20 Jun Not Quite Negroni Week: St. Augustine’s Cocktail Recipe
Not Quite Negroni Week: St. Augustine’s Cocktail Recipe
It seems we’re destined to be a little behind. The first week of June, 6000 bars and restaurants were mixing up one of our favorite cocktails for Negroni Week. We were oblivious until, midweek, we started to see some of our favorite bartenders posting their Negroni Week photos on twitter.
Well, better late than never, right? Two weeks after Negroni Week proper, we’re holding our own Not Quite Negroni Week, featuring 5 not quite Negronis. All of them follow the wonderfully balanced classic Negroni pattern (1 part spirit: 1 part fortified wine: 1 part liqueur), and many of them contain at least one of the original Negroni ingredients (gin, sweet vermouth, Campari); but they also stretch the bounds of what it means to be a Negroni in one way or another.
With today’s recipe we wander pretty far from the path, with all three ingredients being swapped for something else that, while staying in the proper category, has quite a different flavor profile. The pear liqueur retains a hint of the bitterness you’d expect from a Negroni, but it’s a quite different, less sharp form of bitterness. Baking spices from the liqueur and the well-rounded grape flavor of the Cognac give this drink a full, warm flavor. It’s a drink for an evening by the fire pit, rather than a day by the seaside.
Ingredients
- 1 oz Cognac–use a VSOP Cognac, but the least expensive one you can find. Maison Rouge is a great value for these circumstances
- 1 oz pear liqueur–we used St. George Spiced Pear. Belle be Brillet would be another good option. Look for something with spice
- 1 oz red vermouth–we used Lacuesta
Instructions
- Pour all ingredients into a mixing glass.
- Fill the glass with ice to the level of the liquid.
- Stir until the ice is noticeably melted.
- Strain into a cocktail glass.
