“White. A blank page or canvas. The challenge? Bring order to the whole. Through design. Composition. Balance. Light. And harmony.”

That’s how Sunday in the Park with George starts, and is how I will start this last post on my Cocktails in the Park with George (or Sunday in the Park with Cocktails — still can’t decide…). The final color Seurat used in his famous painting was lead white. My drink came off slightly off-white, but let’s just say that this was to account for the effects of time. Sure, I’ll go with that.

Lead White

• 1.5 oz. Pisco (Macchu Pichu)
• 1.0 oz. Malibu
• 1.0 oz. Orgeat
• 0.25 oz. heavy cream
• 1.0 tsp. cream of coconut
• 1 egg white

Shake without ice initially, then with ice.
Strain into chilled sundae glass.
Top with club soda and grated nutmeg.

Sort of started in the Pisco Sour direction, but didn’t introduce the sour. Instead I went to the pantry and refrigerator and pulled out all my whites with the cream, cream of coconut and egg white. The Malibu and Orgeat introduced plenty of additional sweetness, so it seemed appropriate to put this in a sundae glass in the end as really it was a dessert in a glass. A lot of what I make is on the bitter and boozy side, so this was a nice change for my friends with a sweet tooth for drinks. Add as much club soda as desired to lessen the sweetness and increase the frothiness.

And of course I will end this string of posts with the quote that ends Sunday in the Park with George. Also very appropriate.

“White. A blank page or canvas. His favorite. So many possibilities.”

After using Blue Curacao, where could I go for my blue tint? I had one more blue drink for my Cocktails in the Park with George, the Cobalt Blue (hex #0047AB), and for that I turned sheepishly to a blue vodka that did the trick.

Cobalt Blue

• 2.0 oz. UV Blue Vodka
• 1.0 oz. Hpnotiq
• 0.25 oz. Bittermens Amère Sauvage
• 2 dashes Regan’s orange bitters

Stir with ice and strain into cocktail glass.

UV Blue is a raspberry flavored vodka, and I combined that with the vodka-based fruit juice liquor Hpnotiq (also blue, with a touch of green). Very sweet and not very complex at this point, so I poured in the bitters, going for the gentian Bittermens Amère Sauvage and some classic orange bitters. I don’t normally drink vodka drinks, and wouldn’t necessarily reach for this recipe on a Saturday night, but I think I pulled off a drinkable, layered drink that wasn’t just sweet and fruity and was, yes, a nice hue of blue.

Just one more to go to complete the palette.

With a blue drink needed for my Cocktails in the Park with George, I of course immediately turned to the old staple of Blue Curacao, which I had in the back of the liquor cabinet from some early tiki drinks but hadn’t touched in years. I was looking to create ultramarine blue (hex value of #3F00FF) which is a completely saturated blue with a little red thrown in (I think I got a little too much green in mine somehow, but alas).

Ultramarine Blue

• 2.0 oz. Cachaça (Leblon)
• 1.0 oz. Blue Curacao
• 0.5 oz. Byrrh Grand Quinquina
• 0.25 oz. lime juice

Shake with ice and strain into collins glass over ice.

I hadn’t yet in this series used cachaça, which comes from sugarcane juice and is popular in South America, so I gravitated immediately to that as rum seemed a little obvious with the spirit. Cachaça is similar to rum, coming from the sugarcane, but rum a lot of time is made from molasses whereas cachaça is distilled from the sugarcane juice. To me they taste nothing alike.

For some bitterness, I went with Byrrh, which I had recently acquired and had a nice reddish tone. The mix at this point really needed some tartness, so I grabbed a lime. The result was not unlike the famous (and tasty) Caipirinha, made simply with cachaça and muddled lime and sugar.

Now we start getting into the odder colors in our Cocktails in the Park with George palette. We’ve left the cozy confines of the reds, oranges and yellows and now veer left at the Land of Oz to emerald green (hex value #50C878).

Emerald Green

• 1.0 oz. Akvavit (Aalborg)
• 1.0 oz. Midori
• 0.5 oz. Thatcher’s Cucumber liqueur
• 0.25 oz. lime juice
• 1 barspoon green Creme de Menthe

Shake with ice and strain into cocktail glass.

