Serpentine Prison – Evan Williams Single Barrel
It feels like pouring cocktails through coffee filters is a new trend. However, for this Green Point variation I went in a different direction: I just infused sweet vermouth with coffee. The Single Barrel version of the Evan Williams bourbon range seemed like a perfect fit for this style of cocktail.
While neither being cheap, nor too expensive the Evan Williams Single Barrel Bourbon still is being overlooked most of the time. To change that, I wanted to take a closer look at it for a long time now: The bourbon consists of a mash-bill from 78 % corn, 12 % rye and 10 % malted barley. The distillation takes place at the Heaven Hill distillery and a Doubler is used for the second distillation. The Single Barrel is bottled at an age between seven and eight years with an ABV of 43,3 %. In my case, the whisky was put in the barrel in October 2010 and bottled in January 2018.
Easy sipping
The Evan Williams is smooth with clear corn notes. The taste is pretty straight forward with dried fruit notes and a hint of charcoal. Do not get me wrong, this bourbon is far from being boring. Instead, with its dry rye spiciness and hint of floral notes it is a great sipper. Yet, I reckon this would also make a great Old-Fashioned, too.
Coffee vermouth
Since I wanted to use coffee infused vermouth in the drink, I chose a Green Point as a base. For the vermouth infusion I used circa 2 g freshly ground coffee per 5 ml of sweet vermouth. You probably need to adjust the ration of coffee to vermouth depending on the coffee and the coffee flavour you want. It also does not hurt to run a little hot water through your coffee filter first to get rid of the “paper” taste. I actually had to pour the vermouth twice through the same filter to get the desired amount of coffee flavour. Just because it seemed to be the best fit I chose the Dr. Sours Café de Olla for bitters.
0,75 cl Chartreuse Verte
2,25 cl Coffee Infused Martini Riserva Rubino Vermouth
Stir – strain – chilled Cocktail glass;
Garnish: Lemon “Snake” with Cloves for Eyes;
Song: Matt Berninger – Serpentine Prison;
In the first seconds of sipping the “Serpentine Prison” you might be tricked into thinking your drinking a regular Manhattan. However, the Chartreuse and coffee flavours take over pretty quickly. You will have to keep in mind that this rather powerful combination of flavours can be overwhelming for some people. Nevertheless, I quite enjoyed this cocktail with its extra coffee kick.
*The fact that I received a product reviewed in this article for free, did not – in any way – influence the rating of said product. The bourbon was provided by Borco Marken Import.
