cocktail no.3 | third X charm
Du Nord’s Frieda featured in a cocktail inspired by the Negroni
I usually leave all the cocktail ideating to Joshua and dutifully perform my key role of taste tester (it’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it). This month, however, I stepped a little bit out of my lane, which means that you get the unabridged tale of Third X Charm.
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Reflecting on cocktails nos. 1 and 2, I realized that they both had a Black connection – totally unintentional. We had the shortest time to conceptualize cocktail no. 1, so I suggested that Joshua riff on something he had done for my family. I imagine you are not surprised that we bottle cocktails as holiday gifts for the grown folks in my family. Since I’m Haitian, one of the early cocktails featured Rhum Barbancourt.
As I shared in my last post, we got to cocktail no. 2 because of Joshua’s love of podcasts and my excitement over his discovery. So, I recently wondered (aloud) if it would it be possible to make our way through round one of the cocktail club and feature Black-owned spirits all along the way.
We turned to Du Nord Craft Spirits, America’s first Black-owned distillery. Vodka? Maybe. Gin? Hmm. Whiskey? Already featured this round. Café Frieda Coffee Liqueur? The idea of kicking off the new year with a coffee infused cocktail made all the sense in the world to me. But then I immediately wondered, how do you use a coffee liqueur in a cocktail without just ending up with a high-octane coffee drink.
Though Joshua is the undisputed cocktail master of this household, there is one cocktail I may know and appreciate more than he does – the Negroni. Well, maybe also the margarita, but that’s for another day. For the longest while, a Negroni was my go-to cocktail at any bar. It was also my barometer for bar program quality. Eff up a Negroni and I was totally suspect of your cocktail credentials. Why did I feel justified in my Negroni snobbery? Because the simplicity of this cocktail is part of its perfection. Gin, Campari, and sweet vermouth in 1:1:1 ratio. When done right, it’s glorious. I can always tell when the ratios are out of whack, though my palette isn’t sophisticated enough to articulate the specific error. I remain impressed with my friend Eric’s ability to identify, within <.25 oz, how a bartender had screwed up the Negroni at my bachelorette party. Sidenote: it was less of a party and more of a bougie multi-course dinner followed by drinks with just Eric and me.
Anyway, why are we talking about Negronis? Because I immediately thought that we could swap the Campari for the coffee liqueur. For me, this was an easy calculus – Campari is bitter and so is coffee; obviously interchangeable. I am well aware of the specific notes Campari brings to a cocktail, but I am totally willing to improvise. What’s the worst that could happen? One bad cocktail? So, I asked Joshua about it . . . (this is where we double back a bit).
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When we decided that we were really doing this cocktail thing, Joshua started mentally mapping out his libation plan. Using classic cocktails as his inspiration catalyst, each month he’d create a different booze-forward cocktail featuring different base spirits. Negroni, being an essential cocktail, was obviously on his list of possibilities. But, how to remix a Negroni? Corinna and Thomas provided the first possible route when they asked Joshua to consider genever for a future cocktail (thanks for the suggestion!).
What is genever? Honestly, I’m NOT the best resource, so I’ll just share this and this and this. If you are choosing to save the link chasing for later, the short answer is genever is like gin, but not like gin. This would make it an ideal candidate for a Negroni riff. The second piece of this cocktail puzzle came from my Black-owned spirits idea. Joshua was totally into it. In fact, what I failed to share earlier is that my suggestion sent Joshua down an internet rabbit-hole from which he emerged with several lists for our future consideration.
When we found our way to the unexpected Frieda (Du Nord’s coffee liqueur), Joshua started trying to figure out if she’d work in any of his possible cocktail riffs. Have you ever watched Iron Chef? I have always assumed that chefs have basic menu ideas ready to go and just quickly figure out how to incorporate the secret ingredient into their plans. That’s what I imagine was happening in Joshua’s brain - bubbly boozy beautiful mind sort of mental gymnastics. That’s how he also arrived at the Negroni.
