Cocktailia

Aviation

• 2 ounces gin
• 1 ounce fresh lemon juice
• 2 dashes maraschino liqueur
• Lime wedge for garnish

Combine the gin, lemon juice, and maraschino liqueur in an ice-filled cocktail shaker. Shake until cold, and then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with the lime wedge.

The Aviation is another one of those cocktails that everyone makes a little bit differently. The recipe above, found in The Art of the Bar, uses one part lemon juice to two parts gin, which creates an extremely tart drink, with the lemon juice completely overpowering the other flavors. In an attempt to fix this, I first tried adding a little more maraschino liqueur. When this didn’t quite do it, I decided to take the edge off the lemon juice by adding a splash of simple syrup and mixing it again. While the result was still very much a lemon drink, this tempered the tartness and made it more drinkable.

Dale Degroff, in The Craft of the Cocktail, uses different proportions, also suggesting a flamed lemon peel as garnish:

• 2 ounces gin
• 1 ounce maraschino liqueur
• 1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice

This version will not be as tart as the first one and will have a more pronounced maraschino flavor. This flavor should not be confused with that of maraschino cherries — maraschino liqueur is made by distilling cherries along with their crushed pits, with the result then sweetened with cane syrup and aged. It’s slightly bitter and is not nearly as sweet as you might imagine.