Based on the same fusion of smoke and spice that such epic cocktails as the Penicillin emerged from, this cocktail is composed of:
A Project Calcuhol Original.
Check out the calculated recipe for this drink.
In this prediction, the smoke and honey notes from the Scotch blend with the Ancho Reyes’ spicy heat. Guided by the tart lemon juice, the whole thing erupts lively on the palate.
Commonly attributed to American mining engineer Jennings Cox sometime roughly around the turn of the nineteenth century, the Daiquiri probably takes its name from the Cuban village in which Cox’s employer (an iron mine) was located.
For this fundamental quaff in the family of sours, I’ve made use of:
Project Calcuhol’s Daiquiri.
This Daiquiri Recipe was actually used to calibrate the measurements for this rum, so the algorithm really just restates what I’ve already told it rather than predicting anything new. Seemingly designed as nothing more than a vehicle for sampling any rum in a pleasant and refreshing format, the Daiquiri is an example of how so many iconic drinks follow an uncomplicated template. I like to add bitters to this version to liven up the flavor of an otherwise very refreshing and straightforward overall taste.
This drink is as famous as its origins are uncertain. Many stories are told about the invention of the Margarita, but the only hard fact we have on its early history is its first published recipe in a 1953 edition of Esquire magazine.
For this particular recipe, I’ve used the following ingredients:
Project Calcuhol’s Margarita.
This yields a Margarita Recipe that falls somewhere within the wide range of recipes that can be found for this drink. The difference, of course, is that this particular recipe is custom suited to these particular products based on Project Calcuhol’s calculation. With these choices, the resulting drink provides a very clean and bright expression of agave, orange, and lime.
This experiment takes the idea of the La Paloma cocktail (possibly Mexico’s favorite cocktail) and turns it into a more concentrated drink by replacing the grapefruit soda with grapefruit liqueur.
With a relatively simple ingredient list:
A Project Calcuhol Original Cocktail.
the predicted cocktail recipe presents a focused burst of agave, lime, and grapefruit to the palate but without any roughness to it. With a fair amount of sweetness already present in the Pamplemousse and Tequila, one can execute this drink without simple syrup.
Originating from what is believed to be the last American cocktail book published before Prohibition in 1916 (Hugo Ensslin’s Recipes for Mixed Drinks), the Aviation cocktail now lives again thanks to the modern trend of obscure classic cocktail resurrection.
Most of the recipes floating around for this drink have resulted in a much too astringent concoction for me to enjoy, exactly the kind of problem I invented Project Calcuhol to solve! I first perfected simpler drinks involving the components of this one and then used the algorithm to predict an aviation recipe. Here I used:
Project Calcuhol’s Aviation.
The simple syrup helps properly sweeten this drink without overpowering it with the Maraschino and Violette. The calculated recipe indeed succeeds in softening the astringent bite of many other versions, allowing the drinker to focus on the rich floral flavors that this cocktail has to offer. Try out the recipe for yourself: Aviation Recipe.
In this experiment, I tried combining the following ingredients:
A Project Calcuhol Original Cocktail.
Check out the calculated recipe for this drink.
This ends up predicting a delicious cocktail that tastes somewhat like cherry coke, but obviously with a more sophisticated flavor profile. The vaguely coke-like aspect derives mostly from this particular Demerara rum. If you choose to add it, the dash of bitters brings its own complexity to the mix, which in this case works magically.
Although many of today’s great cocktail discoveries come from reviving classic as well as obscure drinks from pre-Prohibition bartending literature, the Jasmine Cocktail can be traced to Paul Harrington from the mid 1990’s. For a complete discussion of this drink, I must defer to Robert Hess.
I decided to see what would happen if I fed the ingredients for this drink into my algorithm, and see what it predicted. For the ingredient list, I used:
Project Calcuhol’s Jasmine.
This is similar to the original recipe’s ingredient list except that Combier is replacing Cointreau and simple syrup is added so that the burden of providing sweetness to the cocktail does not rest solely on the Combier (because that would require a whole lot of it). Check out the recipe here:
Jasmine Recipe
The calculated recipe brings the lemon juice up by quite a bit compared to the original recipe, and the amounts of the gin, Campari, and orange liqueur are split more evenly, which is the algorithm’s attempt to avoid any one of them dominating the drink. This is an interesting reinterpretation of this modern classic, different from both Harrington’s and Hess’ version. To my tastes, the balance is flawless and this version retains the characteristic taste of grapefruit juice, if not even more so, of the original.
