Paulius Musteikis
Skinos cocktail at Mickey's.
A drinks menu overhaul at Mickey’s has brought the Greek liqueur Skinos into the spotlight.
It’s made from sap from the mastic tree, which produces a resin that dries into a bitter brittle. It’s used in everything from soft drinks to adhesive on envelopes and stamps. The taste isn’t dissimilar from pine sap, and the unique liqueur made from it carries wonderful aromatics of cucumber, cedar, licorice and fresh herbs.
In cocktails, Skinos is often mixed with lemon or lime juice to bring out floral and vegetal qualities. Sometimes it’s simply chilled and poured neat. At Mickey’s, the Skinos Fresh plays up the floral characteristics of Skinos with cucumber-y Hendrick’s Gin and elderflower liqueur, for a bright and herbaceous sipper. This is as good an introduction to the sap-based mixer as any, using its unusual earthy flavor to balance sweetness.
Far wackier is the Skinos Cosmopolis, a riff on the Cosmopolitan in which the pink Sex and the City fashion cocktail gets a taste of flannel-clad lumberjack. Think thick pine sap and cranberry, luckily saved by sweet, orange-flavored triple sec. Does it work? Hilariously, yes.
