welcome friends welcome back to cocktails after dark a little video
series where I'm exploring cocktail recipes and testing them out with different types of
base spirits to find out what suits me best and hopefully it'll help you figure
out what you would like to drink as well and today we're going to do a cocktail
published in 1937 that is just called chartreuse cocktail and I am I am a big
fan of chartreuse and it's one of those things that when I say to people hey
have you tried chartreuse they look at me and go no you know what I see it in
the in the liquor store but I pass it by because I don't know what to do with it
and I really like chartreuse in gin cocktails and we've done a couple of gin
cocktails with it this cocktail uses bourbon or straight rye so the recipe is
written bourbon or straight rye so I'm gonna give it a go with bourbon and I've
got some Woodford Reserve kind of a middle-of-the-road bourbon I think and
for rye I'm gonna use Dillon's straight rye 100% rye it is made at a distillery
down in Niagara so very close to where we live here and at the same time I'm
gonna mix up the one with the Woodford bourbon and we'll do them both and see
how they differ in taste now I had thought about the Canadian Club mostly
because the Canadian Club could have been on the bar back in 1937 when this
when this drink was published and it's very common you can find it today
everywhere the dillons not so much but I really like the flavor on the Dylan's so
next in is the chartreuse 1/2 ounce into each one and then white vermouth and
it's the same thing 1/2 ounce now I hear a lot of people out there screaming at
the camera that I don't know what I'm doing because this drink is too small
and I hear you a lot of drinks are published as parts 1 part this half part
quarter part whatever allowing you to scale the cocktail to whatever you want
this cocktail was very significantly written in ounces the instructions are
in else's and part of that reason is prior to
World War two cocktails were smaller cocktail glasses were smaller a lot of
cocktails were only two ounces and I mean if you look at this is a pre-world
War two martini glass and a post-world War two martini glass you can see that
they are slightly different size so a lot of cocktails were smaller you
weren't meant to you know go to the bar really and get hammered on one thing you
might try two or three different cocktails while you were there you
wouldn't maybe drink the same thing the whole time so stir with a little bit of
ice and we're stirring both to chill the cocktail and to add some dilution of
cold water okay so our cocktail glasses are chilled we'll get rid of the ice and
this first one is the dillons and the second one is the Woodford Reserve now
right off the top you can tell that there are different colors and that's
just based on the base spirit the the Woodford is much darker in color and it
says to garnish with a cherry so Jerry goes in so here we are
1937 chartreuse cocktail one made with rye one made with bourbon but before I
tasted them I want to wish everybody a Happy New Year it just occurred to me
that this will go live New Year's Day 2020 so happy New Year to everybody and
thank you for all of your love and support through 2019
hopefully I can keep it up in 2020 but it's all because of you so thank you
very much okay the first one I'm going to try is the Dylan's 100% rye color is
different
interesting okay
very spicy very spicy notes and the spicy notes of the Rye are really
pulling in the woody notes of the chartreuse they bring a chartreuse back
one of the things I really like about chartreuse is the herbal notes and the
woody notes when you when you smell it it has a really woody woody presence and
I like that it's a little bit sweet so you're getting a little bit of the
sweetness and the woody from the chartreuse mingling and really well with
the spicy of the Rye maybe a little bit of sweetness from the cherry that I put
in at the end but not too much um how do I say this nicely not a beginner's
cocktail if I had tried this though when I was first starting to explore
cocktails I probably would have said no I don't like that
thanks very much give me a beer as I've sort of explored flavors I think this is
good but it is challenging so let's try the one with the bourbon
no no I don't like that at all I really don't like that one at all
I there's something about the interplay between the Bourbon the chartreuse and
maybe the the Dolan that all I'm getting is oak you know that oak barrel flavor
and I don't like that at all and it may not be a problem with bourbon it may be
a problem with this bourbon maybe this particular bourbon doesn't suit my
flavor profile in this mixture but it's overwhelmingly that
overwhelmingly that that oak barrel is what I get
no no if you presented that to me at a bar
I wouldn't finish it even even at this stage in my development as someone who's
trying to figure out cocktails I would not finish that one
this won't the Rye though and it could be it could be this rye this is a fairly
lightly a lightly flavored rye it's a little bit sweeter I mean it does have
that spicy note and so there you go this is this is where you know if if I'd been
given this I would say no I don't like a chartreuse cocktail sorry thanks it's
not for me and then I might not have explored it farther but I know that
since I kind of like this one that there probably is a very good combination of
chartreuse rye bourbon whiskey you know sort of in there somewhere
and then also I guess the vermouth I really like this Dolan vermouth switch
out the vermouth and you probably have a completely
cocktail again and maybe a different vermouth would flavor this one better so
again we come to the conclusion of one of my cocktail videos and realize that
it really flavor depends on your base spirit and you swap out the base spirit
and you're going to completely change or could completely change the flavor
makeup of a cocktail and what it takes is a little bit of experimentation to
find the right one for you and you have to be willing to take those steps and
for a lot of people that's not going to work and I understand that I mean you
some of these alcohols are fairly expensive and you're gonna buy a bottle
and say well I'm gonna spend the entire bottle finding that one cocktail that I
like with it so if you've got something that works and something that you like
let us know in the comments down below let us know in the comments down below
if you've ever tried this cocktail or if you've tried chartreuse and what you're
mixing it with and I will try to explore that further in 2020 as always thanks
for stopping by see you again soon here's the 2020
you