MxMo 107: The Best Amaretto Sour in the World

A big round of thanks to Dagreb for once again hosting this month's Mixology Monday!  And this time he has a clever theme, and an even cleverer title!

Overproof spirits is really a theme I can get behind; I've been known to have a few bottles of such things lying around.  And what's more, Dagreb has firmly defined his theme of "overproof" to be at least over 100 proof, so we're not going to be seeing any sissies thinking they're hot with their whiskies bottled in bond.

I'm going to keep up the "shitty drink" theme that I've got going and post another.  This time it comes from one of our booze blogging forefathers Jeffrey Morgenthaler.  He claims that he makes the best Amaretto Sour in the world, and his secret is cask strength bourbon.  How could he not have your attention?

The result is delicious.  The bourbon acts as a force multiplier and isn't even noticeable in the final result.  Check it out.

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Morgenthaler's Amaretto Sour

1.5 oz amaretto
.75 oz cask strength bourbon
1 oz lemon juice
1 tsp rich simple syrup*
1/2 oz egg white

Dry shake, then shake with ice.  Double strain into an old fashioned glass filled with ice.  Garnish with lemon peel and cocktail cherry.

*Cheap amaretti are usually sweeter than the expensive stuff.  You may not need need to add the syrup when you make the drink.

Infusion #5: Umeshu, Part II

Five months ago I let a few whole green pluots begin soaking in a bunch of soju. This was in a shoddy attempt to create my own version of umeshu, an East Asian plum "wine".

Because I'm on the other side of the earth, I settled for trying the recipe using an unripe version of some new-fangled cross-species instead of a traditional asian plum.

Much like seeing a movie before reading the book on which it was based, I can't tell you how faithful the final product is, but I can tell you how good it is.

It's good!


The infusion product ended up being a pale brown with almost a hue of green... ("before" and "after" pictured above) not bad considering that all this color was infused through the skin of the pluots.

The sweetness of the stuff is almost just right, between the initial sweetness of soju and the added sugar pulled from the fruit. Because of this, I only needed to add a bit of rich simple syrup in order to get it to my liking.

The final flavor is overwhelmingly of overripe plums... or even prunes, if you will. As someone who enjoys prune juice, I certainly enjoy this. A determined effort will reveal slight "green" flavors of sour plum and even perhaps the tannins that were once there. Sipping this umeshu certainly isn't a contemplative process where one strives to pick out flavors from a complex sip, but the process is, without a doubt, pleasant.

I would consider this umeshu infusion an overall success, though I have a feeling that my final brew is nothing like the real thing.

Infusion #5: Umeshu, Part I

A small project I’ve been meaning to tackle for years now is the ability to make one’s own plum wine at home… more specifically, umeshu. Technically, umeshu isn’t a wine at all (though it’s called so), but in fact a liqueur.

Umeshu might be the simplest infusion yet done on this site, though its simplicity in preparation demands patience for the infusing. Umeshu is created by soaking whole green plums in soju.

Green plums aren't just unripe plums (though they can be). Because this is an east Asian recipe, what can be assumed required is one of several varieties of Korean plum, most of which ripen to a light green color. Their taste is sweet, though perhaps not as sweet as some of the darker species that you can find. I myself don't have direct access to unripe Asian plums, but what I did find recently in my local store was less-than-ripe green pluots. I know that they're not nearly the same as for what traditional umeshu calls, but I'm going for it.

Soju is a Korean spirit that you'll find more and more nowadays, if you make an effort. It's a mid-proof mostly neutral spirit that is traditionally made from rice, though modern versions can be made from grain and sweet potatoes as well. Most soju also has just a bit of sugar added at the end of production, so the result is a slightly sweet liquor that is about 40 proof (on average) and very subtle in flavor. By the way, soju is not to be confused (which it commonly is), with shochu or baijiu, their Japanese and Chinese counterparts which tend to be more commonly made from rice only and are also higher proof.

The method of infusion couldn't be simpler: wash the fruits and soak them whole in soju for at least a few months. This method concerns me a bit. From my limited experience with infusing whole fruits in liquor, I find that the flesh of the fruits, shielded from the alcohol directly by their in-tact skin, tend to decompose a bit from the inside out. Similar experiments of mine have resulted in ammoniated aromas from the mixtures. But every description I've read of umeshu insists that it's smooth and inviting, so perhaps my fears are unfounded.


