The Aloe Black is the whole package. So much so that it’s almost confusing. It’s like talking to a recently crowned beauty queen who drops in casual conversation that she splits her time between Doctors Without Borders and the Large Hadron Collider. “Sorry, you do what now?” You don’t expect a cocktail this pretty to be this good. You just don’t.
Not to dwell on the superficial, but look at it: It’s sea-foam green or swimming-pool blue, depending on the light, and is the kind of thing you’d clock from the far side of the dining room, and flag down the nearest employee to demand to know what it is. When a cocktail is this bright and unusual, you’d naturally assume that it had to recruit Midori or Alizé or otherwise some species of neon “pucker” to get there—it’s easy to make a blue-green drink if you expand your ingredient pool to include Mountain Dew Baja Blast, but it isn’t necessarily what you’d want to pair with your salmon.
The Aloe Black, however, has none of that. It is a mixture of tequila, lemon, and an aloe liqueur called Chareau, made green refreshing by cucumber juice and purple floral with crème de violette. It’s those latter two that combine to form the inimitable color, as well as its core flavor profile. “We wanted the drink to taste like a spa day,” says bartender Leigh Lacap, “both figuratively and literally.”
In 2016, Lacap was the opening bar manager of Campfire, in Carlsbad, Calif., which is the type of affluent, seaside community in Southern California wherein one can assume the residents are deeply familiar with the flavors of spa day. His “figuratively” there is important—literally the cocktail tastes like spa day in that it has cucumber juice and soft florals, but figuratively it’s like a spa day in that it is almost transcendently refreshing. The Aloe Black doesn’t call upon muddled cucumber (as is standard in drinks like this) but cucumber juice, and a half ounce of cucumber juice hits the palate like a wave. Combine this with the Chareau (itself an ingredient with a broad and irrepressible cooling quality) and the juicy tart florals of crème de violette and you have a cocktail that’s both delicious and novel, gorgeous and soothing. The feeling of discovering a secret garden, lush and verdant and at peace? It’s that feeling, but as a Margarita.
The Aloe Black was the top selling cocktail on the menu for three full years. When the urge for novelty led to its removal, it remained one of the top sellers just through memory and word-of-mouth, and still now, almost 10 years later, the bar at Campfire juices cucumbers daily just to make it for people who ask. It is, for them and you, more than worth the small hassle of juicing cucumbers for the delight of an Aloe Black. Make one next time you need a spa day. Literally or figuratively.
Aloe Black
2 oz. blanco tequila
0.5 oz. cucumber juice
0.75 oz. lemon juice
0.5 oz. simple syrup
0.25 oz. Chareau
0.25 oz. Bitter Truth Violet Liqueur (a.k.a. crème de violette)
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker, and shake good and hard for six to eight seconds. Strain over fresh ice into a rocks glass, and garnish with a sprinkle of pink salt and/or a small pink or purple edible flower.
NOTES ON INGREDIENTS
Olmeca
Blanco Tequila: Must be blanco. Tequila is the scaffolding for these flavors, not the star, so you want a tequila that still tastes like tequila (i.e. 100 percent agave and, ideally, additive free) but you don’t need to pay for maximum artisanal complexity. My perennial favorites in this space are Real de Valle, Cimarron, and Olmeca Altos.
Chareau: Chareau is nominally an “aloe” liqueur, but in practice tastes just as much, if not more, like its secondary ingredients: Muskmelon, spearmint, cucumber, and lemon. It has an unbelievable broadness on the palate and is truly singular in the liqueur world. It’s a touch expensive for a modifier, $35 to $40ish, but novel and delicious and irreplaceable. My vote for the best new liqueur in the last 15 years.
Crème de Violette (or Violet Liqueur): Crème de violette is intense, and the 0.25 oz. used here is at the upper end of what’s recommended in a single drink. Lacap reached for Bitter Truth Violet Liqueur, which he felt was “the least soapy” that he tried, but also bill themselves as a “reduced sugar” form of crème de violette. I mention that to note that the brands matter—you may require less simple syrup if you reach for a rival brand, like Giffard or Rothman and Winter, and you also may demand less of it. It’s an intense flavor—the ratios above are true of Bitter Truth Violet Liqueur, for all others you may need to wiggle them a bit.
Also, a small note: I was unkind to artificially flavored liqueurs above, because they usually are sugary and not very good. It behooves me to note, then, that crème de violette is also artificially colored. The only one on the market that isn’t this deep purple is the Tempus Fugit, which is a soft purplish red, and can make a fine Aloe Black but it does so at the expense of the final color. Take that for what it’s worth.
Simple Syrup: First, put on a song you like, something you’ve been enjoying lately. Next, take a half cup of sugar and a half cup of water, and put them together in a pot or bowl. Grab a spoon or whisk and start stirring—if the water is room temperature, the sugar will dissolve in a minute or two, if the water is warm or hot, it’ll happen much faster. Either way, stir until the sugar is dissolved, note that it hasn’t even taken the duration of a single song to make simple syrup in your kitchen, and vow that you’ll never buy a bottle of simple syrup again. Will keep up to a month in the fridge.
Authors
Jason O’Bryan
Jason O’Bryan has set up a professional life at the intersection of writing and cocktails. He’s been managing cocktail bars for the last twelve years, first in Boston and now in San Diego, where he’s…
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Dining and Cooking