Sunday, May 8, 2011

pompadour

1/2 St. James Rhum (1 1/2 oz J.M. Rhum Ambre)
1/2 Pompadour Pineau des Charentes (1 1/2 oz Chateau de Beaulon)
Juice 1/4 Lemon (1/2 oz)

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. I added a lemon twist.

Two Fridays ago, we wanted to make use of our new purchase of a bottle of Pineau des Charentes. Pineau is a fortified wine that is a blend of grape must and Cognac eau de vie which is then aged in oak barrels; the end result is sweet and full bodied and often drank as an aperitif. For a recipe, I chose the Pompadour from Frank Meier's 1934 The Artistry Of Mixing Drinks which pairs the Pineau with an aged rhum agricole and balances its sweetness with lemon juice. It might seem odd that a drink created in France would use rum as the base spirit, but Meier was an American who traveled to Europe to continue his trade during Prohibition, and the rum he used was made in the French colony of Martinique.
With the format of rum, sweet fortified wine, and citrus, the Pompadour reminded me of the Fig Leaf, but the lemon and Pineau took the drink in a very different direction than the Fig Leaf's lime and sweet vermouth. The Pompadour's nose contained citrus notes with a little bit of brininess from the rhum agricole. The Pineau des Charentes' wine flavors entered into both the sweet lemony sip and the dry, funky rum-containing swallow. The Pineau performed a great job of balancing both the lemon's crispness and the rhum's hogo notes; moreover, without the Pineau, I doubt that rhum agricole and lemon would have worked together as superbly.

2 comments:

Paul said...

I tried this and it was a total failure. I don't know if the pineau des chartenes differs very much in sweetness, but I used the Pierre Ferrand brand, which has worked well before, but this mix was just way too sour. The rum was La Favorite Rhum Vieux. It just didn't work with the same proportions of the three ingredients for me, and I think either the lemon was extremely sour or the Pineau was not as sweet as the Pompadour.

Paul said...

My mistake ! I looked at the recipe again and I looked at the beginning of the receipe for the first two ingredients and at the end for the lemon juice. I should have used triple amounts of the rum and the pineau. Sorry ! YOu can just erase these comments Frederic. I'm sorry ! Will try it again with the right proportions.