My gaming group likes the odd cocktail every now and then. I’ve come up with some custom concoctions we’ve enjoyed so I thought I’d start sharing them!
I enjoyed the horror movie Midsommar when I saw it last week. As luck would have it, I am also a fan of gin and had just gotten a bottle of Hendricks’ limited edition Midsummer Solstice gin. It’s a very floral gin, which makes it a little hard to fit into some things. I made a gin and tonic with it, but that was not super. But, I thought, I’ve also made Aviations for this group, and those are floral… Maybe I should make a new cocktail! And I did just go see Midsommar, that’s quite a coincidence…
The Aviation is a classic gin cocktail that largely disappeared after Prohibition because its ingredients weren’t available here, primarily a violet liqueur named Creme de Violette. It had a hipster-type renaissance when it became available again in the 2000s. But… I’ll be honest, the violet is a little overwhelming. Some people describe it as “drinking hand soap.” The classic Aviation is (amounts vary from recipe to recipe):
Aviation
1 1/2 – 2 oz. gin
1/2 – 3/4 oz. Maraschino liqueur (Luxardo is the good one)
1/4 – 1/2 oz. Creme de Violette
1/2 – 3/4 oz. lemon juice
Shake with ice, strain into a cocktail glass, garnish with a cherry.
I’ve made Aviations for the group but no one’s asked for more. So I thought “what about an Aviation, except instead of using dry gin and Creme de Violette, I just use Hendricks Midsummer Solstice as both those parts? It’s floral but not gag-me-with-a-spoon floral.” Thus, the Midsommar was born.
Midsommar
2 oz. Hendricks’ Midsummer Solstice gin
1/2 oz. Luxardo
1/2 oz. lemon juice
dash of sloe gin (if making multiple, optionally add this only to one)
Shake with ice, strain into a glass. (If you care about what kind of glass and what to garnish it with, more power to you, but I’m just a civilian.)
Results: Really good! Very well balanced, floral and summery but not overly cloying. Better than a stock Aviation. The only drawback of my first iteration is that it was just clear/lemon juice colored, without the fun purple of the Aviation. I happened upon the idea of adding just a touch of sloe gin to this to add a tinge of red, for reasons that should be obvious to those who have watched the movie. The result:
Give it a try! All these should be available at your local liquor store and aren’t terribly expensive; a .75 of the Hendrick’s was $40 at my nearby Twin Liquors. (I’m actually disappointed that the Alamo Drafthouse isn’t doing some Midsommar-inspired cocktail using this… Seems like the kind of thing they’d do…)
Your gaming group can then look like this.
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