Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Corpse Reviver


One of the best categories of cocktail is the 'hair of the dog': a cocktail designed for the morning after conspicuous consumption of alcohol. Most popular these days seems to be the Bloody Mary and its variants. I'm not sure Mimosas count as hair of the dog, but they're also very popular in the morning. Fans of older cocktails tend to turn to either the Zombie or the Corpse Reviver #2. Less well known is the Corpse Reviver #1.

The Corpse Reviver is composed of two parts cognac, one part Calvados, and one part sweet vermouth. At the moment, I have neither Calvados, nor its rustic cousin Applejack. What I do have is crabapple infused vodka. A while back I accidentally bought crabapples, thinking they were kumquats. (Don't ask. I was tired.) Looking around the internets for something to do with crabapples, I found a recipe for crabapple schnapps, and so there we were.

The drink has a nice, subtle apple flavor from the crabapple vodka, but it's by no means overwhelming. There's a fair amount of sweetness in the drink, but it's more than balanced out by the cognac. Some form of bitters wouldn't hurt; I've been increasingly using burlesque bitters in everything but Peychaud's might be a better choice in this. A lemon twist would not be out of place.

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