Happy Friday. Things are getting a bit hectic in Haus Sharkbait. The reason is that a week from tomorrow we disappear on vacation for 3 weeks. It’s crazy I know. Prepping for that is just starting up but even what little prep has been done is time consuming. Fear not loyal drinkers. Despite the effort being put into packing and cleaning (because let’s be real here. Nobody wants to come back from multiple weeks away to a messy house) I still am making and writing about tasty beverages. Though I make no promises on next week’s effort due to 11th hour packing, but there will be something for you.

This week I went back to The Savoy cocktail book for inspiration. I was somewhat indifferent to what I wanted to make and just started perusing and marking pages with drinks that A) sounded good, and B) I had the ingredients for. I ended up choosing The Lone Tree Cocktail for this week. It’s a simple sounding drink with equal parts sweet and dry vermouth as well as gin. I’ve had drinks featuring all of those before so I figure why not give this a go and see how it is.

Lone Tree Cocktail

2 Dashes orange bitters

1/3 Italian (dry) vermouth

1/3 French (sweet) vermouth

1/3 Dry gin

Shake well and strain into cocktail glass

Surprisingly the orange comes through the most aroma wise here. only two dashes but it really cuts through the vermouths and the gin

Well this is interesting. I was expecting something more along the lines of the medium martini I wrote about from The Savoy a while ago. But instead I get something completely different. It’s drier than I expected for starters. The equal ratio of dry to sweet definitely skews the flavor more than I thought it would. The sweet vermouth definitely helps keep balance, but it’s clear which vermouth steals the show in the flavor palate. Once the initial shockwave of Italian vermouth ebbs, the sweet makes its presence known. By that I mean the counter to the dry vermouth kicks in. It doesn’t make it sweeter per se, but it contributes to the aforementioned diminishing dry vermouth attack. That reduction in flavors also lets the gin come through. A dry gin is the choice here. While it definitely contributes to the overall dry-ness of the drink, any other gin, say a Plymouth or Old Tom would absolutely get lost in this application. That being said, if dry drinks aren’t your thing, Maybe skip this one.

The finish is the nice mixture of the vermouths with a hint of the gin coming through. The dry vermouth does poke its head up back on the palate at the end, after you’ve finished your sip and hangs on the palate for a bit. Sometimes the lingering aftertaste doesn’t bother me, but this one somewhat does. I think it hangs around too long, and while it isn’t off putting by any means, I would definitely prefer that it wasn’t there, or it dissipated faster that it does.

Would I make this again? I think so. It’s a great example of the same ingredients creating something completely different by altering proportions of themselves and everything else at work here. Though I might try a touch more sweet vermouth to take the dry edge off, especially at the end. But I certainly don’t think that is worth writing this drink off completely going forward.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)