How to Make a Bold Mezcal Cocktail

There’s this famous story in the math world of a genius—a boy born into poverty in India in 1887 and raised with no formal education in high-level mathematics, but who managed through sheer raw intelligence to solve problems that had plagued the field for years. His proofs were outstanding for their brilliance, but also for their unconventional creativity and insight, in part, it was believed, because they were not hemmed in by convention. The upshot: If you don’t know the rules, you can’t be constrained by them. 

This is how I feel about the Maximilian Affair. There’s a bunch of ways in which this drink looks bizarre—the things that are in it and how much of each, for starters—but all you need to do is taste it to know that it is, as a culinary project, unassailably correct. It works. It’s completely delicious, by turns juicy and floral and muscular and complex, but it does so in a unique way because it was created when the rules as we understand them had not fully been established yet.

The Maximilian Affair was invented by Misty Kalkofen. She is as learned and accomplished a bartender you could ever hope to meet—Kalkofen would become a bar owner, a cocktail book author, founding member of the Boston chapter of Ladies United for the Preservation of the Endangered Cocktail (LUPEC) and all-purpose agave queen— but in 2008 was just a prodigiously talented bartender working at Green Street Grill in Cambridge, Mass. Ron Cooper of Del Maguey had come into the bar to showcase his newly available mezcal, and by all accounts, Kalkofen tasted it, and invented the Maximilian Affair on the spot.

She started with an ounce of mezcal—not really uncharted territory here, although at the time quality mezcal in Boston was quite new—which she mixed with an entire ounce of the juicy and floral French elderflower liqueur, St. Germain. To be clear, this is a crazy amount of St. Germain, two to four times more than is conventionally used in cocktails, but St. Germain was also brand new, and Kalkofen was going on feel. To this she added a half ounce of Punt e Mes, the bittersweet vermouth almost invariably found in stirred sippers like the Fort Point or Red Hook, and so you might think this is going into Manhattan territory, but no, because to cap it off she adds a quarter ounce of fresh lemon juice (this measurement three times less than convention), and then shakes. She called it the Maximilian Affair, an allusion to a historical event in which French and Mexican cultures collided just as they do in the glass. This is another 2008 choice: It’s a frankly terrible name for a drink, and my chief explanation as to why this isn’t as well-known as it should be.

In any event, it’s impossible to categorize the Maximilian Affair. I don’t even know what the next closest drink would be—it’s got the St. Germain of a Quick Fix, the short citrus of a Bitter Giuseppe, the shaken vermouth of a Bronx, but it doesn’t taste anything like any of them. This is weird in at least three ways but, as mentioned, one sip and all the question marks disappear. It’s simultaneously bright and floral and deep and smoky, red-fruit tinted from the vermouth with a core juicy quality from the quantity of St. Germain. It’s smoky but pretty, a smoldering flower, a Frankenstein’s monster of a cocktail but one that is animated all the same, and a shining example of what’s possible when there are no rules, and therefore no impediments to your creativity.

Maximilian Affair

Add all ingredients to a cocktail tin with ice and shake for eight to 10 seconds. Strain up into a cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon or grapefruit peel, or with nothing at all.

NOTES ON INGREDIENTS

Mezcal: The occasion for the invention of this drink were the Del Maguey mezcals, which is always a great choice, their recently released Vida Puebla is inexpensive for mixing and brilliant here. Honestly, I haven’t tried a mezcal that doesn’t work—each bottle will yield a different cocktail, of course, but they’re all delicious. Mezcal Amarás, the Divino Maguey, Banhez, they’re all great, find something that isn’t too expensive and go with it.

The other thing worth noting is that Kalkofen herself sometimes makes this with tequila, to let the St. Germain really shine. Personally, I don’t think this is better—to me, the combination of aggressive smoke and pretty florals is why I want to drink this in the first place—but it does indeed make a balanced and tasty drink. Feel free to experiment if you wish.

St. Germain: There are lots of elderflower liqueurs now, but this is used in such a quantity that I’d hesitate to not specifically insist on St. Germain. Other brands might work, but the specific balance of acidity and sweetness is pretty important. 

Punt e Mes: This was specifically created for Punt e Mes, the extra bittersweet vermouth from Italy. This cocktail is such an exotic bird I hesitate to recommend it unless you have all the requisite ingredients. I tried it with big vermouths like Carpano Antica and Cocchi Vermouth di Torino and it’s good, but less memorable and wanting for depth.

Lemon Juice: I believe the original measurement was 0.25 oz. lemon juice, which I’ve bumped up to 0.5 oz. for my palate. Feel free to disagree. I think my references are too entrenched—those rules I talked about above are hard wired in my brain, and I keep wanting to push this more firmly into “sour” territory.