The Abbey Cocktail

With The Abbey Cocktail we once again revisiting the 1930 cocktail book by Harry Carddock “The Savoy Cocktail Book” for inspiration. We generally don’t like orange juice in cocktails as it often takes over but here we’ll give it a try.

The original recipe says: 1/2 Dry Gin, 1/4 Kina Lillet, 1/4 Orange Juice and 1 dash Orange Bitter. Shake well and strain into Cocktail glass.

Kina Lillet was created  in the late 19th century in the south of Bordeaux. A fortified wine blended with different liqueurs including an quinine liqueur based on chichona bark (what makes tonic water bitter). In 1985 Lillet changed the recipe and excluded the bitter to accommodate the changing taste preference. Lillet Blanc today have no bitterness and taste like a sweet wine with citrus tones. There are many discussions on how to best substitute Kina Lillet and we come across two suggestions, either swiss made Kina L’Aéro d’Or or Italian Cocchi Americano. We haven’t tried either but as we appreciate bitters and bitterness in cocktails we’ll try to get one of them soon.

We used Lillet Blanc this time and added some extra Orange Bitter as Lillet is not bitter at all.

 

The Abbey Cocktail

1 1/2 oz Dry Gin

3/4 oz Lillet Blanc

3/4 oz Orange Juice (freshly squeezed)

2 dashes of Orange Bitter

A Maraschino cherry.