April Drink of the Month - Schwifty Swizzle

I was the host for cocktail club last month, a role that comes with added responsibility. We've had enough go-rounds now with our little group that we all feel the need to step up our game a little with our offerings. This month, "Crusher" is hosting, and he had promised that we will experiment with smoking cocktails (which is not surprising, given Crusher's love for all things wood), and the month before that, Jason burned all his knuckle hair off charring grapefruit for a mezcal drink. There were plenty of inventive syrups or tinctures I could have made, but the early signs of spring meant that I really wanted to make some swizzle drinks, which meant that I went off the rails and developed my own quasi-"ice program" for the evening instead.

Swizzles are defined by their method of preparation, not by the alcohol used in the beverage. Native to the Caribbean, swizzles are made up of spirit, sweet, maybe some bitter, and crushed ice. The drink is built in the glass, and mixed by plunging a swizzle stick down into the drink and rolling the shaft of the stick between your two hands. This agitates the drink and creates a frosty rime on the outside of the glass as the liquid cools. Swizzle sticks were originally branches of a Caribbean evergreen, but plastic models now dominate. A plastic stirring stick works in a pinch, but to get the best effect, go find one with the crows foot/branch end that really works the ice.

Since the drink is defined by the ice used in preparation, I had to get this right! I inherited a late-60s era ice crushing machine from Ann's grandfather, and I debated breaking out that bad boy for the project... but the last time I brought this particular model to the club, it was mocked pretty substantially (it still works, but VERY slowly). I also have a Lewis bag, which is a canvas bag used in conjunction with a mallet to crush ice - but the resulting crushed ice is fairly inconsistently sized. Instead of settling on any of these options, I decided to go for maximum uniformity, and did something silly - I went to my favorite gas station and bought five 44 oz Styrofoam cups full of "pebble ice" for the reasonable sum of $2.50 (50 cents a cup). Pebble ice is perfect for swizzles, as it is consistent in size and results in a dense fill. It is also fun to eat, if that is you jam (and it is very much my jam). My giant Styrofoam cups ended up being mocked just as much as Ann's grandpa's ancient ice machine, but no one was disappointed with the finished product, a swizzle recipe from Imbibe called the Schwifty Swizzle that combines mezcal, falernum, lime, and Green Chartreuse. Try the recipe below, and let me know if you splurge on the ice - it is worth it!

Ingredients: 1 oz mezcal, 1 oz lime juice, 0.5 oz falernum, 0.5 oz Green Chartreuse, 3 dashes Peychaud's bitters to top.

Preparation:Fill a cocktail glass or Moscow Mule mug half full with crushed ice. Add first four ingredients, swizzle for 6-10 seconds. Add more ice to fill glass, and swizzle again for another 6 seconds, until frost appears on glass/mug. Top with bitters, allowing them to form a red "dome" on the top of the ice.