Photo by John Haynes
Bloodstone Cocktail from Marco Zappia
When you profile a star chef or a bartender (a star-tender?) for a magazine, it’s common to ask your subject for a recipe that the reader can try at home. When my editor suggested it, I did my due diligence and asked Marco if he would be willing to contribute an original drink. “Maybe make it about our interview process,” I suggested—trying to soften the perception that I was asking a very successful bartending consultant to provide free intellectual property.
To his credit, Marco quietly knit his brow and said, “Sure.”
A few weeks later, he came back with a 4-page (!), 44-ingredient (!!) recipe that takes a classic cocktail—basically, a negroni made with mixed gin (infused with beets), homemade bitters, and his version of Americano vermouth—and turns it into a performance.
To be clear, you can mix the drink yourself: We’ve listed the full recipe below. But at its core, “The Bloodstone,” as Marco named it, is a temporal piece of art. It serves as an expression of Marco’s feelings about being interviewed and the anxiety this kind of interrogation could provoke. Anxiety that could hopefully be salved with a good, strong drink.
The recipe is as eloquent as a love letter and as detailed as a college chemistry exam. “From my standpoint,” Marco begins on page one, “there was an obvious progression of intensity in the line of questioning. As we built trust, you pinged between appealing to vanity and pushing the dialogue into personal spaces that were uncomfortable.” The recipe headnote continues, “After we ended our times together, strong feelings of nostalgia & melancholy hit me.”
Marco chose beets because they remind him of a scent familiar to everyone’s childhood: fresh rain falling on dirt. It’s a fragrance the Greeks call petrichor, he explains: “Petra = stone. And tchor = fluid that runs through the veins of a God.” The remainder of the drink’s many, many botanicals evoke the smell of his childhood home.
You could prepare a stripped-down version of “The Bloodstone” with 30ml beet gin, 30ml blanco bitter, 30ml Americano vermouth and 10ml water. For all practical purposes, Marco’s version would be impossible to recreate faithfully at home. Marco says he has two bottles for me in his fridge at Martina—more than enough to stop me from asking any follow-up questions.
Recipe: bloodstone
beet gin4, blanco bitter, americano vermut
- 30ml Beet Gin* (recipe below)
- 30ml Blanco Bitter** (recipe below)
- 30ml Americano Vermut*** (recipe below)
- 10m Water
- Glass: Sake Cup + Side Carafe
- Ice: 1 Shard
- Garnish: Childhood Perfume**** (recipe below) + Dry Ice
Instruction: Pre-batch cocktail, pour over ice.
Beet Gin*
- 500ml Tanqueray
- 250ml Beefeater
- 250ml Broker’s
- 250ml City of London
- 250g Dehydrated Beet Chips
- 3ml Pectinex Ultra SPL (optional)
Instruction: Peel beets, slice, and dehydrate at 145 degrees for 12 hours. Weigh out 250g, blend with gin and either;
- Add Pectinex Ultra SPL (find @ modernistpantry.com), centrifuge
- Cheesecloth, let rest for 12 hours in a tall, circular, slender glass container, gravity filter off clarified liquid
Blanco Bitter**
You can use Suze white bitter Or
- 12g Gentian
- 8g Eucalyptus
- 4g Birch Bark
- 4g Coriander
- 3g Calamus Root
- 3g Wormwood
- 3g Orris Root
- 2g Chamomile
- 1g Star Anise
- 1g Elderflower
- 1g Peppermint
- 1g Licorice Root
- .5g Lavender
- .5g Lemongrass
- .5g Lemon Verbena
- .5g Lemon Balm
- 1750ml NGS
Instruction: Take spent botanicals, combine with 1750ml of water, bring up to a boil, and then simmer at 140 degrees for 30 minutes. Strain, weigh out to 1500g of tea water. Combine with 1000g of granulated sugar. Equal parts maceration & tea syrup.
Americano Vermut***
You can use Cocchi Americano, or:
- 3g Quassia Chips
- 3g Orris Root
- 15g Wormwood
- 18g Cinchona Bark
- 6g Bitter Orange Peel
- 30g Birch Bark
- 2g Licorice Root
- 3g Galangal
- 3g Ginger Root
- 6g Gentian
- 1.5g Turmeric
- 6g Chamomile
- 10g Indian Green Coriander
- 10g Black Cardamom
- 4g Cubeb Peppercorn
- 30g Eucalyptus
- 2g Grains of Paradise
- 3g Saigon Cinnamon
- 20g Peppermint
Instruction: Macerate with 1500ml of NGS, let sit for 7 days, strain. We’ll call this the Americano Base.
10 Parts Medium Bodied White Wine
1 Part Simple (1:1)
1 Part Americano Base
Bottle, Rack, let sit for 21 days before consumption.
Childhood Perfume****
Essential oil of lavender, jasmine, sandalwood, and honey absolute. I spitballed this one until it smelled right, diluted with 180 degree water.
See the full interview with Marco Zappia.
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