Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: It’s a Long Way to Tipperary

Happy first Friday of the off season. This week’s libation comes courtesy of a friend of ours who were kind enough to host us for a Superb Owl party. We regularly get together with them over the course of the season for football Sundays, which just turn out to be excuses to try new recipes on each other, and I of course add cocktails to the party (quite literally) and will use them as beta testers for some cocktails I workshop or have made here. For the Owl party, I was given a cocktail book from The Office in Chicago that they had but never used. They thought I would get more use out of it and in their words “wanted it to go to a new home”. I gladly accepted and knew I had to make something from it this week. What I found was an interesting Irish whisky and chartreuse based cocktail called the Tipperary:

2 oz. Irish Whiskey

1 oz. Sweet vermouth

.5 oz. Green Chartreuse

Combine all ingredients with ice in a cocktail mixing glass. Stir until chilled, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. No garnish.

the drink is very chartreuse heavy on the nose. It’s not as intense as straight up chartreuse, but it’s heavy on the floral notes

The flavor is heavy, heavy on the chartreuse.  Despite it only being a half ounce pour, it takes over and asserts it’s dominance the entire sip. The more I try this, the more I look for other flavors, and it’s very hard to pick them out here. I knew chartreuse was strong, but this seems like overkill here.

The base whisky needs to be strongly flavored, so I’m not surprised Irish Whisky is what is called for, but clearly the 2 ounces is not enough. Or, the chartreuse needs to be reduced, because I can’t pick out any distinctive Jameson flavor here at all.

The poor, poor sweet vermouth gets run over by the flavor truck. I get a subtle sense of sweetness initially, before it gets completely lost.

There is something here for sure, but as constructed? No thank you. I like chartreuse in other applications, but like absinthe, a little goes a long way and there is simply way too much chartreuse flavor going here for me. I’ll give this another go, but I’ll start with a barspoon of the green stuff, maybe a quarter ounce if I’m feeling adventurous, but anything more than that is a hard no for me. As to the book, it is a great addition to my library and will for sure get a lot of use.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)