For all my new visitors who may not be familiar with the cocktailosphere, Mixology Monday is our monthly blog carnival, wherein we all work to research and/or create a libation according to a common theme. This month’s Mixology Monday enjoins we drunkenly intrepid bloggers to delve into the world of Fruit Liqueurs. Our host is Anna of Morsels and Musings, who dwells on the other side of the globe from most of us, in Sydney, Australia. UPDATE: Anna’s roundup has been posted! The links have been updated.
First off, this one is a definite departure from my usual comfort zone. I use fruit liqueurs in few of my usual favorite drinks; at least what I would usually consider a fruit liqueur. I guess Cointreau is such a beast, and I use it in virtually everything I make. I should be their national spokesman, as I find myself reaching for it automatically whenever I mix anything. <Warning: Obligatory effort to make every Mixology Monday theme applicable to Pegus is imminent!> I suppose, therefore, that a Pegu would qualify for this month’s event. I invite you to try one at your earliest convenience.
But I will refrain, as usual, from taking the easy route, and instead go to a prize from my Adventures in a Giant Box of Boozes series: My bottle of Cherry Heering.
I kicked around the web, looking for something interesting that wasn’t too similar to what I usually do. I should have held back my post on the Blood and Sand! I ended up on CocktailDB, using their excellent search by ingredients feature and found a bunch of possibilities using Gin and Heering. There were some initial disappointments….
I finally found one that used ingredients I have on hand, that sounded good together, and actually ended up pleasing to the taste buds.
Behold, the Flying High!

It took about three or four rounds to get this right, and it still has one serious flaw that will probably keep this drink from becoming a part of the rotation, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
As I said, I found this first at CocktailDB, then went looking for alternate suggestions and found it also at the Absolut site. (This was before I read about the Reconquista ad, wrote a post on it, got buried in an Instalanche, and doubled this blogs total all-time traffic in twenty-four hours. Thank you Absolut! (I seriously doubt I’ll get a you’re welcome!))
Here is the CDB recipe:

And here is Absolut’s take:

Neither of these works. I tried CDB’s first, and it was too sweet, and too sticky. But it showed promise. I felt it needed more Gin, and 1 egg white is WAY too much. You also quickly get a deposit of white goober in the bottom of the glass unless you practically shoot the thing. Comparing this to the second recipe, I figured Absolut had it.
But Absolut’s has problems too. First off, what the hell is a splash of egg white? If any of you out there want to drop me a comment or email telling me that you can do it, I’ll be more than happy to doff my cap to you and call you the big fat liar that you are. I settled on a teaspoon of fresh egg white. When I tried the Absolut set up, it was a little too ginny, and too sweet, but in a different way: The cherry came on too strong, and the bitters faded. Incidentally, Absolut is right to stress shaking this thing hard. It breaks up the white, and the colder, the less cloying it is.
I tried a time or two more, and this is where I found what I wanted:

You need to shake this very hard, and very long, until the shaker is painful in your hands. The melt is important to the texture, the agitation of the ice is essential to breaking up the white, and the cold is required to cut the sweetness.
You end up with a cocktail that feels rich in your mouth, and showcases each of its fruit constituencies nicely. The Gin is just a backup player in this drink, but you still ought to use the good stuff. New Amsterdam, which I usually like, was not up to the task, but Sapphire, Hendrick’s and Van Gogh all work well (I made tiny drinks!) While sweet, the Flying High is not frou frou. It sits in that grey zone between guy and chick drinks that I like to explore a lot.
So what don’t I like?
Well, the appearance. This cocktail is close to a Blood and Sand, which I like the look of, but the color here is more like… Blood and Milk. A great cocktail has to look good when you hand it to someone else, and the Flying High fails here. So make it for yourself, or make sure the lights are dim before you serve it to another!