fabulay! - and this is just the cocktail course!
When oh when? Why o why? Tasting the Faberge cocktail* at La Belle Vie** this weekend confirmed for me my creeping suspicion that I really really want to try creme de violette. Or as you can see, make lots of drinks like these at cocktailchronicles and dashofbitters.
*The Faberge sounds a lot like a variation on the Blue Moon, The Attention, or a violet-Aviation-- ingredients were gin, vodka, violet syrup and lemon. Well, that says to me that they don't have any violette on hand and are using vodka as the neutral grain spirit to punch up some sugared violet syrup (monin? built from scratch?) in any case, I suspect it won't be long after creme de violette reaches our city that the faberge gets that in an update. It did inspire me though, to try making another gin-vodka combo cocktail at home that I liked, but thought it was too cloying so I won't dish that info here. Once I figure it out though, keep watching the skies!
** you can expect a series of glowing reports about our La Belle Vie experience over the next several days.