Bottle Swap: Banane du Brésil

It's finally time for another bottle swap with our good friend Adam of Mr. Muddle! I say "finally" because we organized this one and swapped the bottles before I got pregnant with Luke, and it's been on hold now for over a year. And let me tell you, this Giffard Banane du Brésil has been burning a hole in my bar. I did not expect it to become an ingredient I used frequently. Banana can be such an overpowering flavor and aroma. But I have been shocked to find myself reaching for this bottle over and over again. I try not to post recipes with ingredients I haven't officially introduced, but with this one I couldn't help it. It found its way into my Banana Stand for #TikiTheSnowAway (which was featured in an article by Liquor.com, by the way!) and my Savannah Sunrise for Amarula. It was also great in the L'Acajou, which I posted on Instagram. Banane du Brésil has probably been the single most surprising thing I've added to my bar.

I think Banane du Brésil is so good because it's not just some sugary banana-flavored liqueur. It's made from a mixture of neutral grain spirits macerated with bananas and a spirit actually distilled from bananas. A bit of Cognac adds the finishing touch. It's sweet, yes, but it has a rich flavor like caramelized bananas with hints of vanilla. I've just been shocked at how versatile it is. Mixing it with bourbon or aged rum brings out its richer notes, while lime juice and coconut play up its more tropical banana flavors.

Banane du Brésil

Price: $35
Alcohol content: 25%
Popular cocktails: Often added to daiquiris, Tiki drinks, and spirit-forward rum cocktails

For this cocktail, I was inspired by a drink I had at Blossom Bar in Brookline that had both banana liqueur and brown butter in the ingredient list. I love baking and cooking with brown butter, and fat-washing a spirit with it seemed genius. And it was. I know this post is supposed to be about the banana liqueur, but this brown-butter washed rum is AMAZING.

I've only fat-washed a spirit once before, when I made an olive oil-washed gin. Fat washing is one of those techniques that sounds intimidating but is actually incredibly easy. Basically, it involves mixing a spirit with a fatty substance like butter or oil and then chilling or freezing the mixture until the fat separates and rises to the top. Once the fat is strained out, the spirit retains its flavor. It can be done with a number of different fats and spirits. I've seen bacon-washed whiskey, coconut oil-washed Campari, sesame oil-washed gin, and more.

Washing an aged rum with brown butter gives it an incredible rich, toasty, buttery flavor that goes perfectly with Banane du Brésil.

Brown Butter-Washed Rum

1 stick butter
1 cup aged rum (I used Plantation 5-Year)

Place butter in a saucepan and melt over medium heat, swirling the pan frequently. The butter should melt and then begin to foam up. Continue to swirl the pan frequently until the foam begins to go down, brown solids appear, and the butter gets a toasty, nutty aroma. Remove from heat and slowly stir in the rum - the butter will foam and sizzle a little. Let cool slightly and transfer to a cup measure or jar. (This is the stage pictured above.) Let cool completely. A layer of fat will begin to form on the surface of the rum. Once it is cool, transfer it to the fridge for 48 hours, then stir it to break up the fat and strain it through a coffee filter or cheesecloth. Store in the fridge for up to a week.

With my Banane du Brésil and my brown butter rum, I wanted to create a cocktail that basically tasted like banana bread. It's sweet, nutty, and boozy with a thick, buttery texture. It's downright decadent. And it does a nice job of showcasing this fantastic banana liqueur.

Don't forget to head over to Mr. Muddle to check out the Pratfall: peaty Scotch, Banane du Brésil, maple syrup, and apricot liqueur!

Banana Bread

1 1/2 oz. brown butter washed rum
3/4 oz. Giffard Banane du Brésil
1/2 oz. Amaro Averna
1/4 oz. Allspice Dram
1 dash maple walnut bitters

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a rocks glass over one large ice cube and garnish with banana chips and walnuts.

Devil's Backbone

Before I talk about today's cocktail, some shameless self-promotion: a couple of weeks ago I submitted my Mediterranean Gimlet recipe to Nautical Gin's Gimlet contest, and now voting has begun. Check out all the entries on Nautical Gin's Facebook page and vote for your favorite by giving it a "like." You can find my recipe here - I'd appreciate your votes!

Whenever I'm feeling uninspired or I'm not sure what cocktail to make, I head over to Fred Yarm's blog Cocktail Virgin Slut. It's an incredible database of recipes - Fred posts at least one basically every day - and each one is accompanied by historical details, expert tasting notes, and often good suggestions for substituting the more unusual ingredients. A clickable list of spirits on the side of the page allows you to pick at least one thing you definitely want in your drink, helping to narrow down the vast number of recipes on the blog.

I was using this feature, browsing through the recipes that used amaro, when I came across the Devil's Backbone. It was really too intriguing to pass up. Two bitter liqueurs (Averna and Gran Classico) and a whole half ounce of peaty Scotch promised for a pretty intense cocktail. It seemed right up my alley.

The Devil's Backbone smells intensely smokey with citrusy undertones. It's sweet and citrusy at the beginning of your sip, and then all the bitterness hits you, blending with smoke and peat at the end. It's big and complex and really wonderful - one of the best new cocktails I've made in a while.

If you're lacking some of the ingredients in this recipe, don't despair! You've got some options. For the Scotch, anything with a lot of smoke and peat will do - some examples are Laphroig, Lagavulin, Caol Ila, and Ardbeg. I used Compass Box's Peat Monster, which is a blended Scotch that I got for my peat-crazy husband - it's quite good. You could try subbing Amaro Montenegro or maybe Ramazzotti for the Amaro Averna. And Campari is a decent substitute for the Gran Classico; Fred used Campari when he made this drink.

