Transparent Negroni

Boxes and Booze

Aug 9

Here’s a toast to Gary Foshee, brilliant puzzle designer and craftsman, generous of spirit and friendship. His legacy is clear, and in that transparent spirit I raise a glass, full of complexity and bursting with flavor, yet surprisingly, paradoxically, crystal clear. The drink is a white Negroni (a drink of choice I return to again and again) variant, and there’s a story worth mentioning, too. In 2001, the beverage director of Plymouth gin and his friend Wayne Collins, a well-known bartender from London, traveled for a spirits expo and cocktail competition to Bordeaux, France. The day before the competition, they developed a craving for ice cold Negronis, and determined they would make the drinks using French ingredients, which led them to the French bitter aperitif Suze, and the French sweet wine aperitif Lillet.

The original “White Negroni” used Plymouth gin, a standard ingredient in a classic Negroni. For this variation I poured an ounce from a very special bottle of tequila, the Don Julio Cristalino 70, which is an “anejo” aged for 18 months in barrels, which imparts an amber hue similar to aged bourbon. It is then, however, charcoal filtered, which adds crispness and strips away the color. The end result is a clear, complex, flavorful and smooth tequila that tricks the palate. Rather than Suze, the amaro component is satisfied with Bitter Bianco, a rich red style amaro which has similarly been cleverly stripped of its coloration to appear clear. Finally a dry vermouth rounds out and completes the drink. I’m completely transparent about the kind of cocktail I enjoy, and this one’s for you Gary. May your memory be a blessing.