East India– Recipe from David Embury’s ‘The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks’

1 part Curacao 

1 part Pineapple Juice 

8 parts Cognac 

1 or 2 dashes Angostura to each drink 

Shake well with cracked ice. Decorate with a cherry and a twist of lemon. Maraschino may be substituted for the pineapple juice.

So I’ve tried for a while to make this drink work and I feel like I keep just missing. There’s something about pineapple juice in short drinks without rum that just doesn’t seem to work for me, it has a habit of making things taste watery to me, and even though it froths up beautifully when shaken properly, its just not a win, ever.

The above recipe is a little bizarre as well, ‘Maraschino may be substituted for Pineapple’? these two products are pretty chalk and cheese, its not even close to the same drink when exchanged. I used both, which helped. I wonder that if you use pineapple juice you need a hefty amount of sugar to properly bring out the flavour, something that the maraschino definitely does?

I used nutmeg on top as well. The British East India company was created to find a source of nutmeg, yes that tiny seed is almost single handedly responsible for colonialism and the British Empire, so it seemed appropriate to garnish the drink with it, not sure it helped.

I feel like this drink should work and should be better. Give it a try if you have the time to experiment and let me know if you can make it work!