The Jaguar Cocktail – David Lebovitz

This quirky cocktail brings together three disparate ingredients; tequila, Chartreuse, and Amer Picon, to create the Jaguar, a drink that hews on the bitter side, with a bit of intrigue from the tequila, and the herbal punch of Chartreuse.

I couldn’t find much intel on the origin of this cocktail*, and how these three ingredients found their way into the same glass. Some information on the internet led me to a Jaquar-named energy drink that had the distinction of being “widely popular and commonly available in many post-Soviet countries.” But since two of the spirits are decidedly French, I decided to give it a go.

Chartreuse was originally a health elixir (in the 1700s), as was Picon (in 1837), so perhaps the connection is that they were the energy drinks of their day? I can’t say this cocktail will cure what ails you, but I can say from experience that it’ll perk you up, as it did for me at the end of a hectic week. So it gets a thumbs up from me.

One caveat is that Amer Picon isn’t easy to get outside of France, but there are several excellent alternatives and my favorite is Bigallet China-China, which is available in the U.S. and elsewhere. But if you are in France, I recommend scouting out a bottle of Sepia Amer. It has a wonderful mix of herbs and has a marvelously rich botanical flavor.

Another swap-out is an amaro that’s not too overwhelmingly bitter, such Cio Ciaro, which tilts toward citrus, as the current incarnation of Amer Picon does. (Check out my post on Amer Picon for more information and some American-made alternatives to Amer Picon.) Another non-aggressive amaro would work too, such as Averna, Ramazzoti, or Nonino.

Since we’re on the subject, I’m frequently asked about substituting ingredients in cocktails. A bartender once told me that there were three basic cocktails, and everything else was a riff off of them. if you think about it, this Jaguar is sort of a reconstructed Manhattan, with tequila swapped out for the whiskey and Chartreuse and whatever amer you use, taking the place of the sweet vermouth. (I even came across a similar cocktail with grapefruit juice in place of the amer/amaro.) To remain loyal to the original, I’d stick with the tequila here – although if you want to make up your own cocktail, rum in its place could make things interesting – and one of the amari mentioned above could fill in for the amer Picon, if you want to personalize it.