I just had to break out the Midori and the Creme de Menthe for this one, these being two dusty bottles I probably purchased in my first round of mixer buying years ago since a) they were cheap and b) with my limited knowledge of cocktails at the time these were two I had actually heard of before. However, after mixing a Melonball and a Grasshopper (I know..) there was not much else I could find for these and they got relegated to a forgotten corner of my bar. Until now.

Since I was starting with melon as a base, to which I knew I was going to add a bit of mint, I needed a flavor to complement this bit of a farmer’s market and I thought Akvavit would work nicely with its caraway and anise undertones. I chose the clear, unaged Aalborg from Denmark to help keep the green cast of the finished cocktail. For an additional bit of sweetness I added the cucumber liqueur, though its taste is so subtle against the bolder flavors that it comes off as a lighter simple syrup. Then, for a bit of brightness and tartness I added the lime juice, which didn’t detract from the color (let’s face it, the Midori is almost radioactive in appearance and obliterates most of the other colors anyway).

Even just a little creme de menthe can take over a drink, so a barspoon is all that’s needed here, which still makes its presence known in the final drink. At the time I made the drink I used a cheap mixer I will probably never empty, but since then I have spotted the new offering from Tempus Fugit. As their new creme de cacao is so phenomenal, I am curious to know whether their creme de menthe is as eye opening. Who knows, perhaps a bottle of that could come out from the forgotten corners of the bar and play a bigger part in future cocktails?

This month’s Mixology Monday theme, as presented by Chemistry of the Cocktail, is Fortified Wines, and so I took a break from the Island of La Gande Jatte to throw my own libation into the mix. From the announcement:

Fortified wines began, in large part, as a way to deal with the difficulties of shipping wine long distances in the holds of sailing ships. Without the rigorous sterilization that is possible today, wines would often spoil en route. However, increasing the alcohol concentration to around 20% ABV was enough to keep them from going off. Coincidentally, this also made it possible to age those wines for very long periods, increasing their richness and depth.

Now, I use fortified wines all the time in the form of the many variations of vermouth, but for this challenge I wanted to go with an ingredient that I didn’t normally use (and vermouth has had its own Mixology Monday in the past). It so happened that I had a bottle of Madeira that I was saving for cocktail exploration at some point so this was a great opportunity to open it up. Generally I don’t use things like Port, Madeira or Sherry just because they, like vermouths and other fortified wines, require you use them within a short amount of time before they turn. Yes, they do keep a while — that was the whole point — but they don’t keep for months and months (please don’t leave vermouth out in your bar for a year; throw it out, I beg you). I only have so much room in my refrigerator I can use before my wife files divorce papers, so I have gone with the more easily mixed vermouths than with something like Madeira.

But here I knew I was going to be trying a lot of experimenting and would probably quickly go through the bottle. This was certainly the case as in the end I went through so many variants before arriving at my submission for the month, The Kilted Heir:

The Kilted Heir

• 1.5 oz. Madeira
• 1.0 oz. blended Scotch
• 0.5 oz. Amaro Nonino
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir with ice and strain into coupe.
Garnish with an orange twist and 3 drops of salt water.

Madeira offers a spicy nuttiness that I thought paired well with a blended Scotch (I used Famous Grouse) and the sweet nuttiness of Amaro Nonino. There’s a spiciness to Angostura as well, so this added to the depth and the bitter note pulled everything together for me. The orange garnish added nicely to the nose of the cocktail, and the salt water was a last minute addition I made after the first couple of sips. I felt it brought out the spices all the more.

The name derives first, probably obviously, from the Scotch component. The “Heir” is a hat tip to Henry the Navigator, the man who discovered the Madeira Islands, who was Infante (great name for a cocktail, but, alas, already taken), or heir to the king. Or at least Wikipedia tells me so.

I did have quite a few other attempts at pulling Maderia into a drink, most admittedly not successful. I found that either the Madeira didn’t play well with other flavors, or else I masked it so much that it defeated the purpose. I felt The Kilted Heir did a fine job of highlighting the Madeira while still creating a unified drink. Some others that I did enjoy I list here for sake of recordkeeping.

