Rusty Monk

There’s a cocktail in Mr. Boston called the Rusty Monk that has eight parts gin, four parts Dubonnet, two parts Yellow Chartreuse (we used Strega) and two dashes of orange bitters. It’s good.

Not Quite Mortal But Pretty Good, Nonetheless . . .

Here’s a cocktail that tastes like a lot of things, but which is solid (and I don’t care if it’s too clever by half): the Venial Sin (Mr. Boston, page 145) is six parts blanco tequila, two parts yellow Chartreuse (substituted Strega), one part Elderflower liqueur, one part maraschino and two parts mezcal.

Is You Tweaking?

The Keegan (Mr. Boston, page 185) is four parts bourbon, three parts Aperol, two parts Yellow Chartreuse and three parts lime juice. We made it with Strega and lemon juice and it tasted good anyway.

Strega Anagram: “Greats”

I avoided getting a bottle of Strega because it looked expensive, but if you only use a 1/4 ounce or a 1/2 ounce at a time, it’s not that big a deal, right? Anyway, so the other day I just got a bottle and tried hard not to do the math (it wasn’t bad, actually: $35 or something). [Edit: this was from March 25 at 12:47 a.m.; meaningless gibberish deleted.]

Been using it a lot lately [writing this as of 5/12/16] and I can’t remember a whole lot about it other than someone someplace suggested substituting it for Yellow Chartreuse, which I definitely did because Yellow Chartreuse is definitely more expensive.

Tonight I happened upon this cocktail in the course of trying to figure out what we were served at Flatbush Farm last Monday; I’m pretty sure it was sort of like a The Last Word but with mezcal instead of gin or whatever they normally use (a recipe is here but we didn’t have a pepper in it).

Anyway, this cocktail has two parts mezcal, one part Yellow Chartreuse, one part dry vermouth and two dashes grapefruit bitters. I replaced the chartreuse with Strega. This was a good drink. I also want to try the The Last Word soon, too.

Witch

We always held back from Strega because, in general, it’s expensive ($35 or so for .75 l) but I had to replenish the cabinet (or the cabinet plus the sprawling excess spot next to the china cabinet on the floor where the kids, thankfully, don’t really poke around near) so it’s less of a thing to sneak in an expensive add-on. Thus, the Strega.

It’s a funny thing because you think you see an ingredient everywhere and then when you don’t have it you automatically skip over certain recipes. But then when you have it, it’s impossible to remember what’s got it. I went on to Amazon to “look inside” the PDT book and alighted on the Rye Witch (page 232): eight parts rye, one part Strega, one part sherry (it called for a Palo Cortado but I had an Amontillado, which is less sweet on the sherry spectrum), a sugar cube (used a blurp of simple syrup instead) and two dashes of orange bitters.

This was good! The Strega flavor is powerful, be warned, but the overall flavor is good.