Amer Picon
This is a post that I’d started several weeks ago, but just hadn’t had the time to finish. I apologize for the delay.
Several months ago, after a visit to Zig Zag, the boys there took pity on me as they observed me pining away (yet again) after a bottle of Amer Picon that they had prominently displayed in order to intrigue the recreational bar fly, and infuriate/frustrate the devote barkeep (i.e. me). After months of wistfully wishing that I had developed the fan base that Murray Stenson had acquired from God knows how many decades of bartending in Seattle, (yes Murray, that was a dig; get your own blog and respond), enabling him to acquire countless obscure spirits whenever one of his regulars goes on vacation, he decided to throw this old dog a bone, and give me one of his bottles (and yes, there are many) of Amer Picon. (Is it just me, or was that last sentence way to long?)
After peeing in my pants, jumping up and down with glee, and giving the staff strict instructions not to touch the bottle until I had photographed and tasted it, I settled down to decipher the liquid gold that was in the bottle. What made it so special that it was named in dozens of cocktail recipes, and why wasn’t it available now?
After a little bit of research, I discovered that while I had no idea why distribution was pretty much limited to France, the recipe for Amer Picon had changed in the 1970’s. Rumor had it that the new Picon was a shadow of its former self, not only in flavor profile, but in proof as well. As I had really enjoyed the taste of the bottle so graciously procured for me, I began to fantasize (as I tend to do when thinking about the bars and spirits of yore) of old Amer Picon, aged, wizened and yet barrel-chested, daring all before him to challenge his greatness.
As I absolutely loved my cocktail experiments with the Amer, I decided that there was no way that I would allow myself to run out of this treasure. I needed to find a source for more, but how? I know of but one person in France, but he rarely comes to this continent, and having him ship bottles of booze from France to here can quickly become costly. So, in my booze-addled mind there was only one solution: make my own.
Step one in the process involved my acquiring some Torani Amer, which from what I understood was America’s answer to Amer Picon. Since I live in Washington, California and its wonderful online liquor stores came to the rescue.
Tasting the Torani next to the Picon immediately revealed that they were not the same beast. While Torani had a higher proof, which I enjoyed, it was more vegetal than orange on my palate, and not a good base from which to start my experiment. Having said that, let it be known that Torani Amer can be used in recipes calling for Amer Picon with pleasant results, albeit some adjusting will be needed in ratios and while the drink won’t be the same, they will still be darn tasty.
Another base was needed, so I looked to my shelf at my selection of Amaros. Montenegro would be too citrusy, Nonino too sweet, but Ramazzotti, with its orange and chocolate notes, would suit Goldilocks just fine.
Having tasted the Ramazzotti next to the Amer Picon, I noticed that the main difference was the lack of bold, complex orange flavors in the amaro. Figuring that orange tincture would fix the problem, I headed down to the cellar to acquire some of the orange tincture that I had in jars for just such an occasion. Adding it to the Ramazzotti, I realized that while it was really close, it was missing some complexity in the orange department. Looking around for different orange flavors, my eyes fell on a bottle of Stirrings Blood Orange bitters. Would it really be that simple? Apparently the answer was yes! I had discovered the Fountain of Youth, and it was to be bottomless.
Cut ahead to the Lost Ingredients seminar at Tales of the Cocktail. The seminar having just ended, I approached Ted Haigh, and introduced myself. We had first had contact years ago when he had asked me for a sample of my citrus bitters, but this was the first time that we had met face to face. I produced a sample of my Amer Picon, which had just been discussed, and his face lit up as he realized what I had.
“Someone get LeNell!”, he exclaimed as he tasted my amer. LeNell approached, and upon seeing my little bottle of Picon, procured, as she had just moments before with Dr. Cocktail, a hip flask which contained a sample of the original, pre-formula change, Amer Picon. A woman with these talents should be invited to every gathering!
Tastings ensued, with Ted, LeNell, Robert Hess and Paul Clarke giving the consensus that my Amer Picon was essentially identical to the original, with just slightly more sweetness.
Comments noted, when I arrived home, I set about adjusting my recipe, which I now present to you:
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BOUDREAU’S AMER PICON RECIPE #3
3 bottles Amaro Ramazzotti
7 ½ cups orange tincture
¾ bottle Stirrings Blood Orange bitters
¾ liter Evian
place all ingredients into a container and stir.
allow ingredients to get to know each other for at least one week.
filter and bottle.
keep excess refrigerated.
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ORANGE TINCTURE
take any size jar, and fill it half way with dried orange peel.
fill remainder of jar with high-proof vodka (I use Smirnoff Blue Label)
let sit for one to two months
strain and filter
TIPS:
to shorten infusion time, shake three times a day and infuse for three to six weeks
high proof vodka extracts more flavor, so if possible, use Everclear and infuse for three weeks, then, after filtering, add water to bring down the proof.
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My current favorite drink happens to be a creation of mine that uses the Amer Picon. Sort of a cross between a Creole and a Brooklyn, this is a cocktail that never fails to put me in my happy place.
