What's Cynar And What Do You Do With It?

Since getting introduced to it a couple weeks ago when a friend from out-of-town with a taste for elaborate cocktails dragged me to the Knee High Stocking Co. , Seattle's speakeasy-themed bar at Bellevue Ave. and Olive on Capitol Hill, it seems like Cynar (pronounced, apparently, with a ch sound at the beginning) is popping up everywhere. Either it's the hot new liqueur in town, or I've been operating with blinders on. It's on the  shelf at Cafe Presse and just got picked up at Solo Bar & Gallery in Lower Queen Anne, to name only two I can verify.

So the question is, what exactly is it and what do you do with it? The answer to the first is: it's an Italian liqueur in the same vein as Campari (which for many drinks it can be used as a substitute to different but functional effect) or St. Germain or any of a variety of other herbal liqueurs that have picked up a bit of cache of late. Cynar is made from 13 separate ingredients, but the one everyone always mentions is the artichoke. Fortunately, it does not, in fact, taste like artichoke. Compared to other herbal liqueurs, it's actually fairly mild and can be drank straight over rocks. With a low alcohol content (16.5% ABV), it's not going to get you trashed on its own, and while it is a bitter liqueur, it's not wretch-inducing and can even have a pleasant effect on an upset stomach similar to bitters and soda. But that's not exactly fun, so here's a few cocktails we've tried that worked pretty well.

The Cin-Cyn : Essentially a Negroni with Cynar instead of Campari, it's equal part sweet vermouth (preferably Cinzano , hence the name), Cynar, and gin. Shake with ice, serve in a martini glass with either orange zest or, preferably, orange bitters.

The Fox & the Hound : This one was purportedly a house cocktail work-in-progress at the Violet Hour , the modern speakeasy in Chicago that started the craze, a while back. It sounds insane, but it does work: equal parts Cynar, gin, and simple syrup. When my guest ordered it at Knee High, the bartender came out to double-check, because of course by all accounts an equal part of simple syrup should make it far too sweet. But my friend persisted and got his drink, and surprisingly, the taste of Cynar's bitters milded the sweetness and it tasted fine. That said, it is a thick drink; serve without ice but again with orange zest or orange bitters.

My friend Val Kiossovski at Solo hated the Fox & the Hound, though, and instead mixed gin and Cynar with soda over rocks; it tends to sort of whitewash the distinctive taste of the Cynar, at least to my palette, but it's also good. He proposed the name " Fox & the Hound Minus Prince Charles " in a slightly drunken joke, but I doubt the bartender there would know what you were talking about if you tried to order it by name.

If you want to experiment at home, I'd also suggest picking up a bottle of Old Tom gin to use, which was another recent discovery. A style rather than a brand, Old Tom is slightly sweetened gin, as opposed to the standard London Dry style that predominates. This was actually the original English gin; after gin was popularized in the UK by William of Orange, the British started making it themselves (gin originally being Dutch), but their quality control was poor and the liquor was cut with a variety of horrible things, so they added sugar to hide the taste. This style remained popular in Britain into the Twentieth Century, and was the primary gin for a lot of older, sweeter cocktails (for instance, it's likely the "Tom" in a Tom Collins). It hasn't been available in the US in modern times until recently, but in Washington you can now acquire Hayman's Old Tom gin , for just over $20 a bottle. It's also a nice surprise for gin drinkers turned off by overly dry gin.

Both Hayman's and Cynar are generally available at the 12th Ave. liquor store on Capitol Hill, and for those who don't know, the liquor control board has a searchable product database on their website to locate your nearest vendor.