Cocktail Notes || EP. 15 “Aperture Blue", by Branden Nguyen || Rhum-azzotti Highball

For the month of February, I will be featuring all original pieces and cocktails. The first piece that I will be playing is one that I wrote in my final year of college. “Aperture Blue” is a standard 12-measure blues piece that I used as a basis for some harmonic experimentation. In this piece, I played around with some chord alterations along with some chord substitutions. Revisiting this piece after nearly a decade has been enlightening. I find humor in how I forced such a dissonant, chord-extension-filled melody over the chord progression just for “academic” purposes. On the other hand, it was eye-opening to see what compositional habits I still maintain today.

The original cocktail I created for this week is the “Rhuma-zzotti Highball”. It’s my take on an elevated rum and coke. Back when I was in college, around the time I wrote this piece, Captain Morgan was my social drink of choice. I created this cocktail as a tribute to that time, using different ingredients to evoke a similar flavor. I used Rhum Agricole, a sugarcane rum, instead of the usual CapMo. It differs from Brazilian Cachaca in that Cachaca is distilled from fermented sugarcane juice, while Rhum Agricole is distilled from fresh sugarcane juice. Regardless, the process gives the spirit a dry, grassy, and funky taste. It’s paired with Ramazzotti, an italian amaro that has the sweetness of a cola or root beer. Together, topped with soda water and a lime wheel, they mix harmoniously. Cheers!

[February 4, 2021]