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Cococtomore? Octoless? Concoctomoretion?  It's not working, is it?

I've been playing around with Rob Roys and variants thereof for at least the last six years, but in 2018, encouraged by The Whisky Wuman and other colleagues, I've been branching out into highballs and other things.

This article in the Independent, with its vague reference to "smoky whisky, coconut water, and lime juice" intrigued me. But rather than get in touch with Emily Chipperfield or Nuala Bar directly to ask for a recipe, I just set about trying things.

Having some Octomore to hand it seemed entirely reasonable to use that as a starting point.

I stuck to a straightforward theme of Octomore / coconut water / lime juice / bitters, only varying the proportions of each and the type of bitters.

Owing to not actually having any ice the first time I made this (and thus resorting to the time honoured technique of bunging everything into the freezer for a bit before assembling the drink) I discovered that not shaking seems to give a more interesting drink. Yes I know, I should have dry shaked (dry shook? dry shaken?) the chilled ingredients. I didn't. Get over it.

It's probably important to note (for those of you fool enough to try this at home) that "more interesting" doesn't necessarily mean better. Octomore is a weird, chameleon liquid, and lime juice makes your palate sit up and pay attention. When you combine the two the result can be startling.

Here's one version of the drink, with my notes on how it turned out. If you want the real funk, use less coconut water.

~20ml Octomore Discovery 2
~10ml lime juice
~120ml coconut water
3 dashes Bitter Truth Tonic Bitters

Stir all ingredients together. Serve in an ice filled rocks glass.

On the nose the coconut comes through nicely. This is a long, fairly weak drink, but when I used lesser quantities of coconut water it was just getting lost.

On the palate there's a nice balance of sweet / fatty / nutty coconut notes with the sharp lime and the earthy / salty / not quite grassy notes of the Octomore.

This is the friendliest version of the drink that I've discovered so far. Using a smaller quantity of coconut water gives a much more funky, feral, wild result: whether you want that or not is a question only you can answer - by making this drink for yourself. Go do it now!