Sweet Scottish Surprise

Lesliann Nemeth (Photo by John Anderson)

Legend has it that Bonnie Prince Charlie's apothecary created Drambuie as a restorative. The formula included whiskey, honey, cloves, saffron, and a few other secret ingredients. The prince, who felt he was the rightful ruler of England, Scotland, and Ireland, raised an army to wrest control from George II. When his army was defeated, Bonnie Prince Charlie ran for his life and was hidden by Capt. John MacKinnon. The prince was so thankful that he gave MacKin­non the recipe for Drambuie.

Whether or not all that is true is up for conjecture. What we do know is that, in today's marketplace, Drambuie's customers are aging, and the brand's owners have decided that the key to getting their sales up again is to go after 21- to 35-year-olds who spend a lot of time in clubs drinking premium spirits. Noth­ing is changing about the recipe; everything is changing about the marketing. Ads look like sword-play video games, and the company's mixologists are dreaming up contemporary cocktails, hoping to discover the next cosmo or 'rita. Then the marketing mavens set up private parties at hot clubs where they roll out their new drinks to their desired demographic. I caught up with their traveling roadshow a couple of weeks ago at Prague (422 Congress, 477-2483).

Drambuie has been in a kind of no-man's-land where it's too sweet for scotch drinkers and too smoky for everyone else. So the task is to find ways to make it palatable for both sides. The Drambuie people brought four different drink recipes, with only the Rusty Nail as a classic. Best of the bunch was the Drambuie Fizz. The bartender cuts a half-lime into four wedges, muddles the wedges hard at the bottom of a highball glass, adds crushed ice and a shot of Drambuie, then tops it with a splash of club soda. The Fizz is very easy to drink, with the lime cutting some of the sweetness, bringing it closer to a scotch and soda. The only problem is they're so smooth, you don't notice the creeping impact of alcohol and sugar until it's too late. Beware.

If the Drambuie folks had any sense, they'd be begging Prague's in-residence mixologist, Lesliann Nemeth, to join their team. She took the challenge of besting the Drambuie folks with a few of her own recipes. Now, I'm not a big fan of sweet drinks, but I fell in love with one of her concoctions, the Chocolate Wench. Nemeth has crafted a dessert drink good enough to stand with classics like the Brandy Alexander and the Velvet Hammer. It's roughly equal parts of Carolans Irish Cream Liquer, Kahlúa, Amaretto, and Drambuie, shaken hard on ice, and served in a cold martini glass that has a thin ribbon of chocolate sauce working its way from one side of the rim to the other. It's one of the best drinks I've had this year and definitely worth a trip to Prague.

Drambuie runs about $30 a bottle and is available at every liquor store in town.