Sage Battle Fragrant Transcendence

The first of the Cocktail Kumite series was held in a tall building on a sweltering summer night, and was held in honor of the typically poultry-associate herb, sage. It turns out that the taste we associate with sage is really only a small part of the flavor profile of the sage plant. The rest of that flavor profile pretty much tastes like garbage. How is this possible? Well, I think that in cooking it is 1) rare to use sage, 2) typical to use it in a context where only its aroma is important (roasting chickens with sage sprigs surrounding and inside, for instance), and 3) when the whole thing is to be tasted, only very young delicate plants are used. These notes of "rubbish" turned out to make this challenge harder than I thought it would be. Not only was it necessary to showcase the rangy, wild, delicate aroma of sage, but it was necessary to suppress the hell out of the godawful plant it happens to be embedded in. The way I did this (I believe the others did this as well), was to muddle it just a bit. Enough to release some aroma, but not enough to (mojito style, or caipirinha style) get wholesale plant destruction. The next step was deciding how best to showcase the aroma. I associate sage with two distinct cuisines and cultures: Italian (no need to specify further...) and the arid American west. Fortunately, I didn't feel too tied to these in detail, but tried to stick with their, ahem, terroir. The first drink was thus a nearly full-sweet, herbal, complex cocktail modeled after the Roman Holiday, which a cocktail I had tried at The Violet Hour, in Chicago. I called it "Il Brutto" after the bad guy in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, because it is unctuous and cruel.

Il Brutto:

1 oz. bourbon (I used Four Roses Small Batch)

1 oz. Amaro Lucano

1 oz. Amaro Melletti (notable tastes of honey and saffron)

1 squeeze lemon

3 muddled sage leaves

My second cocktail I wanted to be austere and unyielding. I wanted it to speak of ancient gods, unavenged blood, the savagery of nature, and an ability to level unsuspecting hipsters. There is only one base liquor that even comes close to this: unaged mezcal. In a fit of God-knows-what, I added some PX sherry, and it was almost there. The rubbishy finish of the sage still came through, despite the fascinating layers of grapes, smoke, agave, and desert herb that were there. Here is what worked in the end. This is, along with the Blue Hook, the drink I'm proudest of.

Tenochtitlyn:

1 oz. mezcal (I used Los Danzantes mezcal minero)

1/2 Tbsp. PX sherry

3 muddled sage leaves

1/2 tsp. Amer Picon (As reinvented by Jamie Boudreau: you have to make your own)

Oh yeah, and since I mentioned it, the Blue Hook. Sourcing these ingredients is HARD.

Blue Hook:

1 oz. Old Potrero 18th century style rye whiskey

1/2 oz. Manguin Liqueur de Lavande

1/2 oz. Punt-e-Mes

All of these drinks are best on the rocks.