SMFD – Tropeau Bleu

It is always pure joy to take part in Adam’s Soundtrack My Friends Drink! This time we each had to come up with a shot. Another participant than chose a song to soundtrack the recipe.

First, let us talk about the recipe. I based the combination of vermouth and gentian liqueur on a 50:50 serve Adam posted a few weeks back. His combination of Salers Gentian Aperitif and Cocchi Americano just sounded awesome. However, I replaced a few things (both spirits) and added a few others.

Homemade vermouth & gentian

Instead of Cocchi Americano, I used a homemade Pinot Meunier rosé vermouth (recipes will follow in a few weeks). The vermouth turned out pretty great. I guess two things are important here: Go easy on the botanicals and mazerate (almost) everything on its own. Instead of Salers, I used the very gentian forward, but also balanced Chartreuse Gentiane To enhance the wine notes, I added Bonpland Cherry & Pinot Noir Bitters and a few drops of grape seed essence.

The blue herd

Chase from cnh.photo chose ‘Tropeau Bleu’ by Cortex for my drink. I have to say, it is an excellent song for the drink. I did not know the band before, but it is described as a psychedelic rock / jazz / funk band with elements of bossanova and samba-jazz in their songs. Well, yes, I guess that is exactly the feeling I got from the song. I can very well imagine sipping the shot in little sips while listening to ‘Tropeau Bleu’.

*Recipe will follow in a few weeks ** Hot Infuse 5 g dried and cleaned grape seeds in 50 ml neutral alcohol.

The ‘Tropeau Bleu’ starts with winey notes from the vermouth. Yet, the wormwood and gentian soon kick in and take the shot into a different direction. The bitters enhance the fruity flavours from the wine while the grape seed essence makes the drink a bit ‘dryer’. If you sip the drink slowly, you get all that over a period of time. However, if you shoot it, you taste the flavours in fast motion.