Saturn

My garnish ring is more of a half circle.

I spent some time this week with Smuggler's Cove; Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki and Trader Vic's Book of Food and Drink (1946) identifying some possible drinks to put on the menu for this month's Tiki Thursday. One interesting non-rum cocktail was the Saturn, so I thought I'd give it a try this afternoon.

Man, this one is dangerous! Passion fruit on the sip, with the falernum and orgeat coming out a bit after that and lemon with more passion fruit on the finish. I'm not tasting the gin at all in here (and I'm using a pretty powerful gin, with Martin Miller's Westbourne Strength); these things would sneak up on you and club you over the head if you weren't careful! I might screw around a bit by cutting back the passion fruit syrup a bit and upping the velvet falernum to see what that does (who am I to meddle with the Master's recipe though?) but I like it the way it is, a fruit-forward cocktail.

This drink tells me that I really gotta up my garnish game though. My "long" lemon peel spiral is pretty short, making for some sub-standard rings around Saturn, to be sure. Still, it's better than some of the long, narrow peels I've tried in the past. It's time to scour the YouTube to find some good videos on the subject, I guess.

Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 oz. London Dry Gin
  • 1/4 oz Velvet Falernum
  • 3/4 oz. Lemon Juice
  • 1/2 oz Passion Fruit Syrup
  • 1/4 oz Orgeat

Directions

  1. Combine ingredients in a shaker, add some ice, and shake for about 15 seconds
  2. Double-Strain into a chilled cocktail coupe.
  3. Garnish with a long, thin lemon peel, wrapped into rings and laid on the top of the drink.
  4. Wonder if Saturn would taste this good.