A post on eGullet piqued my interest with mention of a Campari Alexander. Campari? With chocolate? As a dessert drink? Further research indicated the drink was part of Anvil’s (Houston, TX) fall menu for 2009. Being one to love just about anything with Campari in it, I had to give this a taste. Another forum post delineated the recipe as containing 2 parts campari to 1 part each cream and chocolate liqueur, as opposed to the equal parts of the standard Alexander formula. Unfortunately, I don’t have any dehydrated Campari crystals to garnish as Anvil do. The dehydrated Campari concept is really getting around, with two Melbourne bars already making mileage of it; Der Raum using it to allow the drinker to control the Campari content (and otherwise eat) in their Negroni variant the Spice Trader and Golden Monkey using it as a rim garnish.
Campari Alexander
2 Campari
1 Crème de Cacao (Baitz Dark)
1 Cream
Destined by recipe to be a great digestif. The cream, though dulling the sharp complexity of campari’s flavours significantly, offers the luxuriously rich dessert texture expected of an Alexander. On the tongue is a chocolate dominated palate, which soon slides into the classic bitter finish of Campari. The mouthfeel, if I recall correctly (been a while since my last Brandy Alexander), proves thicker than a traditional spirit-based Alexander, and the direction maybe even sweeter (due to Campari’s sugar content), though this is rendered inoffensive by the bitterness. Whilst this is a drink to take in small doses, it may prove to be my favourite Alexander variant yet.
The Anvil’s 100 Drink list had the Alexander but left the spirit part of the recipe open. After hearing about their Campari one, I ended up doing a Fernet Branca one to cross another drink off the list. The Campari one still intrigues me though.