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Tag Archives: lemon

The Aviation

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:

  • Beefeater Gin
  • Luxardo Maraschino
  • Rothman & Winter Creme de Violette
  • Lemon Juice
  • 1-to-1 simple syrup.

    Project Calcuhol's Aviation.

    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.

The Jasmine

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:

  • Beefeater Gin
  • Campari
  • Combier Liqueur D’Orange
  • Lemon Juice
  • 1-to-1 simple syrup.

 

Project Calcuhol's Jasmine.

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.