History: Fred got this recipe from The Complete Cocktail Manual by Lou Bustamante, but it was originally created by Chris Lane at Lolinda in San Francisco. The idea behind the recipe was to use two whiskeys, two amari, and two types of bitters.

Devil's Backbone

1 oz. rye whiskey
1/2 oz. smoky single malt Scotch
3/4 oz. Averna
1/2 oz. Gran Classico
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash orange bitters

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a coupe and garnish with an orange twist.

Recipe from Cocktail Virgin Slut.

Witty Comeback

Getting back from vacation is rough, isn't it? We spent last week in California exploring Sonoma, Yosemite, and Highway 1. It's an amazing road trip. Especially if you stock up on great bottles of wine to drink while you're gazing at those beautiful views. Now that we're home, I guess the view from our balcony will have to do. Maybe with a cocktail.

Since I bought my bottle of Amaro Averna, I've been looking for recipes to use it in. I love ginger, so the Witty Comeback immediately caught my eye. A cocktail with just rye, lemon juice, and ginger simple syrup would probably still be really delicious, but the Averna makes this one particularly special. It adds a lovely spice and bitterness, perfectly rounding out the recipe. The flavor is sweet and tart, with a subtle bite.

So far it seems like the Averna works well with whiskey, but I'm looking forward to experimenting with some other spirits. If you've got any Averna recipes, let me know!

History: The Witty Comeback was created by New York Times editor Dan Saltzstein. He wrote a great piece about its conception and perfecting it with Jim Meehan at PDT.

Witty Comeback

2 oz. rye
1/2 oz. Amaro Averna
1/2 oz. lemon juice
1/2 oz. ginger syrup*

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake until well chilled. Strain into a coupe glass.

*For ginger syrup, combine 3/4 cup sugar, 3/4 water, and 1/4 cup chopped, peeled ginger in a saucepan. Bring the mixture to a simmer and stir to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat and let steep for 20 minutes. Strain and let cool completely before using.

Recipe from Bon Appetit.

Bottle Buy: Amaro Averna

When we were in New York in January, we had a fantastic dinner at Gramercy Tavern with a couple of friends. It was a serious splurge for us; we ordered two bottles of wine and did the six-course tasting menu. It was some of the most incredible food I've ever had. As we dug into the ridiculous assortment of desserts they brought us, the waitress asked if we'd like a digestif. We waffled a bit, not sure what to order, and she offered to bring out a couple of amari.

Amaro has been on my radar as a potential cocktail ingredient, but the reason I hadn't bought any was because there were just so many. I would see them in recipes: Amaro Montenegro, Amaro Averna, Fernet Branca, Amaro Nonino, Cynar, Ramazotti. There was no way I could buy them all, and I had no idea which one would be the best to choose.

That night at Gramercy Tavern, our waitress brought out two: Amaro Averna and Amaro Nonino. We drank them straight up. It was absolutely perfect after our big meal. They were both sweet enough that they worked after dessert but bitter enough to be great digestifs. We agreed that we liked the Averna a little better, which worked out well, because it's the cheaper of the two ($30 vs. $50). As soon as we got back to Boston, we bought a bottle, ready to whip it out after dinner parties to impress our friends.

Averna is made by soaking herbs, roots, dried fruit, and citrus rind in a base of grain alcohol. Caramel is later added for flavor and sweetness. Its flavor is described as "exotic spice, wood, maple syrup, cinnamon, and dried orange peel." Supposedly the recipe comes from the Benedictine monks of St. Spirito's Abbey in Caltanissetta, Sicily. (You may recall that the Benedictine monks have a history of making tasty liqueurs.) They had been making the herbal elixir for years when a rich textile merchant, Salvatore Averna, gave a generous donation to their Abbey in 1859. To thank him, they gave Salvatore the recipe. Realizing he had a seriously delicious secret on his hands, he created the company Fratelli Averna in 1868 and began selling Amaro Averna to the public. His son later took over the business and expanded it, selling Averna all over Europe. Currently, the fourth generation of Avernas is running the business, which was acquired by Gruppo Campari in 2014.

Amaro Averna

Price: $30
Alcohol Content: 29%
Popular Cocktails: The Black Manhattan is one of the few that's currently widespread. It's traditionally consumed on its own.

Much as I enjoy drinking Averna straight, I've also started experimenting with it in cocktails, and I'm really liking the result. My go-to right now is the Black Manhattan. There are a lot of versions of this cocktail out there. My favorite so far is the one below, which I found in a Reddit thread about what cocktails to make with Averna. It replaces half the sweet vermouth in my favorite Manhattan recipe with Averna, and half the Angostura bitters with orange bitters.

I think I like the Black Manhattan better than a traditional Manhattan. It's less sweet, but the Averna leaves lingering flavors of raisins and dark fruit. When you taste them side by side, the Averna makes for a deeper, smoother cocktail, blending the rye and vermouth together better into a harmonious whole.

Black Manhattan

2 oz. rye
1/2 oz. sweet vermouth (I like Punt e Mes)
1/2 oz. Averna amaro
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash orange bitters

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass and stir until chilled. Strain into a rocks glass or coupe. Garnish with a cherry or orange peel if desired.

Recipe adapted from Reddit user murrayhenson.