Illegal Cocktail Recipe
Mezcal and jamaican rum with lime, agave and falernum — smoke laid over funk, and sharper than either alone.
- Category: New Era Drinks
- Glass: Coupe glass
- ABV: 24%
- Difficulty: Medium
- Prep time: ~3 min
Ingredients
- Mezcal40 ml (1.4 oz)
- Dark rum20 ml (0.7 oz)
- Fresh lime juice20 ml (0.7 oz)
- Falernum15 ml (0.5 oz)
- Agave syrup10 ml (0.3 oz)
How to Make It
- Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice.
- Shake until well chilled.
- Double-strain into a chilled coupe.
- Garnish with a lime wheel.
Garnish
Lime wheel
What it tastes like
The citrus acidity leads, it smells of lemon and lime peel, smoke dominates the nose and it is layered, giving you something different each sip.
The technique
Shaking. Anything with juice, syrup, egg white or cream gets shaken: the shaker chills the drink and adds roughly 20% water, and that water is what takes the edge off. Twelve to fifteen seconds, until the tin frosts over. Under-shaking leaves the drink harsh because it never got enough dilution.
Glass and ice
A stemmed, shallow coupe. The stem keeps your hand's warmth away from the drink, and the wide bowl carries the aroma to your nose. Served without ice.
Ingredient notes and substitutes
- Mezcal
- The Mexican spirit whose smoke comes from roasting the agave in a stone pit. It can stand in for tequila, but the smoke walks over everything else; starting half and half is the balanced move.
- Dark rum
- Barrel-aged dark rum, with molasses, vanilla and treacle in it. Swap in white rum and the drink loses its body, so reach for gold rum instead.
- Fresh lime juice
- Freshly squeezed lime. Bottled lime tastes cooked and flat; one lime gives about 30 ml. If you have none, half lemon and half grapefruit juice comes closest.
- Falernum
- A Caribbean syrup-liqueur of lime, clove, ginger and almond. It sweetens and spices at once; a non-alcoholic syrup version also exists, which lowers the drink's strength.
- Agave syrup
- Agave syrup. About a third sweeter than simple syrup, so use three quarters of the amount rather than a straight swap. It comes from the same plant as tequila and mezcal, which is why it sits so naturally with them.
The Story
From the modern mezcal revival, and one of the first widely copied drinks to treat mezcal as a base rather than a novelty.
Frequently asked questions
- How is a Illegal mixed?
- It is shaken and served in a coupe.
- How strong is a Illegal?
- Roughly 24% ABV as served — in fortified-wine territory — plan it as a single drink.
- Can a Illegal be made without alcohol?
- Simply leaving the spirit out does not work — the body and the bitterness go with it. The 86 alcohol-free recipes in the catalogue are built to hit that balance from the start.
- Is a Illegal hard to make?
- Moderate. A shaker or mixing glass plus a strainer covers it.
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Alcoholic drink recipes are intended for those aged 18 and over. Please drink responsibly.