Why hello there, and welcome to Hate Week Friday.

Where oh where to begin? There is so much to hate on right now, almost too much actually. It’s rather exhausting to be honest. Instead, I’m choosing to focus my time and energy on the positives going on, at least for this morning. We’ve booked a kick ass vacation in August that I am absolutely looking forward to. On top of that, we’ve got some home improvement projects in the works right now that are either A) overdue, B) massive upgrades, or C) sometimes both. So I’ve got those going for me, which is nice. Another thing going for me is the reappearance of orgeat into my bar! Well, fridge technically since it needs to be kept cold but whatever. I met up with my bartender friend recently at a videogame night another friend was hosting and he graciously brought me over some from his bar. Of course I needed to use it this week, and I found a great sounding and easy looking cocktail to utilize it in: The Army Navy. It’s got gin, lemon juice, bitters and orgeat. How easy is that? I bet it tastes great:

2 oz gin
.75 oz lemon juice
.5 oz orgeat syrup
1 dash Angostura bitters

Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and fill it three quarters full with ice. Shake until chilled, then strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a lemon twist, and edible flowers if desired.

The aroma leads with the unmistakable scent of Angostura bitters. Going back in for another round I can pick up more of the lemon cutting through, which I rather enjoy.

Oh this is fantastic. It starts out sour from the lemon, and right when you start to feel it on the back of your palate, the sour intensity is reigned back in by the other ingredients. Mainly by the orgeat I’m guessing. I say that because the London dry gin called for here is rather subdued, and it works out really well. Strong gin could really overpower this, and while I wouldn’t necessarily call this a light drinker, it’s definitely well balanced and could easily be thrown off. Anyway, while the palate gabbing sourness is quickly wiped out, the lemon flavor itself comes back at the end. It certainly isn’t a bad thing, just a touch unexpected. Thankfully it doesn’t hang around very long and almost as soon as you’re done any lingering flavors clear the palate to ready yourself for another sip. The bitters gets a bit lost in the profile, but in this application, I don’t exactly think it’s supposed to be anything discernable. It works it’s magic in the background, helping maintain balance

This was excellent, and a good way to use up some orgeat. The last time I got some of orgeat from my friend I wasn’t able to finish it before it expired. Unfortunately, I didn’t know about this excellent drink or else I would have used it in this as a way to not waste the syrup. Knowing this exists, I’ll be making these if I need to finish the orgeat before it expires again.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)