"A powerful weapon that is difficult to deflect. Capable of dealing a string of critical blows." - Description of the Divine Rose keyblade from Kingdom Hearts

Inspiration

The Divine Rose keyblade greets the player toward the tail end of Kingdom Hearts’ main story. A powerful blade sporting the visage of a crimson-red rose. A drink inspired by the Divine Rose must have rose as a primary ingredient. I felt best to incorporate the flavor of rose with other powerful flavors specifically from that of an unaged blanco tequila. A gnashing process of blending combines these two ingredients, and the final mixing of the cocktail includes the potency of acid-boosted orange juice and bubbling champagne. The Divine Rose may be lacking in length, but its particular power is unmatched.

Workshopping

Blended Rose Tequila

Rose (like the flower) tequila can be made in a variety of ways. I think the most beastly method though is by quite literally blending the two, with a blender. Do you think there was a sentient blender in Beast’s castle? My apologies, my mind is wandering again.

Yet another method out of Liquid Intelligence pairs two techniques, nitro infusing, and blender infusing. One method involves liquid nitrogen, the other requires a blender. I’ve got access to only one of those, and it certainly isn’t the cryogenic one. Yet! To conduct this technique, put ingredient number one in with ingredient number two in a blender, and go for it. In all fairness, I’m not sure why I haven’t specifically tried this before. If you’re planning on blending like this, just make sure to add enough stuff to cover up the blades.

I decided to infuse rose with blanco or unaged tequila. My thought process here was that a gin infusion felt wayyyyy too obvious, and blanco tequila has that young rambunctiousness like other unaged spirits and seemed fitting of not only Sora but also Belle (the princess of heart who bestows this keyblade unto us). In comparing the regular tequila to the rosy tequila, there was actually a very subtle difference in aroma. The color of the infusion wound up being more magenta than crimson, and the flavor softened out a bit. If you’ve yet to bite into a rose petal (don’t worry, I’ve got you) it’s a bit dry and leafy. The tequila does taste a bit more leafy than it did previously, which honestly wasn’t that much. It’s a subtle difference to be sure, but one worth trying with other spirits too.

Acidic Divinity

I couldn’t find much else to go off of for inspired ingredients for this cocktail. Beast’s castle in Kingdom Hearts is kind of overrun by heartless and ruled over by Maleficent. I felt that most of the references attributed to Hollow Bastion kind of went against the whole point of the Divine Rose. I could start looking toward Kingdom Hearts II after Hollow Bastion is reclaimed as Radiant Garden, but that’s the wrong game!

I took my annoyance at the concept and decided to throw lime juice in the mix (because of margaritas) and to my surprise, the rose-infused tequila began to turn red (just like my fury)! In all seriousness though, rose-infused water can be used as a pH indicator (much like butterfly pea flower). More acidic solutions become more red, while more basic solutions become more yellow. At this point, I figured I could take this discovery as an act of Kingdom Hearts and roll with it.

Mimosa’s Anyone?

If there was one image that plagued my mind while building this cocktail, it was that sparkling rose that the Beast covets, at least in the movie. I thought that perhaps if I could emulate that rose sparkling, that perhaps a nice drink could be made around it. Speaking of sparkling, how about sparkling wine? Could I get that color-changing effect of the now rose-infused tequila, but also use champagne too? Yup!

If I haven’t introduced the concept of acid-adjusting, then lemme put it to you simply. If the juice isn’t acidic enough, add acid to it until it’s at the right level. In the case of the Gadget Hackwrench cocktail, we used acid-adjust orange juice to make a dang good highball. I’m going to use it here too, not just to pair with some champagne, but also to bring enough acidity to make things change color! Now that’s what I call divine! For a quick acid-adjusted orange juice recipe, you can use the one I used out of one of Death & Co’s books. For every 500 g of OJ (yes, grams), add 16 grams of citric acid and 10 grams of malic acid.

Critically Rose

As I prepared this recipe for our livestreamed cocktail showcase, I didn’t include the rose water. I slept on the recipe for quite a bit, and when I mixed it live I just wasn’t feeling the same satisfaction as when I workshopped it originally. I think the way I blended the rose-infused tequila on stream was different than during my workshopping session. To remedy this right then and there, I added the rose water and took another sip. This keyblade can make critical blows indeed! That little bit of rose water completely transformed the flavor of the drink from being more sour-focused to more florally focused. I’ll take this as a lesson to play with accent ingredients a bit more in the future.

Flavor Analysis

Poignently tart and effervescent. A prominent flavor of rose lays upon the pointed agave notes remaining on the finish.