Sip & Tell is a series where our barman introduces you to the artisan cocktails of our renewed Fono cocktail bar and shares insights into their creation
Cougar Club is a bit of a dry spin on a clover club. The base of it is shiraz gin, which the guys at Four Pillars have made by steeping Victorian shiraz grapes in their own gin. It’s essentially a marriage of a wine and gin – the grapes lend a certain sweetness along with a certain wine-like dryness that lingers on your tongue.
“When I tasted that gin its own, I immediately got this feeling, that it had such a similar character to a clover club – and thought it would work perfectly in one… and it did make a good clover club! But it was almost too smooth, in a sense – there wasn’t a nice ‘kick’ to it, it needed something to spice it up.”
Which is where spice comes in – our house chipotle tincture. This tincture gives a unique feeling of spice, one that presents itself near the end and feels as if it’s crackling on your tongue for a second or two, before fading away.
“When I was thinking what the drink should be called, I focused on comparing the original Clover Club to this combo of dryness and light spice all within a foamy cup of sweetness. Clover Clubs already have a more feminine connotation – so if the Clover Club was a lady, what kind of lady would this drink be?
The clover club seems more pleasant and upfront; it presents itself to you innocently and attempts to hide not a thing. It’s conventionally pleasing, but this new drink does not betray its character in such a manner. It takes a bit of time to develop, and it isn’t trying to please everyone. But something in that itself is attractive – beauty in being distinguished, and confident. A cougar, of sorts.From there, the word ‘cougar’ almost naturally replaced ‘clover’ – the Cougar Club. That just felt like a perfect name for this kind of drink: a similar base, yet wildly different in nature.
This drink serves to incorporate a raspberry drink in the current list – i’m trying to get as many spring ingredients in drinks as possible, and the clover club came to me quite quickly as a springtime drink.”
Song recommendation:
Come & try this cocktail at our renewed Fono baar at Telliskivi 62
One Response
Hi, this is a comment.
To get started with moderating, editing, and deleting comments, please visit the Comments screen in the dashboard.
Commenter avatars come from Gravatar.