Créme Yvette: chapter 4 of a cozy mystery

We humbly dedicate this post to the memory of Robert J. Cooper, who helped to bring back Créme Yvette, as well as the ubiquitous elderflower liqueur St. Germain. He passed away at age 39 on Monday, April 25 from causes that weren't immediately known.

_________________________________________________________________


Yvette Altelier was many things: hot-headed, incisive, bold - but she was not sycophantic.

So when Benedict E. Nelson strolled into her office on that balmy Tuesday morning, mewling about his client's stepmother and her vicious streak, she wasn't moved. Hell, she wasn't even interested. At all.

"I was wondering," Benedict said in that smooth, caressing voice of his, "if you'd agree to me submitting an injunction Ginny Alexander."

Yvette's eyes narrowed to slits ("Pure evil!" her ex-husband often exclaimed). "Against what?" she spat.

"Brandy's gone through enough in her short life. I'd like to warn Ginny against saying anything negative about Brandy's father... or Pernod, for that matter."

"Pair-no?" Yvette could hardly help herself from spitting out the word. It sounded like an idiotic term the nouveau riche would trot out to make them feel better about their status amongst the Old Money of Sweetberry Grove. Which, in the case of the Alexander family, was extremely likely. "What the hell is that?"

Benedict scoffed and rolled his eyes. As if he'd been in Sweetberry Grove long enough to know everything about everyone.

Yvette placed her hands on her hips.

"Pernod is... was... Brandy's childhood border collie."

Yvette shifted her weight, and picked at the cuticle of her left thumb - an action she subconsciously did whenever she was losing patience. If Benedict kept this up, she'd have a a raw scrap of meat instead of a nailbed.

"Perhaps I should explain," Benedict E. Nelson began.

Yvette arched her eyebrows as high as they could go.

"Well, you have probably figured out for yourself that Brandy and Ginny have a relationship that is...ahhh -- how should I say this? --"

"Yes, counselor. A difficult relationship. So what? I once pulled off my mother's wig at a debutante ball after she convinced my boyfriend, Sanders, that I wasn't a socially appropriate match for him. We all have our sob stories."

"Oh! Yvette, that sounds horrible. To think, your mother drove your beau off just because you were of better social standing!"

Yvette stared blankly at him and began tapping her long purplish-red fingernails on her desk with an air of impatience and aggravation. Benedict's stomach dropped, like those recurring dreams when you realize that you're completely naked in a public place.

"No, Benedict. She convinced him that I was too bossy and plain to be a good match for his family's station."

Benedict gulped and fidgeted with his collar.

"Anyway, sir, I know they have a tense relationship. What does that have to do with the damn dog?" Yvette kept drumming her fingernails on the desk, and Benedict couldn't help but watch them, almost entranced, to see when she'd rap them so hard against the dark oak desk that one would fly off and smack against a piece of her gilt-edged, monogrammed desk set.

"You see, Yvette, Pernod was...well...you might say she was Brandy's best friend growing up. Being from the wealthiest family in Sweetberry Grove and having a hard-nosed businessman like Gordon for a father, she didn't have much chance to get to know kids her own age. They were all either put off by her family's position, or had been on the wrong end of one of Gordon's business dealings."

Yvette's nails kept rapping the top of the desk. Lord, did they make Lee Press-Ons out of titanium these days? And how often did she have to get that gorgeous old antique desk sanded and refinished?

"W-w-well," said Benedict as he kept one eye on her nails, "the dog, Pernod, was a bit of a problem when Ginny came into the household. Brandy loved that old mutt, but Ginny - well - she was never terribly fond of animals to begin with. You wouldn't believe the pack of trouble that dog caused: screaming matches on the porch, surreptitious trips to the pound, late-night calls to animal control and to the police! The dog became like the child in a really bad divorce."

"And for this you've wasted 7 minutes and 24 seconds of my time, Mr. Nelson?" Yvette asked as her nails finally stopped digging into the desk and instead pointed menacingly at Benedict. As annoying as the constant tapping was, he did wish she'd kept doing it; this was menacing and downright scary. Whoever that Sanders fellow was, Benedict thought he'd dodged a bullet by avoiding a date with Yvette.

"Counselor, please leave my office and don't darken my door unless you have something that's infused with at least a hint of common sense or legal precedent. Either would be a delightful change of pace. Now, good day. My assistant, Trixie Belvedere, will show you out."

