{"id":601,"date":"2011-04-18T17:14:02","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T17:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cocktailians.com\/2011\/04\/how-is-this-drink-different-from-all-other-drinks.html"},"modified":"2011-04-18T17:14:02","modified_gmt":"2011-04-18T17:14:02","slug":"how-is-this-drink-different-from-all-other-drinks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cocktailians.com\/?p=601","title":{"rendered":"How Is This Drink Different From All Other Drinks?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I'm not Jewish. And my girlfriend is about as much of a secular Jew as it's possible to get — she loves bacon, and she sometimes asks me<\/em> questions about Judaism. (Quick! To the Internet!)<\/p>\n

But ever since moving to New York, where there are a lot more Jews around than the Southern burgs I came from, I've been fascinated by some aspects of Jewish life, and none more so than the Seder dinner at Passover<\/a>. I've not been to one — either I haven't played my cards right or I've been stuck at work — but I think the ritual is interesting, and I enjoy that it's a celebration open to all.<\/p>\n

I was reading up on the traditional ingredients on the Seder plate<\/a>, and thought that it'd be fun to combine a few of them into a Passover cocktail. I'm not getting nearly as elaborate as the guys at Sipping Seder<\/a> (really, you should go check that link out; they've come up with really good-sounding cocktails for each element of the Seder meal) or the other restaurateurs or bar owners quoted in this Tablet<\/em> article<\/a>, but I did want to see if I could combine the bitter herbs (maror<\/em>), which symbolize the bitterness and the suffering of the Israelites in Egypt,  and the charoset<\/em>, a sweet paste that symbolizes the mortar that the Israelites used for bricks there, and put them both in a drink together. After all, balance — of sweetness and bitterness, as well as other flavor profiles like sourness — is one of the hallmarks of a good cocktail.<\/p>\n

The bitter herbs were easy; it's hard to get more bitter or herbal than Fernet Branca<\/a>, of course, which famously goes off the charts in both of those directions. And for the charoset<\/em>? There are lots of different recipes and styles<\/a>, but quoth Wikipedia:<\/a> "A typical recipe from the Eastern European (or Ashkenazi) tradition would include nuts, apples, cinnamon, and sweet wine \u2014 ingredients mentioned by King Solomon in Song of Songs<\/a> as recalling the attributes of the Jewish people themselves." (As an aside: Really? The Song of Songs, aka the Song of Solomon? The sexiest book in the Bible<\/a>? Apparently so, as it encodes a charoset<\/em> recipe<\/a> in all those sensuous similes. I learned something today.) I thought about using a nut liqueur such as Frangelico or Nocino, but decided to work with what I had on hand: apple brandy, sweet wine, and cinnamon. A bit of tinkering with the proportions, and I arrived at:<\/p>\n

\"Seder<\/a><\/p>\n

Seder Ain't So<\/strong><\/p>\n