Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The Last Word on Cocktails


Even for a whiskey nut like me, it's hard to drink whiskey neat when the mercury is hovering near the triple digits. It's times like this that I turn to cocktails, usually whiskey cocktails, but not always.

The Last Word is a prohibition era cocktail that, as with many prohibition era cocktails, has been recently rediscovered. It was brought back by the Zig Zag Cafe in Seattle and apparently remains somewhat of a staple up there.

I didn't have any Chartreuse, an herbal spirit made by French monks, but it is a common ingredient so I decided to pick some up. It's a bit pricy but thankfully is available in 375 ml bottles, which will likely last you a long time given that it tends to be doled out by the half or quarter ounce in cocktails.

The Last Word is an alluringly easy recipe calling for equal parts gin, maraschino liqueur, green Chartreuse and lime juice (I used a half ounce of each), shaken with ice and strained into a martini glass.

It's a lovely drink and very refreshing, equally sweet, sour and spicy, the perfect thing to sip on one of our sweltering LA afternoons.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds great. Thanks for sharing, Sku.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps you are already familiar with it (I would be surprised if you were not!) but if you want to keep your cocktails firmly rooted in the whiskey world but find the Last Word to be an appealing drink then perhaps you should check out the Final Ward variation that can be found here: http://ohgo.sh/archive/final-ward-cocktail-recipe/
Equally simple and I find at least equally good.

sku said...

Sounds great Anon. I'll check out the Final Ward and report back.

Thanks!

My Annoying Opinions said...

A true classic. I make a variation on it that I call "Almost the Last Word" using the much cheaper Galliano (someone brought and left a bottle at a party we had years ago). Nice in its own way.

Also great after a muggy day is the Aviation. And I think it is even possible to get creme de violette in the US now.