Fassionola is a tropical fruit punch syrup with history going back to some of the earliest American tiki bars. It's the base flavor in a traditional Hurricane cocktail and has roots spanning to at least the 1930s. As with much of early cocktail history, the true origins of fassionola are uncertain. We do know that Don The Beachcomber referenced this mix going back to the newborn tiki scene in New Orleans in the 1930s, but whether it was his invention or something he picked up in his travels is impossible to say. Donn Beach himself was fiercely secretive and protective of his recipes, so his exact recipe for fassionola has been lost to history.
The Water Witch fassionola is a deep purple syrup made from acid-modified pineapple juice, passion fruit puree, strawberries, blueberries, mango, guava, and hibiscus tea (modified from a recipe published by Leandro DiMonriva "The Educated Barfly"). These ingredients are slow cooked for several hours to extract as much of the fruits' flavor as possible and then finely strained. The leftover fruit solids are used as the base of our signature salsa.
Falernum is a sweetener that has roots going back to 1700s era Bajans. The most famous falernums, such as John D. Taylor's Velvet Falernum, are liqueurs made by infusing flavors into rum. Non-alcoholic falernums are also relatively common, though less often as something made by the commercial producers. A quality falernum instantly adds a bit of Caribbean pizazz to a cocktail - though more often as a supporting flavor rather than the star ingredient. Falernum liqueurs can also be quite nice on their own as a dessert sipper, as a small nip similar to a limoncello.
Nearly all falernum recipes have the same core ingredients: lime, ginger, spices such as allspice or cloves, and (in modern recipes) almond. Water Witch primarily uses Velvet Falernum, but will often experiment with other liqueurs or house-made variants as well.
Orgeat is a traditional sweetener beloved in most of cocktail world, but especially so in tiki. There are a family of similar drinks and syrups in cultures from all around the Mediterranean (such as its distant cousin, Horchata). Historically, orgeat was made from barley or bitter almonds. The modern tradition of orgeat is a sweetened, sometimes spiced concoction made from almond, though any kind of nut/alternative milk or similar creamy liquid may serve as the base. Orgeats are essential for making a traditional Mai Tai and many other tiki classics.
Water Witch's recipe starts with almond milk, and almond with rose water to heighten its delicate and floral characteristics. When used in cocktails, it adds a silky texture and a slightly creamy quality compared to most other options for sweetening.
And to address the elephant in the room: most likely, this is pronounced with the soft "g" based on its relation to the french word for barley (orge). This means the pronunciation is most like "oar-jaht" (IPA: /ˈɔːr.ʒɑːt/) rather than "ore-geet" with the hard "g". But don't ever worry about having perfect pronunciation with these ingredients; we know what you're talking about.
The history of these kinds of tinctures dates back to actual antiquity and beyond. There's no rule about what base and what ingredients are included in any given cocktail bitters, though they are typically made from herbs, spices, plant roots, barks, and hard spirits. Many include fruit additions as well, and there's nearly nothing off-limits. Historically, these were often considered to be medicinal tinctures, and those seeking wellness care are known to still recommend them as such to this day. There's far more to these spirits than any health claims, though. The reality is, popularity of bitter spirit infusions are almost universal because people simply enjoy the complex, sometimes-challenging flavors.
Cocktail bitters are usually used in tiny amounts -- just a few drops. It's like seasoning on your food -- a tiny amount imparts only a subtle flavor, but can help blend, meld, and balance and bring together the whole. While the spirits are, true to the name, often quite bitter, it's uncommon for so much of a bitter to be used to turn the profile of a finished cocktail to bitter. The amount used is simply too small to have that kind of effect.
The same cannot be said about digestifs/amari. These dark spirits are loaded with rich, complex, often challenging flavor combinations and can range from moderately to aggressively bitter. And unlike a cocktail bitters, they are usually used in significant volumes. While they make lovely additions to many cocktail, they are more often sipped neat -- hang around in enough bars and you'll certainly see folks asking for pours of Montenegro or Fernet, especially at the end of a session to cleanse the palate.
The final category of the "bitters" family is the aperatifs. Many are made from citrus peel and aperatifs made from oranges are particularly popular (such as Campari, Aperol, or Select). These, like their digestif cousins, also tend to be bitter. But compared to amaro, the flavor will be lighter, substituting bright, floral, and citrus instead of earthy and spice. They are traditionally enjoyed before a meal. The bright, bitter flavors are in part to make you crave something else to follow. In modern cocktail culture, they're usually paired against other flavors while retaining their sharp bitter edge, such as in an Aperol Spritz, Negroni, or a tiki classic punch like a Jungle Bird.
Milk clarification is a historic process for mixing and preserving cocktails. One of the oldest recipes we know of at the Water Witch showed is from the letters of Benjamin Franklin (a nutmeg-infused brandy sour) from 1763, which predates most of what is considered modern cocktail culture by a full century! The process of making these punches has some similarities to cheese making. When milk (whether cow milk or modern alternatives) is combined with certain other ingredients the solids and liquids separate. For cocktail-making, the reacting ingredient will typically be some kind of acidic fruit juice, often citrus.
As solids separate from the milk, they encapsulate and trap certain compounds. They also will form a kind of media, filtering the rest of the liquid. So as the cocktail is strained through these solids, it "clarifies", typically turning a crystal clear with only a hint of color. This process will also transform the overall drink through removal of many volatile compounds while adding new (typically funky and tangy) flavors to the mix.
A side-effect of this process is that it "stabilizes" the cocktail. After clarification, compounds that would otherwise risk having the cocktail's flavors continue to degrade over time have been removed, so the final mixture can sit safely for future use even at room temperature. There's even a practice of bottling and cellaring these punches to see how the flavors will continue to evolve over time -- though most often they simply don't. This is likely part of why it was used historically: to keep a delicious drink ready to go even when refrigeration/fresh ingredients may not be available.
Compared to the cocktails they were before going through this process, clarified milk punches are usually more mellow. They will pick up some funky and tangy notes and develop a silky texture, but will otherwise be softer, gentler, and easier-drinking.
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