Walska

Don’t Take Your Love for Pomegranate

If you want to look for local Valentine’s Day inspiration, there’s no need to look further than Ganna Walska. The magnetic eccentric was so enamored with love that she got married six times, but it turns out her longest-lasting marriage was to 37 acres in Montecito, her beloved Lotusland.

From her purchase of the estate in 1941 until her death in 1984, Walska developed a flora wonderland unlike anything in the world. Her genius included cacti and clamshells, bromeliads and a garden of blue. Her sense of wonder and theater is palpable as you head down every garden path.

Hence, this is the Walska Cocktail in her honor. To drive the point home, you will garnish each glass with a small nasturtium leaf. It is nature’s secret carbon copy of a lotus leaf, but you no doubt have nasturtium growing wild as a weed in your yard. Enjoy it for its beauty and for its peppery kick. For, after all, what’s love without a bit of danger and risk? Just ask Ganna.

This Valentine’s drink does its best to strike a balance between comfort and curiosity. To start, it’s red, but a red a tad faded, a bit going to brown. I mean, you have to work on love, you know. Let’s not idealize things. It’s also about as sweet a cocktail as I would want to drink, and I say that as someone who hasn’t had a hop that’s bittered me to boredom yet. My sweet tooth has a hair trigger.

It helps that the syrup is such a special find—Cocktail & Sons creates truly artisanal products out of New Orleans—and it has the peppercorns eating away at the honeysuckle sweetness. The bottle suggests this syrup blends best with tequila and whiskey. I, ornery sort that I am, went in a different direction and opted for gin. I mean, how does honeysuckle and peppercorn not work with the usual botanicals that people add to juniper? It doesn’t hurt that we get to use Santa Barbara’s own Cutler’s Gin, complex with notes from elderflower, cardamom and local citrus—a gin that delights, never bruises.

The real key to this drink, in so many ways, is the homemade grenadine. First, you need it to get the drink red. Second, you don’t want to buy pre-made. Most of that is high-fructose corn syrup and red dye and preservatives; even the “natural” versions are super-sugared.

So, buy some unsweetened pomegranate juice and start there. Not every recipe says to reduce it, but forcing out more water content surely intensifies the flavor, so do that. And almost every recipe asks you to use too much sugar, sometimes at a 1-to-1 ratio. Grenadine isn’t simple syrup, folks. And if you want to keep this drink at the correct level of sweet, all you need to do is add ¼ cup of sugar to the 1 cup of reduced juice. Some splashes of lemon juice and orange flower water will up the acid a tad and add some complexity, so why not?

And homemade just shows you care—what Valentine wouldn’t be impressed by that?

If you have never done a wash, it’s not just technical tomfoolery meant to separate the mixologists from the amateurs. Often a drink doesn’t need even a ¼-ounce shot of some ingredient; it needs merely a hint. Adding the tiniest splash to each glass and giving it a good swish about—roll it carefully up to the edge—can make some magic happen, especially with something as aromatic as Pernod (or absinthe, if you’re felling flush or really want to impress your date). Of course it’s fine to use the same splash from one glass to the next—this is how you keep Pernod for years. And that’s for all the years you and your loved one enjoy this drink scented with anise and hints of the Green Fairy that beguiled artists for ages.

Do eat the nasturtium, too, as it gives the pepper one last push. It’s prettier than grinding pepper atop (we tried that in the test kitchen), and who doesn’t want to hide one’s punch a bit? Happy February 14th!