Fronkensteen

• 1.0 oz. Madeira
• 1.0 oz. sweet vermouth (Torino Vermouth de Torino)
• 1.0 oz. Old Monk rum
• 1.0 oz. Cynar

Stir with ice and strain into coupe.
Garnish with an orange twist.

Basically a Negroni using Old Monk and Cynar, with Madeira added into the mix. The Old Monk, one of my favorite bases to mix with, could hold its own against the Madeira with its spiciness. It was good, but not terribly original, which is why I did not feature it. The name obviously comes from the pronunciation in the Mel Brooks movie Young Frankenstein, the musical adaptation of which I was just cast in when I made the drink. Can’t wait to get started on those themed drinks!

Forte Without the Ay

• 1.0 oz. Cognac
• 1.0 oz. Madeira
• 0.5 oz. Averna
• 2 dashes orange bitters

Stir with ice and strain into coupe.
Garnish with an orange twist.

This was a minor variation of The Kilted Heir. I wanted to try a Cognac base instead. Another drinkable concoction, but I felt the Scotch base led to a more robust drink.

The name comes from a little peeve of mine concerning the pronunciation of “forte.” It’s pedantic, so forgive me, but we all have our little quirks, don’t we? When someone says, “That’s my forte,” most often they give it two syllables as in the Italian pronunciation. However, that’s an Italian musical term that means loud. “Forte” meaning “strong point” has a different, French etymology and should be pronounced as the English “fort.”

Of course, words and the English language change all the time (as my wife and I argue “sneaked” and “snuck”), and that is as it should, so I realize it is a rather silly argument I make. In fact, the online Merriam-Webster dictionary has this to say:

In forte we have a word derived from French that in its “strong point” sense has no entirely satisfactory pronunciation. Usage writers have denigrated \ˈfȯr-ˌtā\ and \ˈfȯr-tē\ because they reflect the influence of the Italian-derived forte. Their recommended pronunciation \ˈfȯrt\, however, does not exactly reflect French either: the French would write the word le fort and would pronounce it more similar to English for. So you can take your choice, knowing that someone somewhere will dislike whichever variant you choose.

Ah, c’est la vie (pronounced “kest la vye”).

By far the prettiest of the Cocktails in the Park with George colors/drinks to my eyes, the Viridian cocktail moves from the oranges and yellows of the previous lot into cool blues and greens (without the Windex blue we will see shortly), with a hex value of #40826D and some cool ingredients as well.

Viridian

• 2.0 oz. Magellan gin
• 0.5 oz. Maraschino liqueur
• 0.25 oz. Green Chartreuse
• 4 dashes acid phosphate
• 4 drops salt water

Stir with ice and strain into cocktail glass.

Magellan is a French brand whose gin offering has a unique blue hue from the infusion of iris flowers. It’s subtle, but a neat effect, and serves as the perfect base for this drink. You might notice that most of the other ingredients are found (along with gin) in the immaculate Last Word cocktail. The Green Chartreuse added the necessary green tint to the drink, and from that point I didn’t see much reason to stray from the Last Word’s path, adding in the Maraschino for its sweetness.

However, lime juice from the Last Word set the color off too much from my desired end result so I turned instead to some dashes of acid phosphate, an ingredient once widely found in soda fountains that I will admit I picked up as a lark and hadn’t yet utilized much. Here, though, it added a nice bit of tartness without affecting the color in any way.

The salt water? Dunno. Felt like it needed it. Sometimes I don’t have a reason beyond that.

So at this point in my Sunday in the Park cocktails I realized I was getting to the end of my friendly oranges and yellows and I hadn’t yet used a nice aged whiskey. I had utilized a silver whiskey for my first drink, the Vermillion, but hadn’t gone with a whiskey with any color, which I knew wouldn’t be possible once I moved into blues and greens. So I turned to bourbon for the basis of my sour variation, the Chrome Yellow (let’s say something like #FCDE28 though I was going for more of something you would see on a school bus).

