Late summer in our family will always be about the garden tomatoes and the fresh basil.
Is there any better combo? It’s no secret that home-grown tomatoes taste better than store-bought; they’re practically a different fruit. (Tomatoes are a fruit.) And if, like Chateau Cuisine Stupide, your house is filled with royal herb fanatics, then there’s nothing like the aroma of a big bunch of freshly picked basil flooding your kitchen.
In pasta sauce, on pizza, atop a slice of crusty bread in that bite of heaven called bruschetta—wherever it appears, the delicious duo of basil and tomato is the very definition of savory. It’s why, several years ago, Chef Sin and I went nuts over the oh-so-trendy but oh-so-fabulous creation called tomato toast, which doesn’t always include basil but probably should.
And it’s why I went searching for the cocktail equivalent of bruschetta. A drink carrying the distinctive acidic herbal sweetness that caresses your nose well before it embraces your palate.
I found it in the Mariposa.
Created by London bartender Robb Collins for the 2015 Bacardi Legacy UK Finals, the Mariposa is a masterful combination of savory and sour, with every component complementing and supporting the others. (A glance at some of the other cocktails Collins has created reveals a flair for unusual ingredients. Bison grass vodka, anyone? How about Dijon mustard?)
As for the name, Collins says the Mariposa was “inspired by a fictional love story of an American soldier who falls in love with a French Cuban girl called Mariposa during World War II.”
Like tomatoes and basil, those two were surely meant to be together.
Mariposa
Adapted from Robb Collins, London Cocktail Club, Goodge Street
1 fresh cherry tomato, chopped
4 fresh basil leaves
2 ounces white or light rum
1 ounce fresh lemon juice
1 ounce St–Germain Elderflower Liqueur
1 teaspoon simple syrup
Cherry tomato and basil leaves for garnish
Muddle tomato in a cocktail shaker. Add basil leaves and muddle some more. Add other ingredients and ice and shake vigorously. Finely strain into a chilled stemmed cocktail glass, and garnish with a cherry tomato and basil leaves.