The carol inspiration for today's cocktail is Gabriel's Message. Popularized by Sting in the 1980s (YES! The 1980s), Gabriel's Message (aka The angel Gabriel from heaven came) is a traditional carol from the Basque region of Europe. The carol recounts the biblical Annunciation and quotes Mary's Magnificat from the Book of Luke.
To translate this carol into a cocktail, we researched drinks from the Basque region. Basque immigrants to California were known for making a drink called Picon Punch which used a bittersweet French aperitif Amer Picon. It became so popular in the Basque communities of the American West that it was shipped back to Europe where it also achieved a high level of popularity.
Amer Picon is no longer available in North America and its substitute is reputed to be a poor copy of the original. Knowing that the predominant flavour of Amer Picon was bitter orange, we combined two Italian bitters, Campari and Aperol, to try and recreate the idea of Picon. We kept the additions of grenadine, club soda and brandy as noted in the original recipes.
Gabriel's Message Cocktail
2 oz Aperol
1 oz Campari
1 oz Brandy
1 barspoon high quality grenadine (we used Jack Rudy Small Batch Grenadine)
Club soda
Collins Glass
Pour the Aperol, Campari and grenadine into a cocktail shaker to mix. Fill a collins glass with ice and pour in the mixture from the shaker. Fill glass with club soda. Float the brandy on top of the club soda.
Cocktail Notes
We obviously don't know what Amer Picon tastes like, but we were pleased with the bitter orange taste of this cocktail. The grenadine and brandy add just enough sweetness and the club soda makes it feel more like a punch than a cocktail.
We tried adding some Dubonnet to the mix but resulting drink tasted too "grapey" (it's a word) for us. We also tested three types of bitters but none of them contributed to how we envisioned the drink.
If you can, find a good quality grenadine or even make your own. In this day and age, Rose's ain't cutting it anymore.
Listen Along
This is the old school performance from 1987 that made us fall in love with this carol. Sure, there are a lot more cleaner and more modern videos of this carol, but you can't beat this original. Or Sting's original hair. Oh, my!
Comments