Chrome Yellow

• 1.5 oz. Bourbon
• 0.5 oz. Gran Classico
• 0.5 oz. St. Germain
• 0.25 oz. lemon juice

Shake with ice and strain into cocktail glass.
Twist lemon peel over glass and discard.

I am not the biggest fan of lemon juice, as I have written, but there was enough sweetness here to counter it for me. The Gran Classico added a bitterness to the sweetness from the floral St. Germain (in addition to its own sweetness and what you get from the bourbon). It also added just the right color, which, you know, is sort of the theme here.

Interestingly to me, chrome yellow was an unfortunate choice for Seurat (and others). It oxidizes and dulls over time and a fair bit of brilliance in the original La Grande Jatte painting is gone because of it, replaced by muddier browns where the more vibrant chrome yellow once was.

That’s a lesson to everyone to fresh squeeze their lemons for their drinks. I think. I’m not good at extracting morals.

While I was initially posting these cocktails for Sunday in the Park with George for my friends I was called out for unintentionally teasing those unable to partake due to age or to a little human growing inside of them. My wife does not drink, so occasionally I try to put together something unique and tasty for the teetotaler. It seemed only fair to have at least one color within Seurat’s palette inspire a nonalcoholic beverage.

Cadmium Yellow

• 3.0 oz. pineapple juice
• 1.0 tsp cream of coconut
• 1 barspoon ginger rice vinegar
• 4 dashes Fee Brothers’ Celery bitters
• 1 pinch celery salt
• 4.0 oz. Q Ginger Ale

Shake all but ginger ale with ice and strain into highball over ice.
Top with ginger ale and garnish with a mint sprig.

Cadmium yellow is a bright and vibrant pigment (hex value of #FFF500, which is too bright to color this text with over a white background) that seemed to just call for pineapple juice as a base. Coconut of course pairs nicely with that. At that point I just started to have fun, reaching for a ginger rice vinegar I had recently picked up that I thought would cut into the sweetness of the pineapple and coconut nicely and seemed to be pushing me into a Thai direction. Thus, although I know it sounds a bit odd (and scared some of my castmates as I was mixing), I added in the celery elements. I love adding pinches of salt or saltwater to drinks, and the celery salt with the celery bitters really took the drink in an interesting direction. I topped it all off with some Q ginger ale (you can use another, but I personally favor Q) and some mint for a nice aromatic finish. Generally I don’t go for highballs or drinks topped with soda (sugary or not) as I tend to find these dominate over the liquor. However, in a drink without liquor and with such a strong, flavorful base, the ginger ale was a welcome finish.

Now for Cocktails in the Park with George (or Sunday in the Park with Cocktails — take your pick) we move out of the red/brown pigments that were on Seurat’s palette to the yellows. The first, iron oxide yellow, is a mustardy color that I couldn’t find a direct hexidecimal value for, though I did find mention of its relation to yellow or gold ochre with the value #CC7722.

More importantly, what’s in it? As odd as the name is (could you imagine ordering that in a bar?), you will find nothing particularly odd within its ingredients.

Iron Oxide Yellow

• 1.5 oz. Reposada tequila (El Tesoro)
• 1.0 oz. Lillet Blanc
• 0.5 oz. Yellow Chartreuse
• 0.25 oz. Mezcal (Del Maguey San Luis del Rio)
• 0.25 oz. lemon juice
• 2 dashes Xocolatl Mole bittters

Shake and strain into cocktail glass.

Reposado refers to a rested tequila as opposed to a silver or white tequila, meaning the spirit was aged from two months to a year in oak barrels, which establishes the base to the cocktail’s coloring (obviously important to this drink). The light yellow Lillet contributes a mild bit of sweet and citrus notes with a slight bitterness. The Chartreuse, yellow of course in favor over the green, offers an herbal bite, while the mezcal adds to the agave taste of the tequila with some more smoky depth. The lemon juice, which I personally use very sparingly as I always find it overwhelms my palette (and I don’t think I have a very delicate or subtle palette, but lemon juice kills what I do have) brings some tartness and the acid to the drink. The mole bitters just rounds out the whole thing for me.

Not an appealing name, I grant you, but a nice agave sipper.