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The Kingston Club Cocktail

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Today I bring you the Kingston Club.

It’s fresh and fruity and light.

Pouring lime juice from a jigger into a cocktail shaker

This cocktail comes from Jeffrey Morgenthaler. He’s pretty much a genius when it comes to mixing drinks.

He has a new book that I can’t wait to get my hands on. It’s not just a book of drink recipes, it’s really a primer on cocktail techniques.

Pouring Fernet into a barspoon

If you want to get a better understanding of the whys and hows of shaking and stirring and what role ice plays in the chilling and diluting of drinks, this is the book for you.

And it’s even more for you if you’ve ever fantasized about opening your own bar or just improving your home bar setup.

Opening a cocktail shaker

The Kingston Club is a tiki drink, a category of cocktails that tends to rely heavily on rum and tropical fruits and has been making quite a comeback in the last couple of years.

Tiki drinks can easily cross the line from pleasantly fruity to overbearingly sweet, which is why I used to give them a wide berth.

Straining a Kingston Club cocktail

But this drink is restrained on the sweetness front.

Instead of rum, it uses Drambuie, a Scotch whisky liqueur, most commonly used in the classic old man drink The Rusty Nail.

It goes tropical with fresh pineapple and lime juices and just a small splash of Fernet Branca for an herbaceous complexity and a few dashes of Angostura bitters for a hint of warm baking spices.

(If you love that tropical citrus-spice flavor profile you should try these chocolate sandwich cookies with a citrus clove filling.)

Kingston Club Cocktail

It gets topped with some soda water for subtle effervescence and a twist of orange peel for an extra hit of that lovely sweet citrusy fragrance.

All of which makes for a pretty drink to look at.

Topping the Kingston Club with soda

It’s a drink that feels both familiar and surprising.

And I just love it.

The Kingston Club Cocktail

Looking for another way to use that bottle of Fernet Branca? Try the Toronto.

Yield: 1 cocktail

The Kingston Club

Kingston Club Cocktail

This tiki drink is fruity but not too sweet. The sweetness of the pineapple is balanced with the sour of the lime juice and the herbal notes from the Fernet Branca. To make fresh pineapple juice without a juicer, you can puree pineapple chunks in a blender and then strain out the pulp with a fine mesh strainer. For squeezing limes, this is my weapon of choice. I prefer shaking drinks in a two-piece metal shaker, which is so much easier to open than the three-piece cobbler shakers you may be more familiar with.

Prep Time 2 minutes
Total Time 2 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 ounces Drambuie
  • 1 1/2 ounces pineapple juice
  • 3/4 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice
  • 1 teaspoon Fernet Branca
  • 3 dashes Angostura bitters
  • orange peel, for garnish

Instructions

  1. Add the Drambuie, pineapple juice, lime juice, Fernet, and Angostura bitters to an ice-filled shaker. Shake until cold. Strain into an ice-filled collins glass and top with soda water and express a piece of orange peel over the drink. Serve immediately.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

1

Serving Size:

1

Amount Per Serving: Calories: 151Total Fat: 0gSaturated Fat: 0gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 0gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 2mgCarbohydrates: 10gFiber: 1gSugar: 6gProtein: 0g

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Steve

Saturday 24th of June 2017

Thanks for sharing this drink recipe. It's delicious. Just what I was looking for.

Toronto Cocktail - Blossom to Stem

Thursday 5th of November 2015

[…] to appreciate Fernet’s wackadoo personality. And although I’ve enjoyed Fernet in other drinks, the Toronto is still the first cocktail that comes to mind when I think of […]

Pisco Sour - Blossom to Stem

Friday 30th of October 2015

[…] are usually a cloudy mix of the colors involved and they contain tiny chips of ice. These are the fruity, citrusy, fresh-herb and frothed egg white kind of […]

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