For your drinking pleasure, I give you the:
NIRVANA COCKTAIL
2 oz Rittenhouse 100 proof bonded rye
1 oz Amer Picon
¼ oz maraschino liqueur
¼ oz Benedictine
stir and strain
garnish with orange twist if desired
Recipes and pictures by:
Jamie Boudreau
www.vesselseattle.com
.
Nice post and nice pictures!
Though the Nirvana has for my taste to many different liqueurs (if you call Amer Picon a herbal liqueur).
And a really fantastic research (the whole story finding the original Amer Picon…
Opinionated:
You should give the Nirvana a shot. Don’t think of the Amer Picon as a liqueur, think of it as a bitter that is balancing the sweet of the maraschino and Benedictine.
I haven’t tried this with commercial Amer Picon (as I have none left), so I’m not sure on how it would hold up.
So without sitting down and doing the math, which makes my head hurt, is the primary difference between this recipe and the one I ran in Imbibe the addition of Evian? Or did you adjust the proportion of tincture to the rest of the mix?
Do you think this recipe would hold up in reduced quantity? I’d like to try it with one bottle.
Paul:
Main difference: less Stirrings (means less sweet), added water.
Blair:
It will totally hold up if you keep the quantities the same. My first attempt was a small, two bottle batch.
[...] Amer Picon « SpiritsAndCocktails.com [...]
Jamie LOVE your blog, your recipes and your way of working very nice! LeNell and I have been talking also about Amer Picon I have been analyzing it as well. I’ve been finding that a tiny amount of the Torani added into a formula adds a slight bitter edge that the Original Picon has ( i have a small amount of the original)
It is just a shame that Diageao refused to promote Picon or relaunch it in it’s original form. There is so much continued interest in it that one would think they would consider it but again this is wishful thinking on my part. But some other defunct products are now returning to the market maybe the time is rite.
Kev
I am definitely trying this. A few month’s back Ted made my boyfriend a Picon Punch with real Amer Picon and it was transcendent. Being able to have one of those again is too tempting to resist.
Just got back from the store with my orange peel and some 190 proof neutral grain spirit.
Just out of curiosity, why dried peel instead of fresh orange zest or orange oil?
Tradertiki:
Orange oil provides a different flavor profile, as does fresh orange zest. I’ve also found that when making tinctures and/or bitters one should always use dried products or the shelf life of the final product is GREATLY reduced.
Hm, I think I now have a suitable use for my extra bergamot tincture
This may just be the motivation needed to finally acquire the ingredients for creating Amer Picon. Maybe … it looks like I can actually special order that Amaro through the Pennsylvania system.
I can’t recall if a source for Seville orange peel was in Imbibe or not; where do you get yours?
Beautiful cocktail shot, as always.
Interesting notes on the shelf life of products using fresh vs. dry spices.
I make liqueurs like Nocino, Sloe Gin, and Limoncello with fresh ingredients all the time, and don’t particularly notice a shelf life problem. Are you talking about things that have been around for more than a year? Anything with organic materials is going to continue to evolve over time, the only way to stop that, is to distill.
I do agree about the flavor profile differences, though.
Rick — right here: http://tenzingmomo.com/Qstore/p000596.htm
Erik:
In the past, I’ve found that occasionally, when fresh ingredients are used in tinctures/bitters, a organic film will form over a period of months. I don’t refrigerate either, though. To keep expenses down, I tend to use dried ingredients, as I won’t get a nasty surprise in two months time, and have to throw out product and start again.
Just curious if the type of orange peel is important? You’ve listed Seville Orange peel (Citrus aurantium -Bitter Orange). Would regular dried orange peel work too? (Citrus sinensis - “sweet” orange).
Nick:
As I haven’t used that peel, I couldn’t say. If I were to hazard a guess, however, I would say that if you were drinking the Picon straight, you’d probably notice a difference, but if you are mixing it in a cocktail the difference would probably be imperceptible.
Give it a shot, and let me know how it turned out.
Hmm I really want to try this. Any idea where I can possibly get Amaro Ramazzotti? I live in the south (Alabama to be exact) and I have to drive to Mississippi to even get anything exotic. Do you think most liquor stores would order it for me?
Kevin:
I’m afraid that as I am Canadian, I don’t know anything about Alabama liquor stores or laws. Your best bet would be to phone your local liquor store and ask them if they will find this item for you. You might want to try one of the many online liquor stores that abound on the web as well.
Jamie, what would you think about a version that used an alcoholic orange bitters (e.g. Regans’
rather than the non-alcoholic Stirrings, in order to cut the sweetness down a bit? Would that bring it more in line with the sweetness of the original Picon? Or perhaps a mixture of the two?
Chuck:
I needed to make the final batch less sweet, not more bitter. The solution to this was to a reduce the quantity of the Stirrings product in the recipe; I still wanted the “different” orange flavor for complexity.
The recipe that I’ve posted has been adapted since we met in NOLA, and I feel that it reduced the slight sweetness that showed through when we tasted my old batch with the vintage. I had thought about adding the bitters, but the Stirrings solution has seemed to work.
