The 12 Cocktails of Christmas, Day Six: The ‘Dark Horse’
Recipes inspired by global craft cocktail culture, shared this holiday season by Melissa Rayworth and Ted Anthony.
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This year, in lieu of the holiday card we didn’t have time to create, we welcome you to The 12 Cocktails of Christmas — a dozen recipes and thoughts on what makes them work. We’ll continue updating the top drink each day until we’ve reached a dozen (yes, we’ll get done right after Christmas, but our schedules have been pretty crazed with new job adventures, current job obligations, two teenagers, two cats — the list, just like yours, goes on).
Hope this brings you all some holiday cheer. Please do share these recipes with your friends and family, and please take a moment this year to raise a glass — no matter what it may hold — to one another and to all the adventures and good things ahead in 2020.
Happy holidays,
THE SIXTH COCKTAIL OF CHRISTMAS: The ‘Dark Horse’
It’s high time we go dark.
The “Dark Horse,” named not after political candidates but after the complex, burnished flavors it contains, is a perfect drink with which to greet winter.
We admit that you may not have all the ingredients at hand — we promised we’d edge more into the obscure and the do-it-yourself as the days went on — but it’s a pretty straightforward libation that delivers complexity and warmth totally suitable for this, the shortest day of the year.
It includes something called “pimento dram,” which despite its name refers not to the little red things stuffed into cocktail olives but to a multilayered allspice liqueur that you’ll find at any bar worth its salt. It has echoes of nutmeg, clove and cinnamon and would be perfectly at home spiked into eggnog (or other nogs, though we’ve heard only of egg).
Also present is tamarind syrup. Tamarind is a fruit used commonly in Asia and Latin America both as a refreshing agent in drinks and as an ingredient to make foods pop with an almost savory fruitiness. If you’ve had legit pad Thai somewhere along the line, you’ve tasted tamarind. Most Asian grocery stores will have some form of tamarind or even tamarind syrup available.
Finally, we’ve used Ted’s favorite homemade Thai bitters, made from soaking fresh green peppercorns and aromatic dried orange peel in cheap Bangkok rum for a month, then straining and putting in dropper bottles. But any off-the-shelf aromatic bitters — even the old workhorse Angostura — will do just fine here.
THE ‘DARK HORSE’
2 oz. Dad’s Hat rye whiskey, finished in vermouth barrels (substitute your preferred rye as desired, but don’t use bourbon, which will upset the balance of sweetness and make the drink cloying)
¾ oz pimento dram
1½ oz. vanilla syrup
¾ oz. tamarind syrup
3 dashes peppercorn/orange peel bitters (substitute your own bitters as desired)
2 orange peels, for garnishIn a large beaker, combine ingredients with ice and stir, then strain and serve over one ice cube in a whiskey-dram glass such as a Glencairn. Garnish with orange peel after rubbing the rim of the glass with it.
WHY WE LIKED THIS ONE: The piquancy, first of all. While certainly sweet, this is a balanced, sharp-tasting drink in which the sour of the tamarind makes your mouth pucker while the pimento dram satisfies those taste buds back in the corner of your mouth looking for more obscure sensations. The vermouth-finished rye in itself is a balance of peppery notes from the rye and gentler, sweeter vermouth aftertaste. And the syrupy consistency makes for a thick drink that should be overwhelmed by sugariness but ends up, somehow, feeling both tropical and wintry all at once.
Previous libations in this series:
- The First Cocktail of Christmas: “Opening Day.”
- The Second Cocktail of Christmas: “Afternoon Delight.”
- The Third Cocktail of Christmas: “Subourbon Oasis.”
- The Fourth Cocktail of Christmas: “The Phipps Conservatory”
- The Fifth Cocktail of Christmas: “The Sour Spice”
- The entire story and collected cocktails.
The same motivation that led us to these drinks led Melissa to do these stories while we were living in Thailand. Check them out:
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©2019, Melissa Rayworth and Ted Anthony. All rights reserved.