I'm making a small batch divided into two jars. Traditional recipes have you include sugar to soak in the liquor with the plums, but I'll just add simple syrup to the final infused product, as I often do.

If any of you know why this experiment will fail or what I'm doing wrong, feel free to tell me. See you in a few months!

The Alexander Ratio, Remixed

The cold weather can drive one's taste buds to yearn for warm flavors. Well, I don't know of any flavor warmer than cinnamon, and I don't know of a hotter liquor than Goldschlager.

Almost a year and a half ago I wrote of the ironclad Alexander cocktail type. What? You haven't been experimenting with it like I asked? WELL DO IT NOW. I'll wait.

This here is a drink that myself and the adorable DJ HawaiianSkirt have been working on for a while now. It's still not perfect, because even cream can't tame the alcoholy kick of the Goldschlager, but damn if this isn't tasty. The Cognac provides just enough of a counterpoint to the Goldschlager such that it's not simply a "Goldschlager milkshake".

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ORIGINAL REMIX

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Hugo Bar Cocktail

1 oz table cream
1 oz Goldschlager
1 oz flavorful brandy, or Cognac

Shake ingredients in a shaker full of ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish in some way with your favorite cinnamon candy. (jelly beans pictured here)

MxMo: Forgotten Cocktails

This month's Mixology Monday is hosted by Rock and Rye, and the theme is "Forgotten Cocktails". Contextually, Dennis of Rock And Rye is referring to cocktail recipes that may be of old age and, even better, underrated!

I have just the candidate, and as one of my favorite cocktails, I've been waiting to post it for quite a while.

The mythology behind the Oriental cocktail is that the recipe was loosed upon the world when an American engineer shared it with a Filipino doctor as repayment for his having saved his life from some tropical disease, as first mentioned in the Savoy. I personally find cocktail histories to be untrustworthy and dull, and so I'll stop here. Let's get on with the drinking.

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Oriental

1.5 oz rye whiskey
.75 oz orange curacao*
.75 oz sweet vermouth**
.5 oz lime juice

Shake all ingredients with ice, strain into a cocktail glass. No garnish.

*Triple sec, if you must
**Try to use a sweet vermouth that isn't overpowering. I find that certain brands, such as Martini & Rossi, are veritable herbal assaults on the tongue, and just a bit too much. If your vermouth is too strong, it will upset the balance in the drink.

What separates this from many other obscure vintage cocktails is the flavor. Erik at the Underhill-Lounge remarks that it has a "very modern" taste, and he's right. As I've mentioned before, whiskey and lime is a fairly uncommon combination, which is what might lend to the drink's modern flavor. Furthermore, as Erik also points out, the amount of sweet and sour in the drink is high, such that the whiskey isn't exactly singing the lead.

It's the struggle between each ingredient in this recipe that makes it so interesting. Nothing is accenting and complementing the other here; instead, it's like a flavor free for all, where each is vying for your attention. It's an unusual dynamic for a cocktail, but it proves that it can be done, and in an entertaining way.

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A variation on this recipe is the James Joyce which replaces the rye whiskey with Irish whiskey, constructed by the legendary Gary Regan.


James Joyce

1.5 oz Irish whiskey
.75 oz curacao/triple sec
.75 sweet vermouth
.5 oz lime juice

Shake all ingredients with ice, strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Chuck Taggart declares this drink to be superior and more complex than the Oriental, but I don't agree. (Probably because I used the balmy Jameson as my whiskey.) For me, this variation throws the Oriental's balance a little out of whack, as the subtler whiskey recedes to let the fruit and the sweetness take over. Regardless, it's still a fascinating drink, but in a different way.

Lastly, I have my own variation, which I daresay is my favorite version so far. One simply replaces the Oriental's rye with bourbon...

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ORIGINAL REMIX

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Sentimental

1.5 oz bourbon
.75 oz curacao
.75 oz sweet vermouth
.5 oz lime juice

Shake all ingredients with ice, strain into a cocktail glass. No garnish.

