Attempting to make my own drink

 

Attempting to make my own drink.

    This might stray a little from a normal review of mine, as I'm not working with a set recipe. I'm going to attempt to explain my thought process as I attempted to make my own variation of a drink. I'll start off by saying I knew I was going for a variation of a French 75. I knew it was going to have sparkling wine, and I also wanted to try something with pisco. Pisco is a grape brandy, just like cognac, which is used in some specs for a French 75. But Pisco is a lot more earthy and bright, where cognac is quite raisin-y and deep. I thought that with the use of the Pisco, a lime juice made more sense than lemon juice, I wasn't trying to cut through the darker tones of the cognac, I wanted to play with that Pisco. So I started with an oz of Pisco, a half an oz of simple syrup, and a half oz of lime juice. Then I went to add sparkling wine, I was shooting for around 2oz, but I probably added closer to 4. But, it was in the glass now, so I went to try it, and it was pretty tart and dry, and honestly reminded me a lot of a white wine. At this point I've been using the same bottle of sparkling wine for 4 days, so even with champagne stoppers, it's losing a lot of fizz. But between the 'sparkling' white wine, and the earthy flavors of the pisco, and a bit of fresh and vibrant flavors from the lime, it really did give some white wine notes. I didn't hate it, but it wasn't quite the fun party drink that a French 75 was. Took a look at my liqueurs, saw the Maraschino Liqueur, added about a quarter oz to the drink. That was better, it shaved the edge off that lime, really let some more of the Pisco notes out, but it still just reminded me of white wine. Not bad by any means, but it was sort of one dimensional. Even though there's a lot of subtle flavors, they didn't want to take turns, it all sort of came through at once to make a single note. The fact that it was one note made me instantly look to my bitters. Bitters are absolutely perfect for situations like this. I wound up grabbing my angostura orange, but while typing this, I'm starting to think that the Fee Brothers grapefruit might've created something a bit more interesting. Okay, so where are we at, it's light, it's bright, it's very wine like with some bright grape notes, and some earthier undercurrents. It's got a bit of forward complexity from the orange bitters, but it isn't really a "thinking" drink, it's just simple. I hesitate to modify it from here, because now I've got like, 6 ingredients in here already, and it's definitely drinkable. But, in the end, I wanted a bit more fizz to make it more fun, like the French 75 that I had been working around, and I had a bottle of sparkling water right here, so I went for a big splash of that, probably about an oz.
    So what's the final result. What would I say about this drink I've created. It's imperfect. If I was going to work on this to put on a menu for a party, or even a bar, I'd tinker with it more, I'd try fresh sparkling wine that's got a lot more bubbles left, and I'd do several iterations to get these ratios closer to what I was looking for. I'd probably try a few different bitters as well to see if there's something more appropriate for this drink. I already mentioned the Fee Brothers grapefruit bitters might work. But I might try my other orange bitters options, and I think a cherry bitters could also be good. In fact, I think I want a cocktail cherry in this drink.
    The drink wound up being a tiny bit bubbly at first, followed by some orange bitter complexities, with a tart, white wine finish that's bright and earthy simultaneously. I served it with a big ice cube which I like, I enjoyed the dilution over time. I think that the cocktail cherry works as a garnish. The nose is sweet and orangey, the bitters really take over that nose. I wish it was a bit more bubbly, and if I was serving this as a party drink, I might sweeten it up a bit more. But it's fine, I wish I had someone else to rate it, it feels unfair rating it myself, but I think I'd give it an 8/10, it's fun, it's good I think.
    Now to name it... The French 75 is named after the French 75-milimeter light field gun which was used as a primary service weapon in WW1 because of it's lightweight and high rate of fire. Cognac is a French brandy, and the bubbly nature of the drink works with the high rate of fire of the weapon, really a great name in my opinion. But for my drink, I used a Peruvian brandy, and it's a lot less bubbly, so I think naming it after a weapon commonly used by the Peruvian armed forces that's low fire rate makes sense. Looking at the Wikipedia page here my eyes were drawn to the Browning Hi-Power 9x19mm hangun that is a general issue sidearm. So, I think I'll call it the Peruvian Hi-9. Probably not as catchy. Definitely won't be seeing it in bars any time soon, plus the drink needs some tweaking anyway, but I'll definitely finish the drink tonight, and might revisit the drink in the future, to adapt it further!

My Final Spec (As of Jan. 3rd 2023)

1 oz Peruvian Pisco

1/2oz Lime Juice
1/2oz Simple syrup

1/4oz Maraschino Liqueur

1 Dash Angostura Orange Bitters

Mix with ice
Top with 4oz 'Sparkling' White Wine
Add a splash of Sparkling Water for additional fizz

I'm sure this wasn't everyone's favorite review, I definitely rambled here, and it's incoherent I'm sure. But, as always, if you have any recommendations, suggestions, ideas, or comments, feel free to leave them below. I'd really be interested to hear from you, particularly about this post. Thanks -Sam