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Lemon, lime and bitters revisited

Photo evidence of correctly layered lemon, lime and bitters

Living abroad is never truly easy. I've gotten a little more immune to the usual "you have a different accent, where are you from?" way of having to introduce myself, and I even season some humour into it these days. ("Oh, why did I come to Canada? The spiders here are friendlier ...") One of nice things that I miss from home is lemon, lime and bitters — especially now that the weather has gotten warmer.

Two summers ago I'd tried grabbing the ingredients as mentioned in the above link and mixing my own. It was a popular hit at MJ's housewarming way back when — especially with designated drivers for the evening. So popular that someone started calling it a "Charlie" because, well, let's face it: "lemon, lime and bitters" is one damn mouthful after a couple of beers.

What had bothered me then was that I could never quite get the mix right so that the colour floated to the top. No matter how diligently I tried following the method as described, the liquids would always mix. Doesn't make a difference to the taste, however — you'd never think something non-alcoholic could taste this good.

Last autumn, I'd nailed the presentation for the Malaysian dessert simply known as "sago pudding". Having no access to real sago here, I replaced it with tapioca, and the end result is fairly similar. The topping consists of palm sugar syrup and coconut milk. After a few experiments, I found that the layering effect is nicely achieved if you pour the sugar syrup over the chilled tapioca pudding first, then gently scoop the coconut milk over the top. Simple science, when you stop and think about it: it's merely the difference in the density of liquids.

So, that got me to re-assess the order of liquids poured to achieve the layering effect for your humble lemon, lime and bitters. A couple of comparative liquid density tests later, the correct order is this:

  1. about a shotglass' worth of lime cordial
  2. ice, and I typically throw in a slice of lime for aesthetics
  3. Sprite (that's "lemonade", if you're Aussie)
  4. a few dashes of Angostura bitters (bad website alert!), enough to cover the ice

Et voilà. :) Admire, stir and enjoy.

(And yeah, I drank all the failed experiments too.)

Posted by sniffles at May 21, 2005 06:51 PM