This drink tips the recipe's balance ever so slightly into the "sweet" direction, thanks to the bourbon, but I feel it's not too much. If you use something on the sweeter side, like Knobb Creek or Woodford Reserve, you'll find a deep spiciness appear in the drink causing you to praise whatever god you worship (or lack thereof).

Review: Evan Williams Honey Reserve

A while back I reviewed a new Seagram product called "7 Dark Honey", a whiskey liqueur that is flavored with honey. The product mostly missed the mark: its whiskey base was the underwhelming Seagram's 7, its aroma and flavor were dominated by alcohol, it tasted just as much of a generic (brown) sugar as it did honey, and its character was completely lost when mixed with anything else. This failure was particularly salient when compared to its competitor, Wild Turkey's American Honey liqueur. American Honey was bourbon based, and its honey flavor was prominent and enjoyable.

Well, I spoke too soon. Shortly after the review(s), I stumbled across Evan Williams' entry into the product segment.

I'm a huge Evan Williams fan. For about $15, their normal black label bourbon is one of the best liquor values I know. The price makes you feel fine while mixing it away, but it's certainly refined enough to enjoy alone in a glass, which I do often.

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The Review
Evan Williams Honey Reserve

Most of the Evan Williams bourbon flavor doesn't come through, despite its bourbon base, though if you pass up trying this product, you'll regret it severely.

In the Glass

I daresay that Honey Reserve is thicker than its competitors. Its viscosity is luxurious. But with that, its color is so light that you'd swear it uses a base other than whiskey.

Smell

The aroma of Honey Reserve immediately hits you, and it's fruity... mostly of lemon. Whereas the 7 Dark Honey's aroma is nonexistent and the American Honey smells faintly of bourbon, the Evan Williams immediately makes its aroma known. Aside from lemon, I'm detecting a brown sugar aroma, much like its competitors.

Taste

Strangely enough, the overwhelming flavor in this stuff is of fruit. It's got an overall fruitiness that is constant, and soon enough you realize that most of it is lemon. The sweetness coats your tongue, like this others; this one is mostly of honey, but there's some brown sugar in there too. After a while, you can begin to notice faint hints of vanilla, and even the sweetness of corn from the whiskey. The swallow brings more fruitiness and brown sugar.

Mixing

This stuff is heavenly over a few ice cubes... you'll find yourself struggling to stray from either doing that or mixing it with bourbon in various proportions. I think I successfully mixed this stuff into a Manhattan and it was good, but that was a long time ago. You can make it into an Old Fashioned by simply putting some bitters in it and throwing on a good twist of lemon.

I set out to do something much more radical with it, just for giggles. I came up with something of a Martini variation, but it doesn't taste like it. Let's call it the...

Laced Straight

2 oz gin

.5 oz Evan Williams Honey Reserve

.5 oz dry vermouth

Stir with ice, and strain. Garnish with lemon twist.

This thing is great. The honey manages to keep the gin's botanicals in check, and there's a resulting nuttiness in the mix. It's sweeter than most clear gin drinks you'll ever have, which is a little disconcerting.

Conclusion

This is by far the best American honey whiskey product on the market. It takes a slightly different tack from its competitors by embracing a lemony fruitiness to accompany the wheat and the honey, but the risk paid off.

The moment I tasted Honey Reserve for the first time, I knew it was the best in its class. Weeks later, my suspicions were confirmed when I saw it behind the bar at the exceptional PS7 in Washington, DC.

Oh, and by the way, its price is smack dab in the middle of its two competitors. I'm not sure what more to tell you, other than to go buy some now.

Bonus: Here's what the Drink Hacker said about the stuff, and here is a piece done by Bourbon Blog on how one restaurant uses it to make a cocktail along with BBQ sauce.

Review: Hiram Walker Original Cinn

I'm a young guy. I'm still at the point of my life where I'm trying to financially balance the fact that I have an expensive cocktail habit and the fact that I'm living alone in one of the most expensive metropolitan areas in the US. And, much like a cash-strapped parent might go for the from-concentrate orange juice in order to save a few cents in the grocery store, I have no problem with lowering my eyes a shelf or two in the liquor store in order to save a few dollars.

