gin and a "clean" base character, it doesn't fight it with too much of its own herbaceousness. The lime pairs well with the exotic bitters and it reminded me of how I like my gin drinks with limes way more than lemons, probably no coincidence that my favorite gin classic is the Gimlet as not the biggest gin fan on this planet.
Originally by the way, this is served straight up in an OF glass. If you want to drink it fast as a “bartender's drink” in 2-3 sips, that could make sense. However, I find a large, high-quality ice cube works great here, The Sawyer should be as cold as possible.
In the nose you got a classy, spicy-herbal aroma, but not overloaded, fresh juniper, clove, citrus, nutmeg, some pepper, fresh ginger. Nice, full and present in the mouth, the lime shines here, nice balance with a wonderful spicy fresh finish.
For some weird reason it reminded me of an (unintentional) walk in the rain, at first maybe a bit uncomfortable, but as soon as you open up it can be refreshing, autumnal, good for the immune system and in the end you're still happy to have experienced something refreshingly different.
Source: PUNCH | adapted from “Bitters” by Brad Thomas Parsons
