The original Blue Angel recipe, as printed in Playboy’s Host & Bar Book, was a saccharine-sweet abomination characteristic of the drink trends of the early 70s.
Not content to leave it in the dustbin of cocktail history, mixologist Tristan Willey of the Long Island Bar in Brooklyn reimagined it with streamlined ingredients, swapping out blue curaçao for crème de violette and increasing the proportion of cognac (or brandy). The result is a beautiful violet-cream-candy flavor with a nice tart twist.
The color of the drink depends very much on the brand of crème de violette you have, with some skewing gray. For a better purple tone, you could swap it out for Parfait Amour, a retro throwback to the original recipe.
