Doing The Same Thing Over And Over And Expecting A Different Result

Continuing the [blank], Lillet, lime juice variations . . .

Tequila, Lillet, Campari, lime juice: decent, though pretty sure the Lillet got totally lost.
Tequila, Lillet, lime juice, orange Angostura bitters: “one note” — probably needed simple syrup.
Rum, Lillet, lime juice: better, and probably closer to the original cachaca; might start tweaking this base instead.

The Old Hail Mary Never Works . . . Except When They Do!

There’s a cocktail in The PDT Cocktail Book called the “Pearl Button” (page 204) which has Cachaça, Lillet and lime juice (along with some other garnishes/additions that weren’t immediately handy). We didn’t have Cachaça, so I guessed that tequila might be good. Here’s what we did:

2 oz. tequila
3/4 oz. Lillet
1/2 oz. lime juice

It was good!

The second time we added a dash of Angostura bitters. Fine but it probably tastes better with some simple syrup, too (ours got funked the other day and I never made more).

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There’s a cocktail in the PDT book called the Nouveau Carré that’s a riff on a Vieux Carre/homage to New Orleans post Katrina. It’s six parts tequila, three parts Lillet, one part Bénédictine and three dashes Peychaud’s. I finally bought some Lillet in part (or mostly because) there are a bunch of cocktail recipes using it. This one was pretty good. What Lillet actually is is described in this unhelpful Wikipedia entry. It uses phrases like this: “The mix is then stirred in oak vats until perfectly blended. During the ageing process, Lillet is handled as attentively as any great Bordeaux wine (undergoing fining, racking, filtering etc.). Lillet belongs to a family of aperitifs known as tonic wines because of the addition of Quinine liqueur.”