Confusion – Zott Pomeranze

When you create “new” cocktail recipes, there are multiple ways of arriving at a recipe that works. So, sometimes you have an idea for a cocktail and in the last minute you abandon the plan. You change almost all the ingredients and afterwards it still works out. This was exactly the case when I was working on a drink using the excellent citrus eau de vie made by Zott.

As always, let us take a look at the predominant ingredient in the cocktail first: The fruits for the Zott Pomeranze eau de vie come directly from the grower in Lentini, Sicily. When they arrive at the Zott distillery in Ustersbach, the fruits are pealed leaving the white pith. The peel is macerated in neutral alcohol and distilled on a copper still afterwards. After distillation, the bitter orange eau de vie is bottled without filtration at a remarkable ABV of 51 %. The Pomeranze eau de vie also earned some rewards, for instance “gold” at the Craft Spirits Festival in Berlin 2019.

Great citrus flavour

When you are sipping the Zott Pomeranze, the first thing that hits your nose is a powerful citrus flavour. Yet, it reminds me more of mandarins then oranges or lemons, although you can also find those notes in the flavour. However, the eau de vie is far from being just citrus flavours. You can also sense some spices, for instance cloves, vanilla and star anise. All in all, the Zott Pomeranze is a powerful eau de vie, but at the same time it is almost smooth. You will find no menthol notes from the alcohol whatsoever and I just love this citrus eau de vie!

Weird combination

So, at first I wanted to make a completely different drink. However, I ended up with a cocktail loosely based around “The Overlook” by Austin Mendez. Why the heck would you make a drink using Douglas Fir eau de vie, you might ask? Well, simply because I had a bottle of Hepple Douglas Fir Vodka on my hands. The Douglas Fir Vodka essentially is an eau de vie distilled from Douglas fir needles using the same triple distillation process as with their gin. I cannot really tell you why I had the idea to combine the bitter orange eau de vie from Zott with the Douglas fir vodka, because those flavours also work together in gin. Instead of cinnamon syrup, I used my Porter syrup I still had standing around. To mellow the two eau de vies down a bit, I also used korn, basically a white dog distilled from rye.

Confusion:
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4,5 cl Stork Club Aromatic Rye Korn
1,5 cl Zott Pomeranze
1,5 cl Hepple Douglas Fir Vodka
2 Dashes Fee Brothers Whisky Barrel Bitters
3 cl Lime Juice
2 cl Porter Syrup
Shake – strain – chilled Double Old-Fashioned glass over big ice cube;
Garnish: Golden Skeleton Leaf;
Song: Charles Bradley – Confusion;

The “Confusion” lives up to its name, because the drink confuses your taste buds. At first you are greeted by a pleasant combination of citrus, fruity rye notes and roasted flavours almost like chocolate. The acidity of the lime juice is nicely balanced by the Porter syrup. However, the Douglas fir lends the drink a weird cooling and resinous note right at the beginning of the aftertaste. It adds a noticeable umami note, which makes the drink quite complex, but at the same time a bit less approachable.

*The fact that I received a product reviewed in this article for free, did not – in any way – influence the rating of said product.

2 thoughts on “Confusion – Zott Pomeranze

  1. Only just come across this site, but honestly the presentation of your drinks is fantastic. And I love the effort you went to with your Negroni guide—I’ve never even bothered to make myself a boulevardier. I’ll have to give it a go. Appreciate what you do!

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