It even works if you don't like gin---because there is no gin in it. This should be THE standard holiday cocktail!
Bernard Sun’s Negroni Evergreen is a magnificent tour-de-force of a drink, a stunning concoction of Scarlet Ibis Rum, Campari, Cocchi Barolo Chinato, Fonseca Bin 27 port, Berg & Hauck’s Old Time bitters and Miracle Mile Chocolate Chili bitters, served over a single large rock of ice.
I will freely admit I was leery of this drink. It seemed like overkill, with a bewildering array of aggressive ingredients. Usually that type of mad-chemist creation is a mish-mash of conflicting flavors. The Nostrana bartender, Samantha, proved me wrong. She insisted I try the cocktail; since she’s been right before and seems to know my tastes, I acquiesced. Boy, am I glad I took her advice!
The Negroni Evergreen is a big, bold, audacious and absolutely delightful burst of holiday flavor.
Amazing, but all those strong, declarative ingredients work smoothly together, never clashing with each other, and delivering bottomless complexities of enticing aromas and flavors with a definite fruit-caky, holiday-baking-spices festive array of deliciousness---all with that bracing edgy bitterness that a good negroni should always have.