Stepchild; Pineapple, Fernet, Stone's Ginger

Happy Monday everyone! I have posted in the past about one of my favorite lesser-known aromatic wines, Stone's Ginger. Ginger is one of my favorite flavors, but it has been hard to find this product in Washington until this past summer, when Total Wine finally graced the city of Bellevue with its presence. Stone's Ginger is not even slightly spicy, which is the one thing I find disappointing about it. It has a very round, mellow, ginger flavor with sweet raisins on the finish, but when I consume ginger, I always look for that burn. Even so, it is a fine product, beautiful with either Gin or Whiskey and a dash of bitters.A man can only keep so many fortified wines on hand, as they are highly perishable and wont to go bad before I can finish them all. As such, when I finished off a bottle of Bonal, I was very excited to have the space for a bottle of Stone's, which I wanted to use in my recent vermouth template:

Vermouth Template1.5 oz Wine-like beverage product.25 of an abrasive or bitter modifier.25 of a sweet modifier(optional) dash of bittersaromatic garnish (most likely citrus peel)

Here at Measure and Stir, we love the trio of pineapple, ginger, and fernet, which fits into the formula perfectly, now that I have a ginger wine. This flavor combination has never let me down. I am always excited to find new ways to use it. We omitted the dash of bitters for this one and opted instead for one teaspoon (one eighth of one ounce) of fresh ginger juice. The Stone's Ginger is so much more complete when it is bolstered by a bit of fresh ginger, which contributes the heat that I crave in a ginger drink.I ended up tweaking the template a little bit. I tried it in the above ratio and the Fernet dominated the pineapple. Strangely, by increasing the portion of both relative to the ginger wine, the Fernet came into balance. I cannot explain that. Usually when I use this template I use a ratio of 6:1:1, but when I mixed two of these in succession, my second was 4:1:1, and strangely it made all three flavors come into a tighter focus.

Stepchild2 oz Stone's Ginger Wine.5 oz Fernet Branca.5 oz Fresh Pineapple Juice1 tsp (.125 oz) Fresh Ginger JuiceShake over ice and double-strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a piece of candied ginger.

My intuition says that the expressed oil of a lemon peel might not be a bad addition, either, but it might squish the Fernet. Life is constant experimentation. One of the great things about the Fernet/Pineapple combo is the way the pineapple rushes to the fore of the experience, whereas the Fernet lingers on the backend. They fill distinct and separate regions of the flavor spectrum, while the Stone's Ginger fills the space between them.Spicy ginger works well with Fernet for a different reason; biting into that candied ginger will give you great appreciation for Fernet's cooling mint. Cheers!Cheers!