Black Atty
1 1/2 oz Empress Gin
3/4 oz Averna Amaro
1/4 oz Crème de Violette
1/4 oz La Clandestine Absinthe
Stir everything with ice and strain into a chilled Cocktail glass. Garnish with a Lemon twist.
Here is another addition to my list of Blackened Cocktails, where we take a traditional cocktail and swap out the boring old Vermouth for some nice, spicy Averna. Don’t get me wrong, I love a nice fortified wine, but I never drink enough to finish a bottle before it spoils. With no company over here in the dust laden Green Jenkin’s Walk In Closet Home Bar for nearly a year now due to this wretched pandemic, there is no one to drink with these days anyway.
The Atty cocktail was an improved Attention cocktail that really got all of the strong flavors of the ingredients to play much nicer together. The Attention seems to have first been published right before prohibition in a 1917 cocktail book called Recipes for Mixed Drinks by Hugo Ensslin.
The blend is even parts of Vermouth, Absinthe, Gin, and Crème de Violette. While I don’t think I’ve actually ever made one, the idea sounds horrible and I’ve never wanted to waste perfectly good booze to attempt it.
The Atty, however, shows up in the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book with all of the same ingredients but a much more balanced blend. That said, if you search for Attention cocktails online, you will most likely find a bunch of drinks based more on the Atty than the original Attention.
I made this with the the very lovely Empress Gin for the extra floral essence, La Clandestine Absinthe as it’s always a remarkably lovely Absinthe that works so well in cocktails, Averna, of course, for it’s “Blackening”, and a little Crème de Violette my niece gave me over the holidays. It came in a set with matching bottles of Elderflower and Wild Rose Liqueurs. I absolutely loved the Wild Rose mixed as a Martini with St. George Dry Rye Gin.
This gave me a much more Herbal Licorice taste than I expected, or even like, on the first taste. Despite my love of Anise and Absinthe, I don’t really like Licorice. With no added sugar, this combination added a LOT of sweet. I tasted the Crème de Violette on its own and it is much sweeter than ones I’m used to.
