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Earth Day meets Cocktail Culture
by Patricia Noonan
Are you committed to responsible and sustainable consumption?
I thought so….which means if you’re a vodka drinker, you’ll want to be testing the latest vodka to hit the bar rails. The world’s most environmentally friendly distillery happens to be in Iceland. (Unfortunately, some carbon footprints have to be used for it to get here, but that’s basically true of any vodka these days unless you’re making your own…)
Reyka Vodka is made using renewable geothermal energy. The heat is harnessed from the 
centre of the earth. (This is beginning to sound like a sci-fi story, except it includes drinking so that’s even better news.) Ingredients are fascinating. Fifty fifty ratio of barley to wheat and water comes from such a pure source, a 4,000 year old lava field, that it didn’t register any impurity ratings.
The filtering agent is also lava rock, so for all you spirit geeks, you’d know that any type of fossilized or compressed matter used as a filter has a low gravitational force, known as the Van der Waals effect. But getting back to the more important matters at hand….
With a pleasing return to classic cocktails, I thought a remix of the old tour de force, the Negroni, was definitely in order. I’ve given it a Nordic feel, switching from sweet red vermouth, to the dry white and from gin to vodka for a refreshing, almost spring like change to the old powerhouse. I’m sure Count Negroni would approve; after all he was the Italian who asked the barman at the Casoni Bar in Florence to ‘adjust’ the Americano for him. Here’s my Icelandic version of the Negroni.
The Blonde Negroni by Patricia Noonan
Highball glass filled with ice
¾ ounce Reyka
¾ ounce Campari
¾ ounce dry white vermouth
Garnish with a lemon wedge skewered with two cranberries.
More than two of these and you’ll being doing a face plant, so please respect Earth Day and don’t fall flat on your face.
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