Muddle rosemary, add ingredients over ice and shake well. Pour in chilled cocktail glass, garnish with grapefruit peel.
New Spins on Gin from America’s Best Bars
I enjoyed reading an advance copy of Michael Turback’s All The Gin Joints: New Spins on Gin from America’s Best Bars (ISBN 978-1466282988), a book celebrating gin with “101 artisanal cocktails.” Mr. Turback writes in a light, engaging style, weaving quotes from Casablanca through the prologue and the brief history of gin that front the cocktail recipes. A small fairly complete section covers proper bartending tools, material which should be familiar to people who love cocktails.
The cocktails themselves range from the staggeringly simple “Wolf’s Bite”, (3 parts gin, 2 parts grapefruit juice, and 1 part Green Chartreuse) to the almost comically complex “Daikon Dream”, which has intrepid home mixologists stirring up dongchimi broth, taking two full days to ferment at room temperature.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some intriguing drinks in this book. I am honored to know all of the Texas bartenders in the book, and Bobby Heugel’s “Smitten” is not only delicious, but within the abilities of the home cocktail-maker. Likewise, Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s “East of Eden” takes an gin sour with equal parts citrus and syrup, but enhances the white flower aromatics of St. Germain with a floral-lychee scented Gewurztraminer reduction. There are some cocktails in “All The Gin Joints” that combine deliciousness and ease of construction into a pleasant whole.
Lactart has been difficult to find, so I worked around the problem by making my own. I ordered a 4 oz bottle of lactic acid solution (88%), and made a small bottle diluted to 10% using distilled water--which is the strength found in the Emil Hiss recipe from 1897. I haven't tested it in this drink yet.
Curated to fix broken link. Added book by same author with same info, 2012 given as year created.. Noted that JM Curley is a bar (creator of drink unknown). Updated instructions per link and book.
I am not sure what to make of this since the Marianito recipe hasn't been standardized in Spain--different places have their own spin (https://punchdrink.com/articles/marianito-bilbao-cocktail-recipe/). The constants are sweet vermouth, gin, and Campari, with about half the recipes including Angostura bitters.
Since this recipe has been posted as the main one (not a variant) the juice should probably be stricken from the ingredient list or listed as optional/leaving it only as a variation in the notes. Yuzu in particular should not be in the main ingredient list since the recipes I see with juice call for pomelo or orange. Note that a few recipes call for a small amount of Curacao and no juice.
Unfortunately, the Punch recipe seems to be a bartender's own variation using pomelo juice. Many/most Marianito recipes don't have citrus juice, just an orange peel and olive garnish or similar (e.g. an orange slice.) Punch actually lists Cinzano vermouth, but a Spanish rojo vermouth is normal.
It tastes good, but it is Campari dominant to the extent I was weighing the pros and cons of drinking straight Campari. Admittedly there are obvious differences, but I don't believe it merits the effort.
Def worth the bottles out.