Bennett Cocktail

Here we have a nice twist on a gin sour. Kind of like a Gimlet with some orange bitters.

Bennett Cocktail:

• 1 1/2 oz. gin
• Juice of 1/2 a lime (about 3/4 oz.)
• 1/2 tsp powdered sugar (1 tsp. simple syrup)
• 2 dashes orange bitters

Shake and (double) strain into 3 oz. Cocktail glass.

For this cocktail, I got to use a new vial of Bittermen's Orange Cream Citrate bitters. Somehow I've managed to keep myself to just two different kinds of Orange bitters, and these are a good one. They come with a dropper, which is boss, though I haven't decided how many drops is in a dash just yet. Maybe it's one. I put five or six drops in this one, approximating two dashes, and the flavor really came through. It was like drinking a dreamsicle.Which is, by the way, delicious.

I was struck by how few drinks up to this point had used sugar or simple syrup. Most of the drinks in this book (so far) use a liqueur, or a flavored syrup like grenadine or raspberry syrup, to get the sweetness to balance out, rather than overpower, the sour elements. Just one very, very different aspect, as compared to modern flavor palettes. 

As for the overall balance of the drink, I liked it. It's not to difficult to get a good drink when you use the time-honored combination of spirit, sour and sweet with a dash of bitters, and this one just tasted...right. It's like a Gimlet with a twist, which I can very much appreciate.