[...] Boudreau breaks down Amer Picon and provides his recipe for this ‘lost ingredient’ in ‘Amer Picon’. Make your own, then go back and make Paul’s punch; you won’t regret [...]
Thanks very much for the recipies for the Amer (which Chuck has taken to calling “Amer Boudreau”, love it) and the Nirvana! Both are outstanding.
This weekend, I bottled my first attempt at your Amer recipe, and overall I like it a lot. I feer I may have messed it up a bit, though; I could not find true Seville orange peel and so used a dried bitter orange peel purchased from a local, high-quality and well-regarded Asian herbal medicine shop. Seems like a great product (the peels are *whole*, not grated or even chopped at all, and seem to be almost entirely zest with little or no pith. The problem is that I think they are “aged” and seem to have a bit of a funky, musty smell about them that was definitely noticable in the tincture (made with 100 proof Smirnoff and the shake/1 month infusion method), though less so in the finished Amer. Could you provide a bit more in the way of description of what the end-result tincture is supposed to look/smell/taste like? Mine, at the end of a month infusion with daily shaking, was a VERY dark orange color — so dark that you could only see its orange tint by looking at held up against the light. Is this anything like it should be? My quest for actual Seville peels continues, and once found I’ll immediately start another tincture, but I’d like to know how far off my current batch is.
Anyway, thanks again — I’m enjoying a Nirvana as I type this and it’s just great! An excellent use of “your” Amer, along with (if he’ll pardon the plug) Chuck’s Hoskins Cocktail.
Cheers!
Mike S:
Your final tincture should not be a dark color, but rather a light amber color. I’ve used a couple of different orange peels in the past and have never had that color before. Maybe dilute it with more vodka?
Thanks. I’m sure it was the peels I used, I figured almost from the start that they were not right. Ah, well…start again! That is, if I can ever find the damn things.
Jamie:
I’m having a tough time finding dried seville orange peel, even here in new york city. I came to your recipe from a slightly different angle - it was printed on a handout of homemade bitters recipes I got from LeNell’s. The recipe on that sheet (credited to you of course) doesn’t specifically call for seville orange peel in the tincture, and just specifies “orange peel”. It does however call for I believe less blood orange bitters and instead some amount of fee’s orange bitters. Is this perhaps to balance out using a less bitter orange in the tincture? If I were to follow the recipe above, do you know a reliable online source for seville orange peel? Thanks!
Hi,
Where can one buy this stuff?
Paul:
It has come to my attention that one does not need to use Seville oranges, and that the bitter orange peel that I had purchased was probably not Seville after all (damn sales person!). Tenzing Momo sells orange peel (see Paul’s comment above)
Djamel:
To the best of my knowledge Amer Picon is only available in parts of Europe. As to exactly where, I don’t know.
[...] 3/4 ounce Amer Picon (I used Jamie’s replica) [...]
The Amer Picon-recipe looks fantastic, I have to try… especially because my father-in-law gave me his old Danish cocktail recipe book from the 60ties - and it has a few delicious-looking recipes with amer picon.
?
I just have a few questions before I get set and go:
The best way of getting dried orange peel where I live (in Denmark) is in brew-your-own-beer shops where you’d typically get 100 grams of bitter curaçao peel.
How much do you actually need for 7 1/2 cups of orange tincture - and would you guess that that kind of peel is o.k.?
and btw. - how much does a canadian cup contain
oh and finally - am I right, did you downgrade the amount of Stirrings? If so, how much??
Niels:
1 cup = 8 fluid ounces
When making tincture, fill the container half full with peel. Fill completely with alcohol. Seal.
The recipe listed above is the final recipe.
Jamie: A friend and I spied a bottle (the old formula) at the Cliff House in San Francisco about a year or so ago. We gave the young female bartender instructions as to how to make the drink and it turned out beautifully. Alas, my friend recently visited the Cliff House and the bottle was gone. I had heard some years back that, given the sizable Basque population in the Bay Area, Amer Picon used to be consumed in substantial quantities, hence the demand for a cheaper version i.e. Torani. Some months back, Eric Felten in the WSJ devoted a col. to Amer Picon. He remarked that Torani was an adequate substitute for the original. As one of your bloggers points out, it just ain’t so. I’ll try your recipe. Thanks for sharing it.
[...] Since I can be a complete doofus in person and especially in a public presentation, I invited three remarkably talented panelists to help flesh out the session. Erik Ellestad and I will cover the home enthusiast’s end, with examples ranging from simple but tasty infusions — that’s a boatload of Tequila por Mi Amante in the photo, soaking away in preparation to being poured for whoever shows up — to compound syrups (falernum! orgeat!) and house-made liqueurs such as Swedish punch; we’ll then kick it over to the pros: John Deragon from PDT in New York and Jamie Boudreau from … uh, his apartment in Seattle, I guess … who will cover house bitters, fat-washing and more complex ingredients such as Jamie’s vintage Amer Picon replica. [...]
[...] along with finishing up a large batch of falernum and decanting nearly a gallon of Jamie’s Amer Picon replica that are also for the [...]