"Garnet Star - The very un-red-herring real thing from Poshley Sanctum."

"Showstopper - 2 SP - When successful, defeats your enemies with a single blow!"

Inspiration

The garnet star in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is a red herring! Or at least it is to anyone not familiar with our portrait-defenestrating hero, Mario. (portrait-defenestrating is the act of thrusting oneself through portraits, such as paintings) Pennington, the penguin detective, guards the real garnet star deep in the recesses of Poshley Sanctum. With that in mind, why not make a drink that packs a pun-ch! (that was a pun, and yes, so is the drink-spiration)

Cherry Heering - Red Herring

Yes, it's a pun. Yes, it's delicious. No, I will not be taking further questions on the matter.

In all seriousness, I wanted to craft a cocktail that let me play around with this spirit which only recently made its debut at the XBar. I took it as an opportunity to side-by-side taste test the cherry heering with a few base spirit options. 2 ounces (59 ml) each of the below was combined with the heering (0.5 oz - 15 ml) and yellow chartreuse (0.5 oz - 15 ml).

Brandy (E&J VS) 

Brandy is fruit-derived and the heering literally has a fruit in its name. The combination was nothing surprising. The fruit base of the brandy accented the cherry notes in the heering and carried the notes of licorice and honey from the yellow chartreuse. The combo here tasted like a damn good Twizzler. Though this was a pleasant combination, what you see (the recipe) is pretty much what you get. Nothing surprising here. Nothing that felt like a satisfying end to a mystery novel.

Cabernet Barrel-Finished Gin (Knoxville Whiskey Works - Marble City Pink)

I love cabernet sauvignon wine and have, for the record, spent the better part of a wedding afterparty trying to find a particular bottle of wine that graced my taste buds at the start of the evening. With that memory hanging around, I thought, "Why not?"

Unfortunately, the combination of chartreuse, heering, and pink gin didn't really benefit any of the flavors. The cherry notes were watered down, the chartreuse was demolished to be akin to a honey syrup, and the gin itself took center stage. I wouldn't call this combo a cacophony, but it certainly didn't take the best components of each ingredient and brought em to the forefront. (none of them really took the show, ya know?)

Whiskey Barrel-Finished Gin (Knoxville Whiskey Works - Dry Gap)

I didn't know what I was in for with this one. I figured since the pink gin didn't work, the other gin wouldn't do it justice either. Reign in the 'showstopping' part of this cocktail's inspiration! (full-flavor analysis coming up)

Flavor Analysis

What I smelled from this drink's nose gave no information about the tasting experience that would come next. I had never had a flavor combo evolve quite like this one! The sweet intro from the heering gave way to an air of dry leaves and bark. The bark was almost cinnamon-like with the honeyed notes of anise from the chartreuse. It finished with a pleasant dryness. End scene.

Star Garnish

To create a candied star fruit garnish simply simmer some star fruit slices in a syrup of your choosing. After the slices become translucent transfer to a baking sheet or a dehydrator and let em cool and dry off completely at a comfortable temperature. We were able to impart an orange color by using some extra Aperol that we added to our simmering syrup.