Cripsy Potluck and the Last Word
When I worked at Open City in Washington, DC, our bar was surprisingly well stocked with European liqueurs. That doesn’t mean we knew what to do with them, it just means we had them. For the most part they sat on the shelf gathering dust.
I made it my mission as a bartender to find uses for some of these obscure liqueurs. My favorite became Chartreuse. The Garden Party from Imbibe — basically a Mojito with Chartreuse in place of rum — served as my introduction to the liqueur and on one particularly memorable night my friends and I finished off the bottle that the restaurant had purchased for its opening nearly two years before. I’ve been in love with the stuff ever since.
It turns out co-blogger Katherine recently discovered Chartreuse as well, so when I brought a bottle to the Crispy Potluck I knew exactly what to make for her. And since I’m the last one here to post a recipe from the party, here’s the Last Word cocktail:
.75 oz gin
.75 oz green Chartreuse
.75 oz maraschino liqueur
.75 oz fresh lime juice
It’s a weird recipe. Chartreuse is intensely aromatic and flavorful, reportedly made with 130 different herbs, and can easily overpower other ingredients in a drink. Maraschino, a fruity, nutty liqueur made from whole Marasca cherries, can also dominate. Combining these in equal parts with lime and gin somehow evens them out, creating a beguiling, complex, delicious cocktail.
Paul Clarke notes that this libation may have been created during Prohibition at the Detroit Athletic Club, making this one of the few bright spots in a dark era for mixology. Why the Detroit Athletic Club happened to have Chartreuse and maraschino on hand we may never know, but I’m very glad they did.
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