One of the things I really enjoy about cocktail mixing is how it’s like cooking but with even less margin for error. Essentially you take three or four ingredients (or a dozen if you are making a tiki drink), shake them with ice, and strain into a chilled glass. Yet, as you can learn when you start playing with those few ingredients, you can radically change the shape of a drink (which is why I’ve stopped ordering Manhattans at restaurants; it takes to long to explain to the wait staff what whiskey I want (with a few options), what vermouth I want, that I do want bitters, and that I don’t want a cherry or any cherry juice). Recently, I decided to place an order with Fee Brothers, inspired by local cocktail superstar Kaiser Penguin’s account of their customer service. In addition to the bitters I was actually ordering (and the bitters they talked me into ordering), I decided to add a bottle of their falernum.

As you can see from the linked Wikipedia article, falernum is a spiced, rum and lime based syrup that is considered one of the great forgotten cocktail ingredients. I’ve been making my own for a while now and my third batch (the recipe is from Chris Hannah of Arnaud’s French 75 in New Orleans) is something I am quite proud of. So, I thought it would be fun to get a bottle of Fee’s syrup to try against my homemade product and to serve as a backup for the homemade.

The bottles from Fee Brothers arrived in the mail yesterday, so I cracked open their falernum and whipped up two half recipes of Don the Beachcomber’s Test Pilot, using my falernum in one and Fee’s in the other.

The difference between the two drinks was apparent before Shawna and I had even tried them: my falernum produced a dark brown cocktail and the one with Fee’s was more of a copper color. This made sense as mine is made with evaporated cane juice while Fee’s isn’t. When we tasted them, they were entirely different beverages. Mine produced a drink that had much more depth to it and foregrounded a lot of the smokiness of the alcohol from the rum and the Clement Creole Shrubb I used in place of the Cointreau. The Fee Brother’s falernum tasted more openly citrus-y, highlighting the orange of the Shrubb and brightness of the limes. This makes sense as, tasting them straight, the Fee Brother’s syrup foregrounds the lime flavor with spice notes backing things up. Mine, on the other hand, is almost good enough to drink straight, with a heavy depth emerging from the coffee beans and with the lime hitting the palate later in the tasting. I think this played out in both of the drinks.

I hope this discussion highlights why I’m so interested in cocktail making. By changing the half ounce of falernum from one source to another (in a 3.75 ounce drink), I radically changed the drinking experience (also, I’m not entirely sure which I liked more). Nonetheless, I think this calls for more experimentation.

Image Credit: Falernum Infusion by Elenadan