Mom came to visit last Christmas bringing an actual newspaper clipping from the Chicago Tribune (I love that she still does this). The recipe in the column is for an “Adonis” cocktail, dead easy if you stock the ingredients, which are not hard to find.
Even when we’re on a cocktail kick, we don’t end up using a lot of vermouth (either sweet or dry) — I like it well enough in a mixed drink, but it’s not my husband’s favorite, and I just won’t go through a bottle before it goes off (you do keep your vermouth in the fridge, right??). But, since it was Christmas and I had other whiskey errands, I picked up a small bottle of Carpano Antica, and started experimenting.
What I very quickly landed on was rosé vermouth. Prior to a yoga retreat I went on last October, I’d never heard of the stuff (though I should have imagined it, given my penchant for both rosé and cocktails!); on Whidbey Island between asanas, I met a yogi who works at Brovo Spirits in Woodinville, who eagerly described to me their exciting amari and other concoctions. As we were all packing up for the weekend, he found a bottle of their “Brovo Pink” in his trunk, and kindly gifted it to me. I’d stuck it in the fridge unopened, but hadn’t thought of a use until this clipping came along.
The result is what I’m calling the Pink Adonis: It’s the same vibe as its sweet-vermouth predecessor, as easy to remember the proportions of (like a Negroni; this is always a bonus in a cocktail, especially when you’re making iteration #2 or #3!), but has a nice sweetness midpoint somewhere between dry and sweet vermouth. I love it.
Mom just visited again, so I’ve had a chance to play with the recipe. Here’s the result.
PrintPink Adonis Cocktail
A not-too-sweet cousin of the classic Adonis cocktail, made with rosé vermouth.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 oz. dry sherry
- 1 1/2 oz. rosé vermouth
- 2 dashes orange bitters
Instructions
- Fill a mixing glass with ice.
- Put everything in the glass.
- Stir.
- Decant. I use an OXO cocktail strainer, but anything that gets the ice out will do.
- Imbibe!
I read somewhere (not in an actual newspaper) that this was named Adonis for a play that was particularly popular at the time it was introduced, “in the late 1800s.” And interesting bit of trivia for a delicious cocktail.