One Company’s Search for Their Own Branded Cocktail

Now I don’t claim to be an expert on orange drinks, but when someone asks me to make them something orange, I usually start with an orange flavored vodka and work my way down from there.  Our first experimentation of the perfect orange drink took place while I was bartending a few days after the initial request.  It was here I quickly learned that I couldn’t tackle the ideal orange flavored drink the same way I addressed just any orange flavored drink.  I threw a standard drink out to Greg and the others: an ounce of orange flavored vodka, a half ounce of Triple Sec, orange juice, and a splash of sprite.  While it may have tasted like an orange, the color was pale and bland.  It had none of the bright, warm, vibrant colors of the Drift2 logo.  We added a little grenadine to the cocktail to attempt more vibrant orange color, and while it began to look good, the color still wasn’t good enough when you’re looking great.  On top of that, all that orange flavor gave the drink such a sweet, straightforward taste.  We needed complexity.  Something to balance the sweet.  The quest for the perfect orange drink was failing quicker than I imagined and out of desperation, I made them an Orange Creamsicle cocktail with whipped vodka which got us nowhere.

We had tried several variations of flavored vodka, orange juice, and Triple Sec before it was evident this was not the desired taste nor the color.  A little drunk and a lot dejected it was back to the drawing board (or perhaps more accurately the drinking board) for me.