Get James Beard winner Maison Premiere's recipe: Inverness Cocktail

This show-stopping cocktail brings together herbaceous absinthe with blueberry jam and hand-whipped cassis cream

This cocktail from James Beard award winning, NOLA inspired, Brooklyn cocktail bar Maison Premiere — called Inverness — features La Muse Verte absinthe, a deeply herbaceous absinthe with a mildly woodsy bitterness. Inverness has a true progression of flavors throughout its consumption: the first sips are strong, both in flavor and intensity. However, as the crushed ice melts, a curious thing happens: the layer of hand-whipped cassis cream that has been passively sitting on the top begins to seep into the lower half of the cocktail, rounding off all the sharp corners of flavor and adding a textured layer of peppery black currant.

The name Inverness comes from a Gaelic word meaning “mouth of the River Ness,” and is also the name of a city in the Scottish Highlands.

a Maison Premiere bartender dressed to the nines, holding a vintage bottle of absinthe

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Recipe difficulty rating: intermediate

Ingredients: (serving size: 1 serving)

• 3/4 full pilsner glass (or similar) filled with crushed ice cubes (any size cubes will work)

• 3 dashes of Angostura bitters

• ¼ ounce blueberry jam

• ¾ ounce lemon juice

• ¾ ounce lemon cordial (recipe down below)

• ½ ounce Mattei Cap Corse Quinquina Blanc vermouth

• ½ ounce Drambuie

• ¾ ounce La Muse Verte absinthe

• Cassis Cream (recipe down below)

• garnishes: 1 halved blackberry, 2 mint sprigs, 1 juniper sprig, cinnamon stick grated on a Microplane

Cooking Appliances:

• canvas bag or multiple layered plastic Ziploc bags (for crushing ice)

• hammer or makeshift blunt weighted tool for crushing ice

• tall glass (see photo)(preferably a pilsner glass)

• liquid measuring jigger

• small bowl

• microplane grater

• straw to drink out of (optional but reccomended)

• vial dropper (optional)

• glass container with lid

• fine mesh strainer

  

  map of New Orleans

Instructions:

To a tall pilsner glass, add the bitters, blueberry jam, lemon juice, lemon cordial, vermouth, Drambuie, and absinthe. Fill the glass three-quarters full with crushed ice and swizzle. Lightly mound the top with crushed ice.

Finish with the cassis cream, blackberry, mint, juniper, straw, and cinnamon.

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Cassis Cream recipe:

• 5 drops rose flower water (you can eyeball this if you don’t have a vial dropper)

• ¼ ounce demerara sugar

• ¾ ounce cassis

• 2 ounces heavy cream

In a small bowl, add the rose flower water, sugar, cassis, and heavy cream. Hand-whip until combined.

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Lemon Cordial recipe:

• Zest of 3 lemons

• 1 cup sugar

• 1 cup lemon juice

• ½ ounce vodka

In a container with a lid, combine the lemon zest and sugar and leave covered at room temperature for 24 hours, or overnight, agitating intermittently. After the marination period, add the lemon juice and vodka to the mixture and stir until thoroughly combined and the sugar is dissolved. Strain the liquid through a fine-mesh strainer and chill. The cordial can be stored in the refrigerator for a month.

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