Charon’s Obol: Cocktails From Hell

1 1/2 oz Rittenhouse Rye (Bottled in Bond)
1 oz Cynar
1/4 oz Kins’s Ginger Liqueur
1/4 oz Lemon Juice
1/4 oz Lime Juice
rinse La Clandestine Absinthe

Rinse a chilled Old Fashioned glass with absinthe. Shake remaining ingredients with ice and strain into the Absinthe rinsed glass.

In honor of the  year in Hell behind us, and in anticipation for the Year in Hell before us, I’ve made a new Category on the site: COCKTAILS FROM HELL! I’ve had a vague idea of doing this for a few years now and I’ll post more about it in the very near future. This newest inspiration, however, was from my friend Jason of Cryptocurium who has dedicated this year’s Parcel of Terror subscriptions to “A Season in Hell”. While I already have a massive ton of Cryptocurium idols and things on my Elder God alter, this is also finally what sold me on becoming a Parcel of Terror subscriber.

The first installment of A Season of Hell to arrive was a Cryptocast  of Charon, the Ferryman, along with with the Cursed Soul that he ferries to the afterlife. Along with those two is a cast of Charon’s Obol, the coin a dead soul would pay the grim ferryman for the passage across the river Styx to the land of the dead.

I knew when these came in, I had to clear all of the cobwebs from my stagnant creativity and create something befit of my posting as Miskatonic University’s Professor of Esoteric Chemistry as bestowed by The Inner Sanctum.

Whenever I decide to make a new alchemistic concoction I look to see what is potentially already out there. This can point me in a direction sometimes or slam me into a brick wall at others. First I looked to see if anyone created a “Charon Cocktail” which someone did… and it looks awful. So awful I couldn’t find a way to filch it while even remotely keeping it recognizable to be a derivative of the original. Brick wall hit. Then I looked up “Ferryman Cocktail” and did find something I could work with. There was one more cocktail I found called “The Sails of Charon” which does look lovely, I just don’t have any knowledge of one or two of the liqueurs used in it to even guess at how it would come out.

While I was coming up with the recipe, I had to think of a name. As far as I know Charron’s boat doesn’t actually have a name so I had to cross that off the list while simultaneously only being able to think of the song “Don’t Pay the Ferryman” by Chris de Burgh repeating over and over in my head. This drink was nearly called “Don’t Pay the Ferryman” until I finally read the leaflet that came with the parcel. Right up on the top was a description of “Charon’s Obal” and it was perfect. “Cursed Soul” was an easy second choice though. After all is said and done, that damn song is still going through my head…

I wanted to make this an Absinthe Cocktail, I’m going to try to make all of the Cocktails from Hell as Absinthe cocktails, so I had to figure what ingredients I could move around while keeping the spirit of the drink. While it seems that the original drink was based around the Cynar-Celery blend, I felt that the big flavors here were more the Cynar and Ginger. I decided to swap out the Dry Rye Gin with a nice Rye Whiskey and lose the Celery bitters in favor of the Absinthe wash. Don’t really much like celery that much anyway.

All in all it came out rather nice. It seems like a tart Choke Me Like You Love Me which I don’t seem to have ever posted here. It’s a bit less bitter but more citrus and herbal. 

Also included with the first installation of A Season in Hell was an amazing Cerberus print by the ridiculously talented Sam Heimer. I have some of Sam’s print and a few records he did the covers on, but what I really want to get my hands on are bottles of liquor that he’s designed the labels on from a Rowhouse Spirits, a small distillery around Philly.