Cocktail · Spirit-forward
Aviation
Gin, maraschino, crème de violette, lemon — a cocktail the color of dusk.
How to order it: Easy on the violette or it's grandma's soap. Cherry at the bottom like a sunset.
Flavor profile
The recipe
- 2 oz gin
- ½ oz maraschino liqueur
- ¼ oz crème de violette
- ¾ oz lemon juice
- Shake; coupe; cherry at the bottom
The story
The Aviation was created by Hugo Ensslin, head bartender at New York's Hotel Wallick, who published it in his 1916 book Recipes for Mixed Drinks: gin, lemon, maraschino, and crème de violette, the last giving the drink its pale sky-at-dusk color and, presumably, its name, coined in the early years of flight. The Savoy Cocktail Book reprinted it without the violette, and the liqueur then vanished from American shelves for decades, leaving generations to make the drink colorless. Its 2007 reintroduction restored the original. The Aviation endures as the cocktail revival's resurrection story: a drink that was wrong for seventy years and is now right again.
Adjacent pours