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When Joshua said he was going to test a Negroni-like drink with the coffee liqueur, I had assumed that this was one of those moments of marital synchronicity and he’d be serving me a drink that was equal parts coffee liqueur, genever, and sweet vermouth. No, we had a flavor journey to embark on. What was simple for me (as an amateur cocktailer) was far more complicated for him. Here are a few of the variables he was wrangling: Can a drink be Negroni-inspired without Campari? Which genever to use – “young genever gin” or “fine old genever.” How to keep the strength of the coffee liqueur from overwhelming the drink.
With all of that in mind, here is Variation no. 1:
Ingredients
1 ounce Boomsma Jonge genever
1 ounce Campari
1/2 ounce Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
1/2 ounce Du Nord Frieda coffee liqueur
Garnish: lemon twist or slice of lemon peel
Steps
Chill a Nick & Nora glass (or whatever glass you have) – place in freezer at least 5 minutes before use; longer is better
Add all the ingredients into a mixing glass over ice (start with the coffee if you like coffee aromas)
Stir until well-chilled, approximately 30 seconds
Strain into your chilled glass
Garnish with lemon
Reaction. Campari does not play; it makes itself known whenever invited to the party. If you appreciate a little bitterness, this iteration is tasty, but it was not quite right for our January cocktail. It didn’t do a good job of featuring the genever or coffee liqueur. So, I asked Joshua to consider “my” version with just the coffee liqueur and no Campari. He definitely would have gotten there too after several versions with decreasing amounts of Campari, but my bitter inspiration got us there faster.
Variation no. 2:
Ingredients
1 ounce Boomsma Jonge genever
1 ounce Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
1 ounce Du Nord Frieda coffee liqueur
Garnish: lemon twist or slice of lemon peel
Steps
Chill a Nick & Nora glass (or whatever glass you have) – place in freezer at least 5 minutes before use; longer is better
Add all the ingredients into a mixing glass over ice (start with the coffee if you like coffee aromas)
Stir until well-chilled, approximately 30 seconds
Strain into your chilled glass
Garnish with lemon
Reaction. For me, this is a PERFECT brunch cocktail. It is super coffee-forward but doesn’t feel like it’ll knock you out after one drink (though I wouldn’t go drink for drink with your mimosa friends). A seemingly perfect cocktail to share in our first month of the new year. I grabbed the test cocktail and settled onto the couch to continue mindlessly watching “New Girl” (sometimes a girl needs a mental break). I thought we were done – we’d found it in only two attempts!
While he agreed with my reaction to the cocktail, Joshua knew he hadn’t found the right balance for our evening cocktail. He had used the young genever in variations 1 and 2. He had initially decided against the old genever because of its strong flavor; you can taste the barrel aging. However, he began to reconsider his position now that the Campari was gone. Might the older genever, which had a depth akin to an 18-year-old scotch, be the perfect way to transition a Sunday fun day brunch drink into a sophisticated evening sipper.
Variation no. 3 | Third X Charm:
Ingredients
1 ounce Boomsma Oude genever
1 ounce Carpano Antica sweet vermouth
1 ounce Du Nord Frieda coffee liqueur
Garnish: lemon twist or slice of lemon peel
Steps
Chill a Nick & Nora glass (or whatever glass you have) – place in freezer at least 5 minutes before use; longer is better
Add all the ingredients into a mixing glass over ice (start with the coffee if you like coffee aromas)
Stir until well-chilled, approximately 30 seconds
Strain into your chilled glass
Garnish with lemon
As he often is, Joshua was right. Variation no. 3 is a wonderful pairing of a sexy bitter note with the charming, aged spirit. (I promise I’m still talking about the drink and not our marriage.)
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If you have made it this far, thank you. Your reward is three cocktail recipes for the price of one. Enjoy and let us know what you think.