Aviation

Posted on 2011/08/21 10:06:07 (August 2011).

[Saturday 20th August 2011]
Slobbed about most of the morning and afternoon, and just headed out towards the end of the afternoon in the direction of Soho, with the sole purpose of buying some ingredients for a cocktail at Gerry's on Old Compton Street.

Having read about the Aviation cocktail in the most recent issue of The Chap I was keen to try it. It contained both maraschino (a kind of sour cherry liqueur) and creme de violette (which I had never heard of before). As I love cherries and anything tasting of violets it sounded right up my street - it also had a decent age to it (dating back to 1916) and had pleasing associations with an earlier era, when air travel was actually something glamorous, rather than the tawdry and miserable ordeal it is today.

Here's the recipe according to The Chap:

40 ml gin
15ml Maraschino
5ml Creme de Violette
5ml lemon juice

I bought Luxardo for the Maraschino (which, looking around on the web, seems to generally be regarded as the one to have) and a creme de violette from a company called Monin - they actually had a choice of two at Gerry's.

I even went to the full extent of crushing some ice, shaking it (albeit in a pint glass rather than a cocktail shaker) and straining it through a tea strainer. I was very pleased with the end result - sweet, fragrant and quite heady, but very drinkable.

For dinner I made a kind of vegetarian version of coq au vin, using a slightly unpromising looking blob of frozen "vegetarian ham - chicken flavour" I had picked up in Chinatown. It actually turned out rather well - thanks as ever to the magical cooking powers of our Le Creuset.

Wasn't it you who bought me Creme de Violette liqueur the Christmas before last, then?

Posted by John's Mum at 2011/08/22 09:20:33.

Hmmmm no it's not ringing any bells... It's not very easy to find in the UK - unless I perhaps picked it up in France?

Posted by John at 2011/08/27 10:11:55.

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