They Didn’t Burn Rome in a Day
Published October 1, 2013
Gordon M. Grant for The New York Times
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Ingredients
¼ ripe pineapple, peeled, cored and chopped
1 teaspoon honey, preferably raw
1 ½ teaspoons pink peppercorns, crushed in a mortar
4 ounces reposado mezcal, preferably Ilegal
6 dashes chile-flavored bitters, preferably habañero
½ ounce fresh lime juice
Nutritional analysis per serving
20 grams carbs; 210 calories; 2 grams fiber; 2 milligrams sodium; 1 gram protein; 14 grams sugar
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
- Step 1
Purée pineapple in a food processor. Force purée through a fine strainer or chinois. You should have a half-cup of juice. Place in a large cocktail shaker with honey and all but a couple of pinches of the peppercorns. Add mezcal, bitters and lime juice.
- Step 2
Add ice, shake and strain over ice into double rocks glasses. Dust with reserved pink peppercorns.
Private Notes
Comments
This drink appears to be a bad clone of the Employees Only drink "Ready Fire Aim" (widely published four months before this recipe was shared with the Times). The original version of this calls for making a pineapple-peppercorn syrup. It's time-consuming but results in a greater depth of flavor and richer texture than this recipe is able to produce.
I would suggest substituting half an ounce of honey liquor for the honey. ( I used Bärenjägers). I also used plain pineapple juice, because running fresh pineapple through a food processor was just too much work. I’m sure it would have tasted superior, but it was more than I wanted to get into.
New York Times cooking, I love you but any cocktail recipe that involves a food processor, straining, and crushing things with a mortar is not easy.
This cocktail is just OK. I went to the trouble of blending and sieving the pineapple but felt that the drink lacked both depth and balance. It definitely needed more citrus and, as the comment below suggested, maybe needed the added intensity of the peppercorn / pineapple syrup. I don't think I'd go to the trouble of making this again.
Honey is not going to mix well in a drink. I’d always sub a honey syrup by dissolving equal parts honey and hot water for a simple syrup or 2:1 honey:water for a rich syrup.
Tasty! I didn't filter the pineapple, so I had roughly 4X the juice/pulp. Thus it was less intense and more pulpy, which I liked. The pink peppercorns are an intense and spiky addition!