Hello and welcome back cocktail enthusiasts. We’ve all had, or at least heard of drinks names after cities right? The Manhattan, The Bronx, Long Island Iced Tea. I’m detecting a bit of a theme with the locations cited here. We’re going to try a drink this week named after another part of the Tri State area. We’re having The Newark. Yes, this is a cocktail named after that Newark. A twist on a Brookyln invented by Jim Meehan and John Deragon. (I know, I know. This is three consecutive weeks of Meehan recipes, but what can I say? The man makes a delicious drink). The question is, can a drink named after a city in New Jersey be any good? Let’s find out.
Newark:
2 oz. Laird’s apple brandy
1 oz. Vya sweet vermouth
.25 oz. Fernet Branca
.25 oz. Maraschino liqueur
Stir with ice and strain into a chilled coupe. No garnish
Once again, I’m subbing the Short Path apple brandy for Laird’s here. The nose is best described as licorice-esque due to the Fernet. Easily the strongest of the ingredients here, the Fernet makes its presence known: both in smell and taste.
Speaking of taste, this is a boozy and bitter sipper. It has a sweet apple flavor to start, then the Fernet comes in towards the middle and overpowers all the way to the end. This flavor combination creates an almost bitter apple flavor. Surprisingly, bitter apple tastes pretty good in this application. However, a word of warning: you definitely want to make sure you get the ingredient measurements right. Anything over the .25 oz of fernet and it would easily take over the drink. I can’t really detect the maraschino here though. It has a tall task in competing for attention behind the Fernet and the apple in this application.
Overall, this is a solid drink. It wouldn’t necessarily be my first choice to order if I saw it on a cocktail menu, but I wouldn’t be disappointed if that was the best option either.
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Have you ever had the cocktail called Superstorm Sandy?
/shows self out
I would change the Fernet to two dashes, remove the vermouth, and add a dash of orange bitters.
I think I may have to give that a test run.
New Jersey is trash.
Bullshit. Having spent time in Newark, a Newark should be three parts untreated sewage, two parts rubbing alcohol and three parts White Flight. Shake well in a used gas can. Serve over lead ingots garnished with toxic mud from the Passaic around the rim of the glass.
Serve with a Wawa Italian hoagie.
Apologies to Obi Wan Kenobi, but You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than in Newark, New Jersey
“Pfffft. Amateurs.”
-Camden
A Camden is just a bunch of rotted cabbage leaves set on fire
Yes but how did it smell?
I’ve always joked that I could be knocked unconscious, blindfolded and flown to Newark and I could tell you where I was based on the smell alone.
“Challenge accepted.”
– B. Cosby
“Wait your turn, old man.”
-D. Sharper
How old are you again? -M. Chmura