This newsletter has spent much of the summer covering tiki drinks that run the gamut from old post-Prohibition classics to clever modern twists. And earlier this year, we spent a bit of time looking at complex gin sours that used a variety of ingredients and techniques to add additional flavor layers to the template.
Today, I want to look at a drink that splits the difference, taking aspects from the two. Although it’s been written up on a cocktail blog or two, it’s not a well-traveled classic or a cocktail that most people will recognize. Instead, it’s one of the many hundreds of excellent entries in the most recent Death & Co. book, Welcome Home. But it’s a lesser-known cocktail that I think more people should know about.
It’s a variation on* [see note at bottom] a drink that first appeared on a Death & Co. menu in 2015, and it’s called the Awkwardly Tied Tongue. It’s a delightfully complex, lightly bitter gin sour that takes its cues from the world of tiki. That makes it a great example of a drink that draws from multiple cocktail traditions, and the construction of this drink shows how the ideas of tiki and the ideas of classic cocktail construction can and do coexist. And while it’s not exactly a three-ingredient basic, and does take some preparation, it’s also a drink that’s not too difficult to prepare at home.