This one spawned from a past favorite, the Triple Lindy, in addition to the seasons just not wanting to change fast enough due to all the crazy weather here in Southern California. Hey, there’s almost always going to be nice tomatoes like these little sun gold suckers. I thought about what made the Triple Lindy so good, namely triple smoke. The trio of mezcal, lapsang souchong tea, and chipotle. So instead of tripling up, why not go double on a bunch of stuff?

Double umami. Double smoke. Double tomato. Shit, maybe I should have called it the Triple Double. In retrospect, hat would have been better. It has connotations with Magic Johnson and the Lakers (he averaged a triple double for an entire season. Ok, wait, correction, that’s not true, but he had a shitload of them over the course of his career. During the 1981-1982 season he came really damn close).

Yeah, the real reason is I wanted to name yet another cocktail after a shitty Van Damme movie, Double Impact. This one was released in August 1991, cost $16 million to make and made $30 million. So it basically doubled its money. Not so bad if you ask me. But the execs weren’t too happy with their boy after this one. They had planned a sequel but cancelled that idea since the flick flopped a bit

I’m pretty sure I had the poster hanging on my wall when I was a kid. Yeah. Feel the Impact.

If you haven’t seen it, check it out. It’s a campy romp through the early nineties. Van Damme plays two roles. Brothers separated at birth, Chad and Alex, one nice, one not. There’s some hilarity, well, the whole movie is mostly hilarious because, in true Van Damme fashion, it’s all taken very seriously. It’s said that he saw the ultra creepy Jeremy Irons/Cronenburg movie, Dead Ringers, was inspired and wanted to challenge himself. I think at this time in history, people were starting to be pretty much over Van Damme. But he did turn it around and make a bit of a comeback and get back to the bank in 1992 for Universal Soldier ($95 million gross domestic) and Time Cop in 1994 ($101 million domestic) before him being a big, big star all went down the toilet. That said, his non starring roles in Kung Fu Panda and The Expendables 2 brought in more money than all his other movies combined. He’s also still super famous so what the hell do I know?

Back to the actual cocktail. I wanted to fuck around with umami. Our old junior sous, Tyler Chiu, made an absolutely bomb chickpea miso. I thought about using it, I thought about smoking some tomatoes. Why not incorporate both? In a strange trick of fate, one of our awesome regulars, BBQ Mike came in and gave us a bunch of his super tart, super flavorful backyard limes. I added those into the mix to help accentuate the pleasant tartness of the sun gold tomatoes. Voila.

Crap, now that I think about it, Triple Double is a much better name. Double Impact is too aggressive. Argh. Feel the Impact?

Triple Double

2 oz. Mezcal

3/4 oz. Lime Juice

1/2 oz. Smoked Tomato-Miso-Lime Syrup

1/4 oz. Aji Amarillo Syrup

1 Dash Celery Bitters

Shake and double strain into a small coupe. Garnish with a pickled tomato. Pretend you’re not drinking a weird Bloody Mary variation.

P.S. Have no fear, Tim, we’ll get back to Florida in due time. 😉