Marchu Pichu: A new cocktail creation

• 2 oz. dry gin
• 0.5 oz Ancho Reyes Verde Poblano liqueur
• Juice of half a lime, fresh squeezed
• 4 oz. tonic water
• ice
• Long red chili ("Marchu" in Gujarati) for garnish

Fill half a mixing glass with ice. Squeeze half a lime onto the ice. Add the Ancho Reyes Verde Poblano liqueur and the gin. Stir with bar spoon until it's all chilled. Pour into a tall glass. Add as much of the ice from the mixing glass as you want -- you can even add more fresh ice to your tall glass if you like your drink really chilled. Pour tonic into the tall glass and stir it all. Garnish with the Marchu.

The basic gin and tonic is a pretty refreshing drink on a hot summer day. It's one of many British legacies with a connection to India -- the Brits found that their tummies had a hard time with all the tropical bugs that inevitably entered the food chain in India. The quinine that was present in tonic water (it was a different kind of tonic water in that there was much more quinine in it then than there is today) helped their tummies with all the tropical bugs and with malaria also.

Sometimes you long for something different from a basic gin and tonic. Necessity is the mother of invention they say. I just happened to have bought this Ancho Reyes Verde Poblano liqueur which is a gift from Mexico to the rest of the world. This liqueur is spicy and vegetal -- I would not recommend it as a digestivo -- it's just too vegetal and spicy. But...in a cocktail...it does wonders. 

The above recipe was not...ahem...as a result of trial and error. I "invented" it at first shot and it knocked my socks off. This is a keeper!