The Boardwalk Flyer, from Damon Boelte at Grand Army in Brooklyn, tastes like a trip to the beach on a hot day. The equal-parts recipe pits aged cachaça against floral blanc vermouth, banana liqueur, and lime juice – and the result tastes sun-drenched and salt-sprayed, refreshing and enticing.
There’s a huge gap between the bottom and the top shelves when it comes to banana liqueur; if you like banana cocktails, you owe it to yourself to get the very best you can manage. We’ve enjoyed those from Giffard, Tempus Fugit, and Marie Brizard.
Aged and unaged cachaça can sometimes be treated interchangeably; not so in the Boardwalk Flyer. Without the rich, woody vanilla notes of the aged stuff, banana and lime dominate and the drink suffers from a lack of complexity.
