I got a Drinkmate for Christmas, and I immediately skipped ahead from sparkling water to homemade ginger beer and force-carbonated spritzes. (That’s the appeal of Drinkmate — their machines are built for way more than water.) Of course, I wanted to make a carbonated Beta drink as well. Problem is, there aren’t many — only two of the book’s 55 drinks call for plain soda water, and I’d already made one, the Fernet Sling. That left me with one option that, to be honest, I’d been dreading: the Sue Ellen.
For some depraved reason, the base of this drink is Southern Comfort. If it wasn’t part of your college drinking repertoire, consider yourself lucky. SoCo is a whiskey-based liqueur (read: sub-whiskey) that’s been sweetened and infused with fruit and spices under the guise of making it more drinkable. It has notes of peach and cherry, along with your usual bourbon caramels and vanillas, but it just rings as artificial, syrupy, and a little gross to me. Aside from this cocktail, I don’t see why I’d ever drink it. Good thing it comes in half-pint bottles.
But hey, Beta Cocktails is about the unexpected, right? And this drink definitely is that. It was created by Chris Hannah, a legend of New Orleans bartending whose restaurant, Jewel of the South, was just named Liquor.com’s Best Restaurant Bar of 2023. The Sue Ellen strikes me as a riff on an Alabama Slammer, a tailgating staple that mixes SoCo with sloe gin, amaretto, and orange juice. Hannah’s recipe flips the idea a bit — the sour-sweetness of the sloe gin becomes the cranberry juice, while the nutty, caramel sweetness of the amaretto and, obviously, the orange notes of the orange juice is replaced with amari.
This drink blends two amari: Beta favorite Cynar and Amaro Cora. Blending Cynar, which tends to be on the bitter end of the spectrum, with a sweeter amaro is a common strategy to get a more well-rounded flavor.1 The only problem here is that Hannah’s blend uses an amaro that, as far as I can tell, can’t be found in the U.S. anymore. From what I’ve read, though, Cora has strong citrus notes with some cinnamon and spice. So I used Amaro Lucano in its place, an amaro on the sweet side that’s heavy on cola, spice, and orange.2
Another ingredients note: This drink calls for 100 percent cranberry juice. Many people mix with cranberry cocktail, which has been blended with other juices to make it sweeter and more drinkable. (That’s what goes into Cosmos and vodka-crans.) But with the sweet SoCo and Lucano in the mix, I worry that cranberry cocktail could make this drink a touch too sweet. Just be sure to check your cranberry juice label.
Instead of making soda water to top this drink with, I decided to carbonate the whole thing to get more consistent bubbles. Here’s what I did: I added all the ingredients to a carbonator bottle, along with 1 ounce of water to replace the soda and a pinch of salt, which most craft soda waters have. Then, I chilled the bottle in the fridge for a bit, since colder liquids carbonate best. Once I was ready for the drink, I hooked it up to the Drinkmate and carbonated it.
Sue Ellen3
1 ounce Southern Comfort
1/2 ounce Cynar
1/2 ounce Amaro Cora
2 ounce cranberry juice
Fernet Branca (Garnish)
Build in collins glass, stir, top with 1 ounce club soda. Garnish with a dash of Fernet Branca and a lime wheel.
By Chris Hannah
Right away, I get a really big, specific note of Brisk raspberry iced tea (a longtime soda fountain go-to of mine). It must be something alchemical about the peach and cherry notes of the Southern Comfort blending with the sweetened cranberry juice and deeper sweetness of the amari. You’d expect the Cynar to give this drink an earthy backbone, but really, it seems to be the Lucano — it brings out caramel and vanilla notes in tandem with the SoCo, along with a bit of that cola that plays well here. The Fernet-Branca really ties it all together, adding something unexpected to those first few sips and keeping the drink from getting too cloying. This is a crushable, slightly unexpected daytime drink, not to mention an easy way to use any Southern Comfort you might have laying around.
Up next, I’ll be making a drink that brings together ingredients from four different European countries.
Like in the Italian Buck, a thirst-quenching blend of Cynar, Amaro Montenegro, and ginger beer.
Since buying Lucano for a future Beta cocktail, I’ve become obsessed. It’s a great introductory amaro, perfect as a digestivo or even in a spritz, and can sub for Averna in a pinch.
From Beta Cocktails by Maksym Pazuniak and Kirk Estopinal, 2011.