Marco Dionysos, San Francisco, 2003.
| 1½ oz · 45 ml | GREEN CHARTREUSE | 55 % |
| 1 oz · 30 ml | PINEAPPLE JUICE | |
| ½ oz · 15 ml | LIME JUICE | |
| ½ oz · 15 ml | FALERNUM | 11 % |
1 oz taken as 30 ml in the metric column.
1 oz taken as 30 ml in the metric column.
| Pre-batch | 3.5 oz mixed with ice, 0.88 oz of it pure alcohol |
|---|---|
| Melt | Built in the glass: +5 % of the pre-batch, +0.18 oz of water |
| Served | 3.5 + 0.18 = 3.68 oz in the glass |
| Strength | 0.88 ÷ 3.68 = 23.9 % ABV as served |
| Ethanol | 0.88 oz × 29.57 ml × 0.789 g/ml = 21 g · about 144 kcal from the alcohol alone |
FROM CHARTREUSE
The bitter from gentian root, used across Campari, Aperol, sweet vermouth, Angostura, and most amari. Bitter compounds activate TAS2R taste receptors that evolved to detect plant alkaloids. The same machinery that makes broccoli taste bad to children also makes a Negroni taste like an adult ordered it.
ALSO IN Negroni · Manhattan · Paper Plane · Boulevardier · Sazerac · Naked & Famous · Last Word · Vieux Carré
FROM PINEAPPLE · the grape candy note
The grape-candy / Welch's-grape-juice aroma. Concord grapes carry it in concentrations no European wine grape (Vitis vinifera) approaches; American Vitis labrusca grapes, native to the northeastern US, hold methyl anthranilate as a signature. The "foxy" note in North American grape juice and artificial grape candy both come from the same molecule. Also used as the standard bird repellent on commercial fruit crops; birds find it intolerable.
ALSO IN Ramos Gin Fizz · Hurricane · Singapore Sling · Mary Pickford · Royal Hawaiian · Bahama Mama · Paloma · Tequila Sunrise
FROM FALERNUM · the clove note
The clove note, a phenylpropanoid that shows up wherever a recipe calls for clove, allspice, or nutmeg, and in rye whiskey through oak-barrel extraction. Anesthetic at high concentration; dentists used clove oil for centuries before lidocaine. The numbing sensation on the tongue from biting a whole clove is eugenol blocking nociceptor signaling at the contact point.
Green Chartreuse, pineapple, lime and falernum. It was an early modern cocktail to use Green Chartreuse as a base spirit: a full 1.5 ounces, not the standard half-ounce modifier pour. Chartreuse's 130-herb blend, pineapple esters and falernum clove make the drink intensely green and intensely herbal.
Marco Dionysos created the Chartreuse Swizzle in 2003 for a Chartreuse-sponsored competition in San Francisco, then put it on the menu at Harry Denton's Starlight Room. Treating green chartreuse as a base spirit rather than a modifier was the innovation; until then, the high-ABV liqueur had mostly been a modifier, rarely more than 3/4 oz. The swizzle method (long-spoon agitation over crushed ice) chills aggressively and dilutes quickly, stretching the 55% chartreuse into a long drink. The drink helped revive chartreuse's American market share through the 2000s.
