Wednesday, September 26, 2007

The Compass Rose


This was an original recipe I submitted for a recent Campari competition.

The rules were simple:

1) feature Campari and use at least 3/4 oz;
2) no more than 6 ingredients;
3) be able to make five identical cocktails in seven minutes;
4) all ingredients should be available at any local grocery and liquor store.


The cocktail should also be created as an introduction to to drinkers unfamiliar with Campari.

Campari is not the easiest ingredient to work with, but I really like the flavour. I think you can go in two different directions with this contest. You can either try to soothe the strong flavors of Campari with something like orange juice, or you can celebrate the Campari by bringing out the bitterness.

I embraced the bitterness and went for an old-style cocktail featuring Campari, Brandy, Maraschino and Bitters.

Compass Rose

1.5 oz Cognac
.75 oz Campari
.25 oz Maraschino Liqueur
1 Dash of Fee's whiskey barrel aged bitters

Try out this recipe and let me know what you think. If you've got a great Campari recipe I'd like to see that as well. If I find out what the winners are, I'll post them here.

6 Comments:

Blogger Matt R said...

This looks fantastic! I love Compari. I just might have to double it!

6:11 PM  
Blogger Kaiser Penguin said...

Alright. You've done it. This is enough motivation for me to special order my second bottle of Maraschino Liqueur. I love it, but I've just been putting it off.

8:18 AM  
Blogger camper said...

I think I might be judging that contest on Monday. I agree that the main challenge is to ease people into Campari, rather than just to come up with a good drink with it. So I guess a challenge as a judge who likes Campari is to not think every drink needs more of it.

2:47 PM  
Blogger jimmyp said...

Camper,

You won't have to worry about judging my entry, I didn't make the finals. I'll be interested in the recipes. I think one of the finalists is a limoncello-campari cocktail, which is one of the areas I explored, but I couldn't make it work.

Jimmy

2:52 PM  
Blogger Kaiser Penguin said...

My bottle of Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur came today. This cocktail is phenomenal! Everything is balanced very well. The bitters, Campari, and maraschino fuse together and ride happy on the cognac base.

It's a shame your entry didn't make it!

6:20 PM  
Blogger jimmyp said...

Thanks Rick. The finalists are competing tonight, so we should see some reports and (hopefully recipes) tomorrow. (right Camper? Erik?)

Jimmy

7:45 PM  

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