As the Bartender Magazine 2023 Australian Bartender of the Year, and Merivale’s group creative cocktail lead, James Irvine knows a thing or two about making drinks everyone will love. And when summer rolls around, his flavours lean tropical.
Irvine’s latest highball – a collab with StrangeLove called Totti’s Poco Tropicale – is summer in a glass. The drink’s freshness comes from StrangeLove’s Spiced Pineapple mixer, a soda that blends tropical flavours with notes of coffee and aromatic spiced pimento, resulting in an easy mixed drink shortcut. “What I love about StrangeLove is their out-of-the-box flavour profile,” he says.
Alongside the spiced-up StrangeLove pineapple, Irvine adds lime juice and Amaro Montenegro – a bittersweet herbal liqueur with a chinotto-like flavour profile that works surprisingly well with pineapple. “I’ve always liked Amaro Montenegro and pineapple together – like, if you get beautiful, ripened pineapple, it almost has a richness to it in its own right, and it’s got bursts of acidity,” says Irvine.
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SIGN UPThe cocktail itself is dead simple – it’s the Spiced Pineapple mixer, amaro and lime juice, stirred over ice. To finish it off, Irvine rims the highball glass with salt. “Salt actually counteracts bitterness in the way that it reacts with your palate,” he says. “You almost get a second hit of that juiciness from the pineapple and all those beautiful, sweetened undertones of Montenegro.”
Recipe: Totti’s Poco Tropicale
Makes 1 serving
Approx. 0.82 standard drinks
Ingredients
150ml StrangeLove Spiced Pineapple mixer
45ml Amaro Montenegro
15ml fresh lime juice
Sea salt
Lime wedge
Method
Run lime wedge lightly around the rim of the highball glass. Dip the rim onto a small plate covered with sea salt. Ensure some salt sticks to the glass.
Build remaining ingredients in the glass over ice and stir together.
Garnish with lime wedge.
This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with StrangeLove.