CLASSIC CABINET: Banana Liqueur
From March 30th, 2023
Hello. This is part of a little summer series revisiting a few vintage entries from the Cabinet and Spirits vaults. Here, unlocked for a brief time only is last year’s entry about Banana Liqueur. Read on to find out which brand “tastes like you got lost in the jungle and were on the point of starvation but were then saved by some friendly monkeys.”
~ CRÈME DE BANANE ~
Banana liqueur. ~25% ABV. £18-£30 for 700ml
Friends with: rum. Also, cachaca, rye, brandy, bourbon and pisco. Sherry (yes). Lime, other tropical fruits, cinnamon, nutmeg, chocolate, cream, etc.
Suddenly, Crème de Banane is like Harry Styles. It’s everywhere! Where did it come from? I mean, I didn’t even bother to include the stuff in my book The Spirits - I hadn’t come across any banana cocktails that seemed worth making. It seemed declassé; naff; embarassing; the stuff of 1980s package holidays. But in the last five years or so, banana liqueur has catapulted itself to the forefront of every respectable backbar in Christendom. Venture out into one of our great metropoles and you’ll find banana Negronis, banana Old Fashioneds and banana Bing Bang Bongs on every menu. Why only the other day it was papped in a steamy clinch with Emily Ratjakowski on a national tabloid. Bananas!
What happened? It would be nice to think that the recent near-death of the Cavendish banana from Panama Disease prompted an outpouring of love for this complacently munched fruit, 130 of which are consumed by each person on Earth every year. (Did you know that the Cavendish banana - the ubiquitous yellow basic banana - only became widespread from the 1950s ? And that prior to that, it was the (apparently much tastier) Gros Michel that was the banane du choix? And that the Gros Michel is no more, thanks to the evils of monoculture? And that the Cavendish could easily be wiped out by disease too, since we have learned nothing?)
But no, I don’t think that’s it. There are two more likely reasons for the bannaissance. One is the rediscovery/reimagining of Tiki culture. A key drink here was Bunny’s Banana Daiquiri (2013) from Three Dots and a Dash in Chicago, complete with directional banana dolphin garnish (above). A trend starter if there ever was one.
And the second was the (re)introduction of two outstanding banana liqueurs: Banane du Brésil by Giffard (2013); and Tempus Fugit’s Crème de Banane (2018). Prior to these two, banana liqueurs tended towards the taste and consistency of children’s antiobiotics. These two liqueurs changed that.
The Giffard (made from an infusion of banana purée plus distilled bananas) has more of a banana chip/banana bread-type taste: dry, complex, almost savoury, with a sophisticated touch of cognac and vanilla added. It is a world an away from your canary-yellow synthetic banana liqueurs and is a mainstay of your directional backbar. It tastes like this:
The Tempus Fugit, meanwhile, is rather fruitier and more pungent - more like overripe bananas, or bananas flambéd in rum. Apparently they use a particular red type of banana from Costa Rica for this one and work to a recipe from the pre-Cavendish days of 1883. It tastes like you got lost in the jungle and were on the point of starvation but were then saved by some friendly monkeys.
In short, both are outstanding and worth the outlay. I can’t claim to have sampled widely among other banana liqueurs, which are often rather Nesquik-esque, but I will note in passing the cult the surrounds Pisang Ambon, a “green banana” liqueur from the Dutch East Indies, which tastes a bit like those foamy banana sweets with a touch of Chartreuse. It’s not a pure banana liqueur as it’s infused with herbs too but it is well worth ordering as a shot next time you’re out.
Another reason to invest in banana liqueur is that it’s tricky to mix with fresh bananas. Lemons and oranges can be squeezed; raspberries and mangoes can be muddled; bananas must be blended and even then have a nasty habit of turning brown. So, as with apricots (another difficult fruit) a liqueur or infusion is the easiest way to go. Assuming you like bananas, of course.
CABINET POSTS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
ABINET POSTS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
🐿️ Amaretto
🧡 Aperol
🍑 Apricot Brandy
🕊️ Bénédictine
❄️ Brancamenta
☕ Coffee Liqueur
🍌 Crème de Banane
🍫 Crème de Cacao
🫐 Crème de Cassis
🌷 Cynar
🌸Elderflower Liqueur
🏝️ Falernum
🦅 Fernet-Branca
🌿 Green Chartreuse
🐻 Kümmel
🍒 Maraschino
🌵 Mezcal
🦙 Pisco
🐂 Sherry
🌻 Suze
THE COCKTAILS
Shaken
I don’t think you could do much better than to begin your adventures in Bananaland with a simple BANANA DAIQUIRI. There are numerous ways to make this drink - including with fresh bananas - but I will go with the simplest. Shake up: 50ml light rum, 15ml lime juice, 10ml sugar syrup, and 10ml banana liqueur. Strain into a coupe.
I have recently taken to splicing the light rum element with clairín - a grassy, funky style of rum from Haiti - in my Daiquiris. 40ml light rum and 10ml clairin is optimal I find and particularly good in the Banana Daiquiri. Rhum agricole and Brazilian cachaça will perform similar functions.
