A very interesting, tasty and generally worthy new Liqueur to add to your cabinet or shelf.
Notes: An interesting liqueur made from Pandan – a long leafy plant sometimes known as Asia’s vanilla. Conceived by Nico de Soto a famous cocktail mixologist who always pushed the boundaries and searched out new spices and flavors for his wizards cabinet and made by noted distiller and master blender Gabriel Boudier in Lyon , France who made the dream a commercial and culinary reality at scale.
Appearance: Colorless and clear thankfully ! Many Asian pandas essences and syrups are a dark and sometimes bright green which makes them more problematical in many cocktails. Leaves a thick oily coating on the glass on swirling that recede as thick legs which them leaves droplets behind
First Impression: First whiff is kind of a almond/marzipan/plastique (explosive) and butter, or a hot buttered popcorn flavor with a slightly heavy and pleasant sort of nose with slight woody aromatic notes.
Taste: Oily entry, almost glycerin like in viscosity.Delicious, nutty , vanilla and macadamia nuts and a corn like sweetness. deadly smooth and viscous. Rather sweet but all the flavors give it depth and counterpoints/provides structure overall.
Drinks: Extensive list of drinks on Kota Liqueur Biggest finds were the daiquiri, and the Negroni, both really shine. Also the cocktails on the page can sort of give you a guide or idea for your own creations and spins on the classics.
Bottle: Looks like a sea green ( or Pandan )version of an antique Dutch Genever Bottle with rounded edges. Minimalist label with a Pandan frond picked out in gold and a larger leagunderneath the other two labels.Stopper has a pour spouting is wooden topped. Back label has minimal information. Overall a clean, minimalist look to it
Other: There are actually about 750 varieties of Pandan in Asia, Africa India, and Oceania. Makes agave species ( about 60 ?) Seem down right paltry in terms of possible taste ranges .
Final Thoughts: A great new mixer/modifier to add to your own personal armamentarium of ingredients to put fresh spins on the classics and for entirely new cocktails altogether
Website: https://kota-liqueur.com
An interesting website in that it has a goodly number of cocktail recipes, but very light as to the actual composition of Kota beyond pandas as the main flavoring and short bios of the principals involved.
