Mike's Mix: Pink Squirrel At Lawless Distilling
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Each week, Mike Augustyniak finds a new cocktail from a local mixologist. This week, he heads to Lawless Distilling to try a luxurious dessert-style cocktail.
Pink Squirrel
Ingredients:
- 1 quail egg
- ½ oz heavy cream
- ½ oz fresh lemon juice
- ¾ oz maraschino syrup
- 1 oz orgeat
- 1 ½ oz Tippling House Vodka
- ½ oz cocoa nib liqueur
- 3 dashes Bittercube Cherry Bark Vanilla Bitters
Instructions:
Combine all ingredients and shake over ice. Strain from ice and shake again until you hear ice chips dissolving. Pour into soda-fountain style glass, and top with crushed or pebble ice. Garnish with candied fennel seeds and express a lemon on top.
Taste Test
The Pink Squirrel cocktail traces its roots back to 1941, when it was invented at Bryant's Cocktail Lounge in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It's a little unclear whether the drink started as a milkshake, to which alcohol was later added, or as a cocktail.
The updated recipe from Lawless Distilling Company nixes ice cream (with some Bittercube Cherry Bark Vanilla Bitters added instead) but remains a luxurious and layered dessert-style cocktail treat.
Barman and cocktail consultant Nick Kosevich is behind the recipes on the menu at Lawless. He "hates egg yolk drinks," because he finds that the mineral flavor of the yolk overpowers the rest of the cocktail. As a workaround Kosevich has substituted a smaller quail egg for the traditional chicken egg, cutting the yolk (and the mineral taste) in half.