Shannon Mustipher makes liberal use of banane in her excellent book Tiki: Modern Tropical Cocktails. Her signature drink (and one of the most approachable) is the PARASOL. She actually advises using a banana syrup here, specifically the version made by Reál Ingredients, but names both the Giffard and Tempus Fugit liqueurs as “excellent choices” if you want a drier cocktail. Which frankly I do. 60ml light rum, 20ml banana liqueur, 30ml pineapple juice, 20ml lime juice. Shake hard with ice and strain into a chilled coupe. Grate nutmeg for a garnish. Oooh, that’s tasty!
But rum and banana is obvious. Gin and banana? Less so. Gin, sherry and banana? Oh boy. But wait til you try the BANANA CALLING. This is a riff on the London Calling from Dandelyan. Shake: 50ml gin, 12.5ml banana liqueur, 10ml fino sherry, 25ml lemon juice, 10ml sugar syrup. Strain into a chilled coupe. Comes over a bit like sherry trifle.
Or you might try Jeff ‘Beachbum’ Berry’s YELLOW SUBMARINE c.2002 (somewhat similar to the Pago Pago from last year’s cacao post, in that it somehow finds a mid-point between a bunch of contrasting flavours). Shake: 60ml gold rum, 30ml lemon juice, 60ml pineapple juice, 10ml white creme de cacao, 10ml creme de banane and 10ml sugar syrup. Pour unstrained into some sort of receptacle and top with more ice. Garnish outlandishly.
Stirred
My own personal bananapiphany arrived via Sly Augustin’s BANANA RUM OLD FASHIONED - still one of my favourite cocktails I have featured on here. Subscribers of long-standing will recall that my recipe involved infusing a fresh banana in a jam jar of rum for 24 hours. But actually, Sly’s original recipe was simply 60ml, 10ml banana liqueur, 5ml sugar syrup and a dash of chocolate bitters. So simple, so good. You can, of course, use bourbon too but I think rum is better.
While there isn’t really a classic banana cocktail, but there are a handful of vintage ones in the The Café Royal book of 1938. The only one to have endured in any form is the BANANA BLISS. The original recipe is equal parts Courvoisier brandy and Bols banana liqueur, shaken. A more recent innovation (from the Chicago barender Caitlin Laman) is to add sherry to the mix. Try stirring: 30ml brandy, 15ml banana liqueur, 10ml oloroso (or amontillado) sherry, and four dashes of Angosura bitters.
However, there is a banana drink on its way to becoming a modern classic in its own right. Yes, I’m talking about the BANANA BOULEVARDIER, which I believe hails from Anvil bar in Houston. It’s really designed for the Giffard Banane du Brésil, this one. In a glass, stir: 30ml bourbon, 30ml Italian vermouth, 15ml Campari and 15ml banana liqueur. Garnish with a strip of orange zest. Maybe a banana chip.
Long
Another Shannon Mustipher drink that’s catching on is the LORIKEET, which is a roundabout rye-based variant on the Jungle Bird, only with added b-a-n-a-n-a and liberal shakings of Peychaud’s and Angostura replacing the customary Campari. Shake: 60ml rye whiskey, 15ml banana liqueur, 30ml pineapple juice, 20ml lemon juice, 7.5ml cinnamon syrup and - wait for it - six dashes of Peychaud’s bitters and four dashes of Angostura bitters. Pour unstrained into a tall glass, top with ice, and garnish with an orange twist and pineapple fronds.
I mentioned that fresh bananas only really work in cocktails when blended. Well that’s not necessarily a problem, is it? The quintessential example being the BANANA COW, one of Trader Vic’s original recipes. You’ll need: one overripe banana, 50ml light rum (though I’d go with a mid-weight golden rum actually), 25ml banana liqueur and 150ml whole milk. Blend with a scoop of crushed ice, pour into tall glass, and grate nutmeg on top. Note how the liqueur really amps up the banana flavour!
Of course, any number of extra ingredients can be added to banana milkshake: vanilla ice-cream, coconut sorbet, peanut butter, natural yoghurt, cinnamon, cardamom, Lotus Biscoff biscuits (yes), maple syrup, honey, and so on. One to fool around with! And you can take the banana-dairy affinity further by adding a little banana to your Brandy Alexanders, if you wish.
Finally, if you have the patience you might also like to have a go at TAHITIAN RUM PUNCH, one of Don the Beachcomber’s monster concoctions. It only uses a scant teaspoon of banana liqueur but I you’ll have fun making it.
30ml dark rum
15ml light rum
30ml dry white wine (confession: I used French vermouth)
15ml lime juice
30ml grapefruit juice
30ml orange juice
5ml banana liqueur
5ml brown sugar syrup
Drop of vanilla extract.
Shake with ice cubes and strain into a tall glass filled with fresh ice. Mint garnish. And a straw.
JOKE:
What was Beethoven’s favourite fruit?
Ba-na-na-naaaaa.