May 4-Trinidad Sour
The Trinidad Sour is one of my favourite cocktails I have learned in my bartending career. The main reason I say this is because it takes the conventional rules of cocktail making and says “Screw you I’m doing my own thing.” The main reason I say this is for the main spirit used. I’ll give you a guess as to what that is…… you are incorrect, because this cocktail uses 1 1/2 oz Angostura Bitters as the main spirit. Yes it also includes rye but the cocktail only uses half the amount of bitters with 3/4 oz of rye. If you did guess bitters, congratulations, have a cookie.
Cookie break over? Great let’s talk about the cocktail more. This drink gets its name from the fact that Angostura Bitters are from Trinidad and Tobago. Aside from that it is a classic sour with lemon juice and a syrup type. Traditionally this cocktail uses orgeat, but I’m allergic to nuts so I was unable to try the original specs, but everyone I had try this said it was absolutely delicious. If you are allergic to nuts like me, I would use simple syrup. You can’t really just omit an ingredient for a cocktail taht you don’t like or can’t eat, you will mess with the balance, I would always say to find a substitute.
Now the history, The cocktail was made at one of the most famous bars in recent memory, The Clover Club by Julie Reiner. The bartender responsible for this is Guiseppe Gonzalez in 2009. The drink was based off the Trinidad Especial by Valentino Bolognese which is a similar cocktail in that it uses Bitters as the main spirit but supplants the Rye for pisco and the lemon is replaced with lime. This cocktail has gone on to inspire many new cocktails including trhe Angostura Colada by Zac Overman at the Sunken Harbour Club which is run by one of my favourite modern bartenders Garrett Richard.
I’m really happy that this cocktail was in the top 100 since it can seem intimidating to some since it has an unorthodox formula featuring a technical non-potable ingredient as the star. Full judging can be found here : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kRWv5nm1UP8VR9KpRP3jAOSss4hh5AqEZcBFEPYq5vs/edit?tab=t.0 and the cocktail can be found here https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/3328/trinidad-sour . Happy Drinking and good night.