"Trixie!" Yvette called loudly into the next room, "I believe Mr Arnold will agree that our meeting is finished."

Benedict nearly sprinted for the door.

Hipster Grandma!

So, here's my thinking, Joe: 

Créme Yvette tastes like violets, right? 

Violets. Or, as you say, your grandmother's bathwater.

So, I says to myself, I says: What goes with violets?

Well, there's Smurfs. 

Vanity Smurf, who I always wanted to call
"Violet." But I think he has a violet in his cap.
Or maybe a pansy. Something gay, anyway.

Violets also apparently mean love or truth and they only existing American violet wholesaler sees their sales skyrocket around Valentine's Day, according to the website of the American Violet Society.

But none of those things really help me mix a drink. 

What else do you think of when you think of violets?

Well, violets are a flower. And they grow in dirt. And probably somewhere around them in the dirt there is also grass. 

No, this isn't a marijuana-laced cocktail. 

It's a cocktail featuring the only alcohol that I know that tastes like your lawn: IPA beer. 

Yes, I know the first time that I made you a beer cocktail you said "Oh! You're making a beer cocktail!" in a voice that you wanted to sound sweetly surprised, but instead sounded like this:

A beer cocktail? Bitch, please.

Nonetheless, you drank it. And you liked it. Or else you kept pretending that you liked it. Either way, it is my reality now.

And I predict you'll also like my newest creation: the Hipster Grandma! 

It's simple. Look in your fridge. Is there IPA there? 

Of course there is. You have too many ironic t-shirts, too large a vinyl collection, and too many Bernie Sanders bumper stickers for there not to be. And it's probably some local, hand-crafted, organic, free-range IPA.

Okay, not an IPA. But I wasn't at Joe's house,
so I had to make do with what I had on hand.

Now, does the IPA taste like grass? No, really - does it taste like you just shoved your hand in a bag of lawn clippings, dunked it in some water, and left it in a dark corner of your basement to ferment for a few months?

It does? Good. We're ready. 

Pour a wee bit of Créme Yvette in a pint glass. You'll probably want to use a half ounce. I prefer about three-quarters of an ounce. You don't want too much - it's powerful stuff, like kryptonite or florescent lighting. 

Then open an IPA - I actually used and American Pale Ale from one of our local breweries down here, Yee Haw Brewing - and dump it on top. If you like, add a little twist of lime or lemon. 

You'll get a lovely purple fizzy concoction. 

It's everything hipsters love: local and artisanal with a subtle undertone of something working-class, gritty, and authentic, whatever that means. But also, it has a sweet, floral, Victorian aftertaste. Yes, like your grandma's bathwater. 

So I give you the Hipster Grandma! 

Your hipster grandma, Joe.

Ginger Rabbit

Dear Joe,

I really don't understand your loathing for Créme Yvette. It isn't as syrupy-sweet as Créme de Cassis. And it has a really fascinating flavor - when is the last time you ate something that tasted like violets, except for maybe that one time you ate part of your mom's African violets from the kitchen window? I mean, you seem to like lavender, and they're both delicate, floral flavors that could easily overpower a drink or a dessert. You just need to pair it with strong flavors that can compete with its sweet, floral powers. Like you'd show your dominance to train a dog. Or, for that matter, a boyfriend: 

Apparently it's a game! And there are two of them!
I'd suggest we play, but perhaps we already are...

I think you just picked an unfortunate drink. Gin is lovely, but it won't do quite enough to temper the really strong violet and berry taste of Créme Yvette. I'd thought about doing a gin cocktail, but since you beat me to it, I decided to pick a dark liquor drink. 

For some harebrained* reason I picked a drink with a lot of prep, but it does have star anise in it, which seems appropriate given that our cozy mystery heroine is named Anise Starr. 

It's pretty, but I'm not sure it gave the
drink too much flavor...

Anyway, I had to make an infused sugar syrup, for which I didn't really follow the directions. I just heated up a simple syrup in the microwave, threw in a teabag and some star anise and let it sit for a few minutes while I made dinner and mixed up everything else. I think it worked passably.

Roughly 0.5 oz infused simple syrup.

The simple syrup, by the way, was pretty delicious on its own. I've saved some for your next visit to Bristol, should you want to use it for some fun new Créme Yvette cocktail. 

