The Pairing
Grey Sister, by Mark Lawrence
The Reasoning
While I fell in love with Lawrence’s poisons and considered basing my cocktail on one of them, whenever I thought about Grey Sister I found my mind wandering back to Nona’s Shade Trial (also known as “the tree scene”). In my mind it’s the most iconic chapter of the book, and I’m very happy with how it one turned out. The picture really doesn’t do it justice – in real life, this cocktail looks like liquid shadow.
The Cocktail
You will need:
- Margarita or Coupe Champagne Glass
- Sparkling White Wine (Dry)
- 1 oz Black Raspberry Liqueur
- 1 oz Blue Curaçao
- 1 Black Maraschino Cherry
- 1 Long Sprig of Mint
Pour champagne into your glass until filled to about 1cm from the rim. In another glass, measure raspberry liqueur and blue curacao and stir. Pour into the champagne glass.
Take your sprig of mint and stab the bottom of the stem into your cherry so that the cherry acts as an anchor. Pop it into the champagne mixture and spread the leaves out wide so that your mint “tree” sits in the center of the glass.
Enjoy! And watch out for that Joeli. She’s a bad egg.
