Fever of the Mad

I visited New Orleans in July for the 5th Annual Tales of the Cocktail conference and spent most of my four days there drunk or getting drunk. Luckily for you, this is not the kind of blog where we chronicle a bunch of stuff that happened and what was said, since it's a bit of a blur. One evening of late night shots containing Lucid Absinthe and white peach nectar is worth mentioning, however, since by that drunken inspiration was born the Fever of the Mad...

The Fever of the Mad is a drink that reminds me about the basic point in mixing quality drinks: Put two flavors together that help each other make sense. White peach and anise are great examples. And although the drink is mine, I wish I'd though of the pairing on my own. Credit in this case goes to that hot piece of a bartender from Milk & Honey (the best bar in the world,) who was mixing drinks in a suite at the Hotel Monteleone for all of us drunken conference goers at 5 in the morning.

It's easy to forget this basic principle of quality bar cheffery when surrounded by Coca-Cola Caviar and Gin & Tonic Jelly Cubes. Don't get me wrong, there's a time and a place and an application for Cognac Foam... but don't we have so many ingredients that we haven't used correctly yet? The Fever of the Mad is simple. Anise on the front, peach on the back, soft, almost fuzzy texture... I'm going to post about some fun Molecular Barstronomy in a future piece, but for now, I'm going to focus on learning how to pair flavors sans calcium chloride or xanthan.

Fever of the Mad

1/4 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice
1/3 oz. Herbsaint or Absinthe
2 oz. quality London Dry Gin
1 oz. scoop of Peach Sorbet*
3 dashes of Fee Brother's Peach Bitters (not pictured.. I forgot)

Shake until sorbet dissolves into cocktail, serve up.

*At Red Feather bar, we use sorbet like a lot of places use flavor syrups. While Monin and a few others do a nice job with flavor syrups, (and while you can make them yourself quite simply with some sugar, citric acid, fresh fruit, and boiling water,) sorbets usually contain less sugar, more residual real fruit, and more fresh flavor. They're also cold and assist in adding texture to cocktails. If you have a full-time bar manager, it's worth it to add this prep chore to his list. It's not hard or expensive, and it's totally worth it.