I'm not ashamed that I don't demand the best every time. As someone who's still learning this craft, I value quantity just as much as quality, since quantity allows my experimentation-per-dollar to fly farther. You won't see me making Beachbum Berry's famous $100 dollar Mai Tai... I can make a Mai Tai for half the price that tastes better than half as good.

I've found that liqueurs are a product segment where money can be very easily saved with little ill effect. Why? Because liqueurs generally constitute small volumetric amounts of any given recipe (so any imperfections aren't too noticeable). Simply put, it is my opinion that you're better off using a lower quality triple sec in your Sidecar cocktail, for example, than lower quality brandy.

But let's get one thing clear: if your eyes wander to the bottom shelf of the liqueurs, you're in for trouble. Many times have I generously given chances of impression to bottom-shelf triple secs, for example, and continually I've been disappointed. I believe one time I salvaged a bottle of the stuff by infusing it with orange peels, but I later found that it doesn't always work. The key is to realize that less-than-premium liqueurs (and spirits) can yield fine cocktails, but that lowering your standards too much can make the drinks suffer.

Hiram Walker is a brand I find myself returning to very often, in this respect. Its prices are completely affordable, and it always tastes better than the nonsense you find on the bottom shelf. For instance, if I choose Hiram Walker's Triple Sec over Cointreau, I can save over $20. My drinks may not be quite as good, but they certainly won't be twice as good with the Cointreau. A few of the products I like most from Hiram Walker are the Triple Sec, Orange Curacao, Creme de Cassis, and Cherry Brandy (mentioned previously here).

And now I have another favorite: Hiram Walker's Original Cinn cinnamon schnapps.

Wait, don't go away! I have a feeling this stuff isn't what you'd expect.

Schnapps is an interesting topic in the land of liquor. When one speaks of schnapps, there is value in clarifying what you mean. Why? Because there are two different types of schnapps, and they are very, very different.

The first type is the product to which the name originally referred: German schnaps (spelled with only one "P"). German schnaps(pictured right) is very similar to the french term eau-de-vie; it means any liquor that is distilled from fruit or fruit juice, bottled at about 80 proof, and contains no additional sugar, colors, or flavors. These are most commonly produced using apples, pears, plums, and cherries. Technically, schnaps is a kind of fruit brandy.

Americans have a knack for bastardizing foreign things, and schnaps is no exception. American schnapps bears little resemblance to its German grandfather. Typically, American schnapps' base is a neutral grain spirit (read: vodka) with colors, flavors, and sugars added to the final product. While the German stuff is technically an eau-de-vie, the American stuff is a liqueur.

Most people serious about spirits scoff at schnapps (two "P"s), and I don't blame them; the vast majority of them are flavored artificially. Some of them are much better than others, however. And in the case of Hiram Walker's Original Cinn (pictured right), its quality and singularity merit a second look.

When it comes to cinnamon flavors in modern food and drink, I think of two main categories: natural cinnamon and candy cinnamon . When it comes to cinnamon schnapps, the overwhelming flavor is usually of candy cinnamon. Even Hiram Walker's original Cinnamon Schnapps is this way.

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The Review
Hiram Walker Original Cinn

Original Cinn is a cinnamon schnapps that clocks in at 90 proof. A high proof cinnamon schnapps? Sounds like a textbook competitor for Goldschlager.

Goldschlager is a clear liqueur that is also high proof and quaintly decorated by edible and delicate 24-carat gold flakes that gracefully float inside the bottle. At 87 proof and mostly consumed via shots, the fiery stuff screams down your throat with the strong flavor of hot candy cinnamon. It's very popular, especially among those who don't like harder spirits like tequila or whiskey, but still like the effects of intoxication.

I thought Original Cinn was gonna be the same experience, but I was wrong. And thanks to this free bottle of Original Cinn that was given to me as a gift, I'm able to tell you how.

In the Glass

Original Cinn pours thick, like a liqueur should. Its color is that of a lightly aged rum(pictured above). It's disconcerting at first to see a cinnamon liqueur that's not red, but after a moment I begin to appreciate the withholding of obligatory red coloring on the part of Hiram Walker.

Smell

The nose of this stuff is strongly of cinnamon (like it was freshly grated), but as you'll learn with Original Cinn, a streak of vanilla invades the experience as well. Its aroma is a bit creamy. Other than that, there's a strong waft of alcohol. It is 90 proof, after all.