But then you muddle some ginger and lemon peel with it, add ice, lots of bourbon (I used Four Roses Small Batch this time), and a splash of Créme Yvette, then strain it into a new glass and voilá! You have the Ginger Rabbit. 

It tastes, to be honest, about 90% like bourbon. Which means it's definitely your kind of drink. And I was a bit scared of the simple syrup. In the same drink as Créme Yvette I was afraid it would just taste like sweet, syrupy alcohol. That would be okay if I were a sorority girl. Lucky for us both, I'm not. 

It did taste like a subtly sweet bourbon - the floral aftertaste was just barely there, but it was tempered by the depth of the bourbon and the earthiness of the simple syrup, not to mention the sharp notes of the ginger and the lemon. I found it a nicely-balanced and delicious drink, even vaguely appropriate for spring! 

I'll make one for you next time I see you. I think I can turn you around on Créme Yvette. I don't see us ever sipping it on the porch, at least not until we enter a Victorian-themed retirement home. But I still think it's an interesting addition to some cocktails. 

I think you'll like my next creation better, anyway. So get ready for...

H I P S T E R   G R A N D M A

Yours always,

Dave

* I still think "harebrained" is most correct, despite your apparent attachment to the "hairbrained" spelling. That's harebrained, I say. 

Submarine kiss

Dear Dave,

I poked around looking for a Créme Yvette recipe and couldn't find anything that felt truly compelling. Or anything that I could stomach.

I returned to the Créme Yvette website, which now just seems like a collection of carefully-curated lies by some hipster in Brooklyn who thought bringing back a long-dormant liqueur would score him some Kewl Points™ with the members of some starving artisenal booze collective.

One cocktail on the website continued to intrigue me: the Submarine Kiss.

On our walk earlier today, I kept calling it the Stratosphere. And I was going to draw a humorous parallel to my experience riding the Stratosphere in Las Vegas. Alas, I had the names confused and my Humor Bucket is devoid of anything clever regarding the Submarine Kiss.

Because god is this a dumb name for a cocktail.

I'd deconstruct its meaning if the drink made me feel anything more robust than pure apathy.

What intrigued me about this drink was that it required two preparation steps: the creation of the "silver fizz" and the layering of Créme Yvette.

The layering didn't work, maybe because I don't have a champagne flute. But even if I did, I don't think it would have made that much of a difference. 

Silver Fizz:

• 2 oz. gin (the website recommended Plymouth Gin, but I used London Dry Gin after confirming through a couple half-assed Google searches about the difference between the two)
• 3/4 oz. simple syrup
• 3/4 oz. lemon juice
• one egg white

This combination receives two different shakes in the cocktail shaker: a dry shake (one without ice) and then one with ice. I guess the one with ice is called a wet shake? That sounds so disgusting. 

Once the silver fizz has been prepared, you pour it over one ounce of Créme Yvette. The photo on the website makes it look like the Yvette magically sits on the bottom and the fizz floats on top of it. Maybe the champagne flute allows this to happen, but my result looked markedly different.  

Hide & go Créme Yvette: the Pepto Bismol Years

You know how whenever we made cocktails with Créme de Cassis we couldn't taste it no matter what? The opposite is true with Créme Yvette. 

I was positive it would be lost in the gin. After all, there are two parts gin to the Créme Yvette. 

I put my nose to the cocktail before drinking it, and there it was: the smell of moldy, flowery sadness.

And I took a sip. 

There was a banging at my palate's door.

Créme Yvette didn't wait for me to answer. She barged right on in and drunkenly accused me of not loving her. 

Before I could stammer an explanation, she punched me in the gullet and demanded an explanation. 

I tried to calm her down. 

But Créme Yvette isn't a lady, David. She is a boozy virago, all vitriol and pugnacious fire. 

Gin is no match for her. Lemon is no match for her. Sugar and egg and groveling is no match for her. 

She will find you and she will pummel you into submission. 

And if there is an explanation for this cocktail's lousy name, it is that Créme Yvette kisses like a submarine: a demanding, metallic, bulldozer liplock that tastes of flowery defeat. 

May you have more luck with her.

Love,

Joe

April Liquor: Créme Yvette

Hello, beautiful.

The story of Créme Yvette is, in a nutshell, the story of the last 100 years of American cocktail culture. The purple-hued liqueur was listed as an ingredient in published cocktails dating back to the late 1880s and until the 1930s and 40s, according to the company's website.

