17 Jun Negroni Week 2: Eat the Rich + Old City Cocktail Recipe
Negroni Week 2: Eat the Rich + Old City Cocktail Recipe
Last week, while we were posting our own Negroni recipes, we were out on the town tasting what other people were offering for Negroni Week.
Eat the Rich was our early introduction to the wonderful DC custom of Happy Hour and to the even more wonderful world of local DC distilling. They are also conveniently located around the corner from an event for which we were tending bar. So, after the event, we stopped in for a bite and–what else?–a Negroni.
What We Ordered
The Old City: pineapple-infused rum; Cocchi di Torino; Campari; pineapple gomme syrup; coffee liqueur
What We Thought
Like with other recipes this week (We’re talking about you, Morini and Wisdom), we’d take points away from this drink for not strictly conforming to our understanding of the definition of a Negroni, but then add those points right back again, because the drink turned out so darn well. Here’s the report card:
- Includes a spirit, a fortified wine, and a liqueur +
- In equal proportions –
- And nothing else –
- To create a well-balanced bittersweet flavor +
- with extra credit for being delicious +
We enjoyed the sweet and sour flavor brought into the drink by the extensive use of pineapple, and were pleased by how well that pineapple flavor played with the bitter orange Campari. Using the luscious Cocchi di Torino rather than a more standard red vermouth brought a welcome spice and complexity, without which the drink may have been too sweet and too simple.
The Old City Cocktail Recipe
Finding or making pineapple gomme syrup might be the hurdle to making this drink at home. It’s a hurdle that can be cleared. We’ve never used pineapple gomme syrup ourselves, but Liber & Co sells a well-regarded one; if you’re more ambitious, we found a recipe over at Stir and Strain. If you’re less ambitious than that, don’t want to buy it, and are willing to forego the silkier taste that gomme adds, you can make a pineapple syrup by the same method we used for sweetened lime juice.
Ingredients
- 1.5 oz. rum
- .75 oz. Cocchi di Torino
- .75 oz. Campari
- .25 oz. pineapple gomme syrup
- 1 tsp coffee liqueur
- a few chunks of pineapple, for rum infusion
- lime twist, for garnish
Instructions
- Infuse the rum by putting the pineapple and rum chunks in a mason jar or the like overnight. It’ll be easier to work with a larger amount than 1.5 oz, but only make what you’ll use in the immediate future. There’s no use having pineapple rum around the house with no intended purpose.
- Combine all the liquid ingredients in the bottom of an old fashioned glass and stir to blend well.
- Add ice–preferably a single, big cube if you have them.
- Garnish with lime.
