cocktail review no. 36 - Swirling to the Beat of the Haggis Wings

As I've previously delineated, the Golden Rule of cocktails is this:

More than three ingredients = massive suckage.

There's a corollary which follows:

More than three words in the name of the drink = you're on your own, buster.

Some drinks out there have feckin' weird names. Like so:

• Much Fuss for the Conquering Hero (sweet vermouth, applejack, apricot brandy, pineapple juice, lemon juice, orange bitters)
• Shooing Away the Tribes of the Night (dry vermouth, brandy, triple sec, Ricard, cherry brandy, bitters, cherry, orange slice)
• Evans Rescues the Damsel of Garstang Tower (sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, gin, strawberry liqueur, orange bitters)
• Strong-Armed Chris Returns to the Den (dry vermouth, sweet vermouth, maraschino liqueur, cherry, white crème de cacao)
• A Night in Old Mandalay (light rum, añejo rum, orange juice, lemon juice, ginger ale, lemon twist)
• The Sacred Mountains of the Pekingese Cloud Gods (dry vermouth, Southern Comfort, orange juice, blue Curaçao)

I have to admit, based on the ingredients, most of these drinks don't tickle my fancy. But every so often, I run into a drink that has such an odd name that I just have to try it. It doesn't even matter what the components are. The drink could be fried horse dung mixed with Komodo dragon spit and I'd still be interested. One evening in Korea, a long, long time ago, I was flipping through The Bartender's Bible on a lonely Friday night, wondering what my evening tipple was going to be. I flipped a page and— SWIRLING TO THE BEAT OF THE HAGGIS WINGS —I knew I'd found my destiny.

• 1½ ounces Scotch
• 1 ounce lemon juice
• ½ ounce triple sec
• 1 teaspoon grenadine
• 1 teaspoon egg white

In a shaker half-filled with ice cubes, combine all the ingredients. Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass.

You remember what I said earlier about egg whites? I was well aware of this cardinal rule before I made this drink. I mixed it up knowing full well what I was about to do to myself. But I didn't care. The phrase "haggis wings" conjured up such a ridiculous and awe-inspiring image in my head that I plunged recklessly forward without any thought to methods or results.

The results wound up being better than expected, but still poor. The mixture of (blended) Scotch and lemon juice is never a bad thing. It's just an unsweetened version of a whiskey sour. The peaty flavor of the whisky and the sourness of the lemon juice are a perfect complement. Triple sec isn't a stretch, either: the semi-sweet orange flavor buoys up the already-considerable citrus presence. Grenadine, however, is pushing it. Now we've got three fruits piling in on each other, and their battle for primacy obscures the Scotch. (I mentioned earlier that three fruit juices was the upper bound, didn't I?) Top this off with the egg white and the drink's transition from a steady glide to a fiery crash is complete. Egg whites make drinks slimy and foamy, ruining consistency. I've never met a drink with an egg in it that I liked. Of all the egg-drinks I have sampled, though, this was the least odious.

Try it if you dare. But don't say you weren't warned.