After prohibition, though, the way Americans drank changed. Many kids and teenagers who grew up during prohibition had little to no experience with drinking and went straight for drinks that could get them buzzed, and could get them buzzed quickly. This is part of the reason that vodka became an important and ubiquitous ingredient in drinks like the Bloody Mary, Screwdriver, and Moscow Mule, which helped its popularity soar.

Sad little digestifs like Créme Yvette were no match for this sea change in American drinking culture. It didn't help matters that one of Yvette's major ingredients was violet petals, as well as a masceration of berries, which I'm sure made it feel even more like something your grandma would drink, not a keen liquor you and your nifty friends would drink. Dig it, daddy-o?

Créme Yvette ceased production in 1969, but was resurrected in 2009 just as the classic cocktail craze was warming up in major American cities. There's a lovely interview with Robert Cooper, the head of the liquor company that owned the rights to the liquor's formula and decided to reintroduce it in Elements Magazine.

Bottoms up!

Cooper says that Yvette doesn't have the same broad appeal as the company's other famous liqueur, St. Germain, citing Yvette's lack of versatility and user-friendliness.

All the same, we're testing its boundaries this month with classic cocktails, new (and often frightening) creations, and, as always, a bit of murder thrown in at the end of the month.

Tasting notes: 

Dave:

When I took the cap off the bottle and sniffed, I was a bit shocked at how alcohol-forward it smelled. And when I poured it into the glass, I was really glad we hadn't decided to do Creme Violette this month instead, which is entirely violets, while Yvette is violets mixed with blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and cassis, with honey, vanilla, orange peel and spices added.  It still smells ridiculously like flowers, which is not a smell I'm used to in things I drink.

I think Joe may have a difficult time with this one. It tastes much like it smells. Like flowers. We're drinking fucking flowers. I can't imagine drinking this after dinner as a digestif - it might make me want to retch up everything I'd just eaten. Not that it tastes bad exactly... just very, very strong. It's the strength of the floral taste that's off-putting. It's also a thick, heavy liquid - much like Bénédictine from last month - and that just enhances the almost syrupy sweetness in a way that's, well, gross to a modern cocktail drinker. We like our alcohol to taste like alcohol and this tastes like perfume.

It's going to be an interesting month. If anyone wants to try Créme Yvette, come by our place. I'm sure we'll have some of this left, even if you can't make it by our place until the year 2062.

Joe:

I was really quite excited about this liqueur when Dave told me it was his choice for April. I had never even heard of Créme Yvette, and I am always up for an adventure. Plus the information Dave had found about the drink was just so darn fascinating! A resurrected liqueur of yore!

But.

This smells like my grandmother. Her house, more accurately. I should probably clarify that I don't really like the smell of my grandmother's house. Most people probably associate grandmothers with baked apple pies or rose perfume or something. But this is not the case with mine. This is going to come across as incredibly cruel, but I'm being honest: her house smells a bit like mildew. Mildewed flowers. It's a scent that embeds itself in everything: furniture, food, you name it. Dave is getting a hit of all these wonderful fruity notes, and I'm just getting a big hit of mold.

And then we tasted it.

Picture a ninety year old woman. Maybe she has that bluish-tinted hair because of a rinse she uses. Maybe she smells like baby powder with a hint of mothballs. Maybe she spends her days in the garden, tending to gardenias and gladiola, jacaranda and hyacinth, hyssop and violets. She's been out in the sun for a long time. She returns inside and draws a bath, adding Epsom salts and lavender bubble bath. And she bathes. For a couple hours. Once her wrinkly skin is even wrinklier, she emerges from the tub.

And that's when the makers of Créme Yvette swoop in and bottle the bath water.

Dave took two candid photos when I tasted Créme Yvette for the first time. I had no idea he was snapping shots, but I think they tell the full story.

Oh, Sweet Jesus

Sweet baby Jesus.

This is going to be a rough month, folks.

Nerdy Librarian Citations:
Dewing, Neal. "How Vodka Conquered America" The Federalist. The Federalist, 15 July 2014. Web. 27 March 2016. <http://thefederalist.com/2014/07/25/how-vodka-conquered-america>.

Simonson, Robert. "Creme Yvette" Elements Magazine. Imbibe Media, 14 August 2009. Web. 27 March 2016. <http://imbibemagazine.com/elements-creme-yvette>.