Taste

Original Cinn hits your tongue with a syrupy viscosity. After a moment there's a blooming and full flavor of fresh cinnamon (as opposed to candy cinnamon) that fills your mouth. Following the cinnamon is a wonderful flavor that's identical to a good vanilla frosting, and even with a touch of red apple. You'll also find the slightest hints of nutmeg and maybe even clove. You'll most definitely notice some alcohol, as the 90-proof vapors rise to the roof of your mouth.

While the mouth feel is thick and the flavor is sweet, this won't fool you into thinking you're drinking Drambuie; the base of this is clearly not aged, and so there's a cheap vodka-like body to it. It's not to the detriment of the experience, but it's noticeable.

The swallow finishes sweet. After each sip, it feels like you've taken a bite of a piping hot frosted cinnamon roll right out of the oven.

Mixing

I had trouble mixing this stuff. Liquified cinnamon buns aren't begging to be paired with anything that I know of. However, I did have some limited success with a few ideas.

The first was something you could almost call an Original Cinn Old Fashioned. The stuff doesn't need any more sugar, but with a few dashes of aromatic bitters and on the rocks, these schnapps are just fine. Frankly, Original Cinn on the rocks(pictured left) might be the best easy way to drink it. After dinner, this stuff is great.

Ever heard of B&B? It's a bottled product that you can buy which is half Benedictine (a sweet herbal liqueur) and half brandy. The brandy cuts the Benedictine into a nice drink. I took a similar route and mixed some Original Cinn with an equal part of bourbon, and the result was nice. I bet it'd work great with rye whiskey as well.

Lastly, I poured about two dashes of Original Cinn on a big ol' lump of vanilla ice cream. I always get irritated when the back of liqueur bottles suggest use with ice cream... I think it's a cop-out, mainly because no one buys liqueur for that. Anyway, Original Cinn on ice cream is great, period. Don't go overboard with it, though, because the high proof makes itself known a little too much in this application. For the record, the Original Cinn bottle doesn't actually suggest consumption with ice cream.

Conclusion

Original Cinn is different than I expected, and I was pleasantly surprised. I'm glad that Hiram Walker took a different tack with this product, which I still feel is a competitor to Goldschlager. Unlike Goldschlager, however, what you get is not an intimidating liquid fire that people can only manage to drink when forced down a shot at a time, but instead a completely inviting liquid sweet roll that reminds you of your grandmother's house on Sunday morning. While I imagine that Hiram Walker believes that Original Cinn will be most often consumed in shot form, I feel that it's much more at home swimming with ice cubes while you lounge after dinner on a cold night.

I also feel that Hiram Walker is doing itself a disservice by marketing this product with an edgy, mischievous image. Though I suppose that the American schnapps segment is rarely marketed on its own product quality, and so perhaps this sort of "sinful" image is really needed to get sorority girls to pick up the bottle for their next party.

What I wish they had done instead was simply marketed it as a "Cinnamon Roll Liqueur" or something like that. Perhaps that image is a bit novel, but I feel there's a glut of products on the liquor store shelves which rely on the "bad boy" image. I could point out examples in schnapps, vodka, spiced rum, tequila, and that's not even counting products whose commercials depict naughty sexual suggestions in some night club.

There aren't enough wholesome products which are marketed on their own merits, and I feel that Original Cinn could benefit from it. It is a boozy and sweet liqueur whose flavor is unique, fascinating, and delicious. It's worth having a bottle around simply for its singularity. And, with a price tag that I imagine will be well under $20, the decision isn't difficult. If it's not already in your local store, it will be soon.

Drink responsibly!

Infusion #2: Strawberry Rum

You really have to feel sorry for strawberries. Much like limes, their flavor is one that very poorly translates into our modern world of processed foods and artificial flavors. Sure, you may enjoy those old strawberry candies or even that strawberry-kiwi drink from the soda machine, but those don't actually have a flavor like fresh strawberries. This is also mostly true of liqueurs and flavored liquors. Strawberry vodka is an abomination, as is the bottom shelf syrupy nonsense that you can sometimes find at your local liquor store. Long have I wanted an honest strawberry flavor in a spirit, and so that's what I set out to accomplish. It's quite easy, really.

