The City Coral, from Japanese mixology legend Kazuo Uyeda, combines the electric green of Midori melon liqueur with a touch of blue curacao for a drink that is the purest, brightest green color we’ve ever seen in a glass. Uyeda is famed for using small measures of those classic neon 70s ingredients to bring some Technicolor magic to otherwise straightforward drinks, and City Coral is a fine example of his technique.
Uyeda won a cocktail competition in Japan with the drink, featuring a distinctive blue-curaçao-dyed, not-to-be-consumed salt rim that looked like coral. We confess we weren’t fans of the salt; it makes the drink unpalatable if you get some in your mouth by accident, and the blue coloring gets all over the place, so we don’t recommend trying to reproduce it at home.
The original recipe was topped solely with tonic water and served in a flute glass, and had a bitterness that didn’t quite meld with the sweet ingredients. We fiddled around with the recipe and found that it was infinitely more delicious and delicate served over ice, with a split topper of tonic water and sparkling water. Note that white grapefruit is preferred here, both for its lighter color and its less-sweet, more complex flavor.
