1.5 oz La Higuera Sotol Dasylirion Wheeleri
MArc rizzuto fall/winter 2023
0.25 oz Adriatico Amaretto
0.25 oz Nixta Corn Liqueur
1 dash Bitter Truth Celery Bitters
Method: Stir and strain
Glassware: Old Fashioned
Ice: Large Block
Garnish: Lemon Twist expressed and discarded
I would argue the Godfather cocktail is an underrated and underutilized classic Old Fashioned riff. While tasting through Agave alternate spirits at Death & Co., a particular Sotol from La Higuera stood out for all its smoke and earthiness, abrasiveness even. But when paired with nutty Adriatico Amaretto, Nixta Corn Liqueur and Scrappy’s Celery Bitters, a fresh take on the Godfather cocktail emerged. At Death & Co. I spent three and a half years using spirits that were unfamiliar to most, revisiting unloved classics, and exploring flavor combinations that challenged people’s palate, starting with my own.
The first taste of this Sotol was evocative of eating a grilled piece of asparagus, vegetal and charred. But the Sotol’s texture suffered from a thin almost astringent finish that needed some sugar or fat for counterbalance. The Adriatico Amaretto was a new product and I immediately fell in love. It has everything you want from amaretto without the cloying sweetness. This was a perfect way to add some sugar to the Sotol without skewing the drink too far into that sweet territory. Next came the Nixta Corn Liqueur. This stuff just made sense as a compliment to the asparagus flavor I kept getting when going back to the Sotol. As they say – things that grow together go together (corn and Dasylirion Wheeleri are both Mexican). The final touch was a bitter that elevated the vegetal flavor profile I was trying to achieve. Scrappy’s Celery Bitters will sneak that savory layer into anything without tasting like chomping into a stalk of celery.
With a nearly finalized cocktail all that was left to do was to have the bar manager taste it. Does it need more/less sugar? Is one ingredient imbalanced? Can you taste all the components in the cocktail? Does it even make sense? Who will order this drink? These are some of the questions we pose when finalizing a cocktail. The bar manager rarely showed emotion when tasting drinks. He was incredibly hard to read, the exception being when he tried things that confused him or that he flat out enjoyed. These drinks would be met with a smile ear to ear, dimples fully exposed and a slight chuckle. That was always the sign that something perplexing or just satisfyingly delicious was made. Upon tasting my riff mid service, he looked back at me with that exact smile. “What the hell am I drinking? This is insane.”
The Sotol’s qualities made it truly comparable to scotch and a perfect shoe-in when resurrecting the Godfather cocktail (Scotch and Amaretto). This classic also inspired the naming of the cocktail. “Sobrino,” Spanish for nephew, immediately popped into my head when making this drink. As I sipped my experiment, I turned to my coworker with a cheeky grin and said, “damn nephew, sip this.”
Build this cocktail in a mixing glass then add ice and stir until it is slightly diluted. Strain into a rocks glass with fresh ice, we used block ice for every rocks cocktail at Death & Co., you can use anything you have access to. Express a lemon peel over the glass and enjoy. *The amount of dilution you want in this drink is minimal, so you can always build it in glass, throw some ice on top, give it a couple of stirs and sip it. The longer the alcohol sits on the ice the more water will be introduced to open up the flavors of the cocktail.
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