A concoction that's been floating around for a while is the Tequila Por Mi Amante. It's basically a recipe for a strawberry-infused reposado tequila, and I've heard from several people that it's simply delicious. I chose to start there for my experiment, but used rum instead of tequila because, well, I know rum better than tequila, and frankly put, good rum is cheaper than good tequila.

I reached for the Cruzan Estate Light, like I always do. Its subtle but likable flavors are a good platform on which to build things. I poured about 500mL of the rum over top about 3/4 pint of fresh strawberries and 3/4 pint of organic frozen strawberries. (You just can't get sweet fresh ones in the spring here on the east coast.) I stored this mixture in small container and stashed it in the fridge, where I let it sit for a little over 3 weeks.

When I took it out and strained it, it was a tad bitter. I believe I should have removed the fruit earlier, but it still tasted good. I made a rich simple syrup and began to slowly add it to the rum in order to counterbalance the bitterness. Would it not have needed sugar if it infused for less time? I don't know, that's a question for another time.

In the end, I finished with a slightly sweet strawberry rum (not unlike the sweet flavored rums you can buy on the market) that actually tasted like it should, and has a beautiful almost-neon red color (though not as pretty as the cranberry rum). Its best application I found so far? In an aperitif glass over crushed ice with a lime wedge/twist.

Review: Seagram's 7 Dark Honey

Although my friends may call me a liquor snob, I'm really not. It's true that I do like nice things and do try to steer people in the direction of the top shelf as much as possible, but I of all people realize that our wallets can't always follow. Today we shall lower our eyes to the middle shelf of our hypothetical spirits-vending establishment and examine briefly the Seagram brand.


Seagram's brand of spirits is very much a hit and miss model. A look at their good products begins with their gin. Even though I find my palate for gins to be still evolving, Seagram's gin is not to be discounted. It is an American-style gin (as opposed to London Dry) which means that the tongue isn't assailed by the taste of Christmas trees (which I actually like), though American-style gins vary widely in flavor. Seagram's gin's claim to fame is that it is one of the only gins to be lightly aged in barrels while almost all others are un-aged. The resulting taste is one similar to a London Dry, but much more mellow with slight flavors of oak... it makes a killer Gimlet. As an admitted non-expert on vodka, I can also say that Seagram's Vodka is also a great buy for the price. They both have really great bottles too.

Seagram's Smooth Brazilian Rum is a newly-launched product, and as a drinker much more versed in rum than other spirits, I have to say that it's simply a fine product. It's a rum produced from sugar cane juice instead of molasses, in the style of Rhum Agricole and Cachaca, such that its flavor is more on the caney and grassy side rather than a full-bodied and dry one. The Drink Hacker said this about the stuff: "This is actually drinkable on its own — when’s the last time you said that about a $12 rum?" The gin, vodka, and rum are all available for $15 dollars or (much) less, marking a considerable value for those looking to save a few bucks. As I've said before, being a liquor fan isn't cheap.

But Seagram's also markets products that don't really hit the mark. Notable are their Twisted Gins, which are basically some of the only flavored gins around, and they're just hard to take seriously. Also for sale is Seagram's "Gin & Juice", which are barely palatable syrupy concoctions that I can only assume are artificially colored and flavored (but I'm not positive). And lastly worth mentioning is Seagram's 7 Crown whiskey, which is an American blended whiskey (a dying breed) that's more often found on the bottom shelf than the middle. It's a long standing brand and even has its own cocktail, but it's really not a whiskey taken very seriously among whiskey-drinkers. In preparation for this post I did a quick tasting of the stuff at a local bar, and some notes I took down consisted of "alcoholy", "mellow", and "one-sided".

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The Review
Seagram's 7 Dark Honey

I was interested to learn that Seagram's has a new product called Seagram's 7 Dark Honey which is a honey-flavored whiskey, and certainly not the first one on the market. This bottle was actually given to me for free to review, and so that's what I shall do. However, because this spirit clearly uses 7 Crown whiskey as a springboard, I really wasn't sure what to expect. For starters, the bottle is pretty cool, and is actually the same bottle used for Captain Morgan's Parrot Bay brand. This stuff is sweetened like a liqueur, and clocks in at 71 proof. (Not bad!)

