The Fourth Degree cocktailMoar Gin!

I'm trying to pick cocktails off the list that I've not had before. I've had buckets of brown drinks, so all the gin-based libations are popping to the top.

This time around I am going to try #32 Fourth Degree: gin, French and Italian vermouth and absinthe. Wow. I don't watch that design show with Tim Gunn on it, but I do a fairly credible "That's a lot of look" impression. I think it applies here. Each one of those ingredients packs a wallop in terms of taste and I'm not too sure that they will go well together. I once made a perfect Manhattan (equal parts French and Italian vermouth) and I thought that the French vermouth was just an intruder in a otherwise heavenly cocktail, like Jerry Lewis guest starring on Mad Men (the show that makes me drink.) But that was bourbon and this is gin, so let's do this.

No shaking since it is all spirits, so get your mixing glass and spoon and stir like crazy (for at least 15 solid seconds) then strain. This drink has lots of 3/4 oz pours in it. I love OXO's little measuring cup, but its only failing: no 3/4 of an ounce mark. I know I could measure a 1/4 and 1/2 but that isn't the point.

While I am glad I tried it, I probably won't be mixing up a Fourth Degree in the future. It starts off very light and herbally sweet then heads right into licorice territory thanks to the fairly large dose of absinthe. I thought the absinthe would be overpowering, but it isn't.

Oddly enough, I didn't get a lot of gin out of this gin-based drink. Unfortunately, the drink finishes on a dry vermouth note that I don't care for. I like my martinis fairly wet (otherwise, you're just drinking gin) but the French vermouth here just hits me wrong. Maybe because it follows the Italian vermouth; the change in taste is like grinding a gear. Like in the perfect Manhattan, I just don't care for the two together.

And I should have used lemon as the garnish instead of the cherry; it probably would have been better with the French vermouth.

Next: some sort of sporting event coming up involves New Orleans so I'll try the very NOLA sounding Vieux Carre and and see what the Green Muse is up to in the Absinthe Drip.

Read more of Alexander Gimlet's journey through Anvil's list of 100 cocktails here.