aviation cocktail

My favorite cocktail.

Either you love this or not. I happen to love it. I love the floral notes of the creme de violet and of course the purple color. I’ve started using some of the Empress 1908 gin which is really purple as either all of the gin in this cocktail or part of it. It will make the drink a lot more purple. This gin uses butterfly pea blossoms and that’s where the color comes from.

The Aviation is a classic cocktail made with gin, maraschino liqueur (not the red kind), creme de violet and lemon juice. This cocktail was created by Hugo Ensslin who was head bartender at the Hotel Wallick in Newark back in the early twentieth century and the recipe first showed up in print in 1916. This cocktail is often referred to as a “forgotten classic” but back in the 1990’s young bartenders found the recipe while looking through old cocktail manuals.

October 18, 2019 By Sherry

Appetizers/ Bread/ Cocktails/ ColdApp/ Garnish

Tomato Crostini with Whipped Feta & Aviation Cocktail for “SNS”

Sunday night supper and a cocktail.

There are two couples we usually go out with on Friday nights and on occasion we do dinner together on Sunday night. This has come to be called “Sunday Night Supper” and we all love to be invited to Sunday Night Supper because that means another night we do not have to cook. It’s fun to go to each other’s houses and see what’s cooking and how the table is going to be decorated.

I usually have confidence in what I’m cooking but never been that great at setting a great looking table. This past Sunday night we hosted SNS and even though there was just a little chill in the air and not a cold wintery night I decided to do a chowder for the main course.

Our evening started with cocktails out on the deck. I had spread one of my French square table toppers (that I had picked up in France) out on my teak table. Cocktail of the night was a once obscure drink, Aviation cocktail, made with Bombay gin, marachino cherry liquier (clear) and creme de violet (purple) and lemon juice and that was shook into a fantastic before dinner cocktail to go with the Tomato Crostini with Whipped Feta and my White Bean Hummus. For my salad dressing I used Ina Garten’s Champagne Vinaigrette and the salad consisted of baby arugula, baby spinach, some mixed greens and a whole carton of pea shoots. I also added avocado, some toasted walnuts and some paper thin julienned slices of jicama. I was able to buy all the greens in bulk so I could get a handful of this and that.

February 22, 2013 By Sherry