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