Inspiration: The Poisoner’s Cabinet
You need to give the Poisoner’s Cabinet podcast a listen! It is absolutely splendid. Pairing classic, obscure, and occasionally original cocktails with vintage crimes from around the world. (The most recent crime they’ve covered on the main episodes so far was in the eighties….Which is a disturbing number of decades in the past.)
I absolutely love our irreverent hosts Sinead and Nick. When telling the tales of poison, murder, and mayhem, they don’t celebrate the perpetrators, they empathize with the victims and point out the failings or successes of the police, doctors, vicars, and others around these crimes.
Now a word of warning, the first season focuses exclusively on classic poisoning cases, which with the built-in framework of the episodes, does get a bit samey sounding. However, starting in season two, while giving poisonings pride of place when covered — they branch out to historically macabre, odd or mysterious murders.
In any case, both Sinead and Nick often have pre-cocktail cocktails before starting to record their podcast and one of their favorites is a Negroni.
Negroni Recipe: 1 oz. Campari
1 oz. Gin
1 oz. sweet vermouth
Stir together and enjoy!
So my husband and I decided to try it out.
On the first sip, my tastebuds asked me why I suddenly hated them, as the drink was seriously bitter. (My usual cocktail is two ounces of peach vodka, an ounce of raspberry liquor, six splashes of peach bitters, and a dash of Luster a non-alcoholic alcohol, all of which I top off with lemonade. Not overly sweet, but by comparison is practically a syrup.)
But we’re not quitters.
Running around our local co-op a couple of weeks later, we came across a box of premixed cocktails, which has helped us overcome the bitterness hurdle! And we now mixed Negroni cocktails with impunity!
Christie: Honestly, I can see Mr. Harley Quin sipping a drink like this since love can be both bitter and sweet.
My 52 Weeks With Christie 