It turns out that there's a mild controversy on the internet concerning how Seagram's may be promoting their products via marketers commenting on blog posts who pose as though they're normal readers, which can be read about here. I'll note that the person in question(according to that link) has also posted a comment on THIS blog several months ago, shortly before another person (the same one who sent me this product) commented, and both comments talked positively toward a brand name that I've never even uttered on this blog. When the Federal Government gets involved in this kind of stuff, you can imagine why I hold full disclosure in high esteem. With that said, I'm no less grateful or humbled to have received this gift; it's as if people think I know what the hell I'm talking about! But shall I be adding to this product's internet hype? No, I imagine I won't...

In the Glass

Nothing too groundbreaking here. It's the color of whiskey and is viscous like a liqueur.


Smell

Almost nothing but alcohol. I tried really hard, and I finally discerned a faint smell of wheat akin to the original 7 Crown whiskey. I'm also sensing a generic "sweet" smell... perhaps it's brown sugar, but it's definitely not honey. Near the end I detected something citrusy, which was a little strange.


Taste

Luckily, the first flavor I got was honey, but it was soon to be replaced with cinnamon, and then more alcohol. I tasted a fleeting wheat, much like the smell, before the alcohol burned my tongue a bit, and then the strong sweetness took over. To be honest, the mouth feel was quite nice. When it goes down the hatch, it's just fine, and finally flavors of brown sugar and cinnamon... and then more alcohol. Overall, despite all the alcohol burn, it's a pleasant experience. Perhaps disappointingly, its flavor is on the subtle side, much like it's mother, Seagram's 7 Crown. An added ice cube changed nothing of this experience.

Mixing

I set out to find a vehicle that could successfully deliver this stuff, and I did it alongside a fine young lady that (somehow) continually finds that I'm pleasant company. (DJ HawaiianSkirt, you could call her...) I knew we could do it. We tried some of the options that the official Seagram's literature suggested: as a chilled shot, on ice, with a little lime, and with cola. The shot tasted mostly of alcohol, and we found that so long as 7 Dark Honey is mixed with anything, its flavor is dominated and it "disappears" into the drink. (Seriously, when your product's flavor manages to hide in a small glass of seltzer, you know you have a problem.) Surprisingly, it works passably in a hot toddy (made with hot water, not tea) having the 7 Dark Honey replace both the whiskey and honey in the recipe. Also, the stuff isn't unpleasant on ice (but a lemon twist dashes its flavor) where it mysteriously has absolutely no aftertaste.


Conclusion

So, what's the final verdict? Well, I think 7 Dark Honey hits a little below Seagram's average mark. It's an overall pleasant liqueur, but its flavor is too subtle. It's nice on the rocks, but it is certain that your favorite mixer (unless it's flat water) will destroy what subtle character it has... otherwise, it's like using a sweet 71 proof vodka. You want a sweet honey liqueur that doesn't taste like whiskey? There's a better one that already exists, and it's called Barenjager. Perhaps this is a "gateway whiskey", perhaps it's a drama-free mixer (read: doesn't taste like booze), but whatever it is, it's not versatile, and not something for which I have much use.


Value (bonus section to the review!)

But here's the problem: I picked up a bottle of Wild Turkey American Honey, 7 Dark Honey's competitor. It's a bourbon-based liqueur, also honey-flavored, and also 71 proof(erie...). I had had the stuff before, but I bought more solely for this comparison. AH's smell blows Seagram's away... its aroma is bold, and actually of whiskey... and there's honey too, with a teasing herbal complexity. The taste is also of whiskey, and with a flavor of honey much more pronounced than Seagram's. The mouth feel is even better, the flavor more complex, even with hints of lemon at the swallow. And the punctuation to all this? Froogle says that AH is an average of $5-6 more expensive than 7DH. And so, simply, the final question is: Does Seagram's 7 Dark Honey have the best value among the whiskey-based honey liqueur products on the market today, or is it even worth your purchase? No.

Addendum: Evan Williams created a honey whiskey that's better than both the products by Seagram and Wild Turkey. My review of it can be found here.