“My dear friend you have simply taken the egg on this one, um, t-taken the egg is a um, it's a um, Ehh, Victorian phrase, it technically means winning so uh, you've, u-ultimately you've you've won.” - Damien Bloodmarch, Dream Daddy
Inspiration
Damien Bloodmarch, the Victorian goth dad in Dream Daddy was an absolute joy to date. He strolled us through his garden, granted us a peek at his fanfiction and butterfly collections, and even let us join him on a ride-along to find a big ol’ doggo. It felt easy to piece together the ingredients needed for his cocktail inspiration. The hard part seemed to be balancing the ingredients.
Damien’s Garden
When I think of Damien’s garden, its rainbow of flower petals comes to mind. The XBar recently came into possession of its first bottle of crème de violette specifically to build this drink with. Not only does the liqueur that tastes like flowers complement the Bloodmarch garden but also his collection of taxidermied butterflies (since butterflies consume nectar with their proboscides- the plural of proboscis).
Damien’s associated color in the game (every Dad has one) is purple, so I went for another purple liqueur to pair with the crème de violette, a Cognac-based black raspberry liqueur known as Chambord. Furthering the theme of flowers I felt that a bit of bitterness would fit the drink (most flowers that I’ve consumed have been at least, in part, bitter). I landed on a combo of black cardamom bitters and Cynar.
Victorian-Era Drinks and Phrases
To tie all the flavors together an egg yolk was used to provide texture and a foundation for all the flavors to blend. There’s a line that Damien says if you do well on his dates where he mentions “taking the egg” which is allegedly a Victorian-era phrase meaning that you’ve won something. I couldn’t find a reference to back this up, but I was able to find recipes using whole eggs from the era of Jerry Thomas who, having lived between the years of 1830 and 1885, was slinging drinks during the Victorian era (1837 - 1901).
The Butterfly Motif
To lean into the aesthetics of this drink I opted to garnish half of the cocktail’s foam surface with ground-up butterfly pea flower. We happened to have visited the Philadelphia Flower Show before the showcase and I was able to pick up a small glass-blown Monarch butterfly on a metal rod that could be perched upon the glassware’s edge. The folks we bought it from can be found here. In giving this drink a name, I leaned completely into the butterflies and used its taxonomic order Lepidoptera.
Workshopping
I believe I built this cocktail taking inspiration from a standard Brandy Flip recipe without the entire egg. Following my gut feeling I mixed a combination ratioed as 4 parts Cognac, 2 parts Chambord, 2 parts crème de violette, 1 part black cardamom bitters, and 1 egg yolk. The mixture was bitter and unbalanced, much to the dismay of my ego. The crème de violette was much too powerful and despite there being Cognac I honestly couldn’t taste it at all. At this stage, I did really appreciate the interplay between the crème de violette and the Chambord and wanted to preserve that combination.
On a whim, I added some Cynar to the mix (an amaro flavored with artichokes) and things got better. There’s a fullness to Cynar that was absent in the original mixture. In my next attempt, I lowered the crème de violette, and increased the Chambord, added a bit of Cynar and a few dashes less of the bitters. This time, I found myself closer to what I was looking for. Now the floralness was noticeable without being too overwhelmingly sweet or bitter. As I continued workshopping this, I wound up using less and less of the crème de violette just because of how potent its flavor is. Watch out for this one!
A piece of me thought that adding the ground-up butterfly pea flower to the shaker would help me recover the purple color that was lost to the egg yolk. That proved ineffective and the grounds didn’t fully mix with the liquid. If you were to wait long enough, you’d see a mush of brown at the bottom of the glass. The powder was better when dusted atop the foamy surface. There it looks like a field of flowers that the glass butterfly could sit atop, and it gives the drinker an option to change the texture between sips.
Flavor Analysis
An intriguing combination that delivers floral and bitter flavors balanced across a smooth texture of cream. Initial sips are sweet and floral. The taste evolves to be heavier on vanilla and dark fruit before fading to a pleasant bitterness. What’s leftover is an air reminiscent of black walnuts with the mouthfeel texture of cream.
Damien's Lepidoptera
Damien's Lepidoptera
- 1 1/4 oz (37 ml) Cognac (Salignac)
- 1 oz (30 ml) Black Raspberry Liqueur (Chambord)
- 1/4 oz (7 ml) Crème de Violette (Giffard)
- 1/2 oz (15 ml) Cynar
- 4-5 dashes Black Cardamom Bitters (Jack's)
- 1 Egg Yolk
Method: Dry Shake, Wet Shake, Double-Strain
Garnish: Dried Butterfly Pea Flower & Monarch Motif
More drinks inspired by: Dream Daddy
Guided Recipe in 60 Seconds: YouTube
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