Aviation
45 ml Gin, 15 ml Maraschino liqueur, 15 ml Lemon juice, 7.5 ml Crème de violette, 1 Maraschino cherry
Photo: Last Word cocktail, Baton Rouge 2025 by Paul Lowry · CC BY 4.0 · All credits
Ingredients
- 25 ml Jigger The small side of a standard jigger, filled to the top: 25 ml, with 50 ml on the other side. Gin
- 25 ml Jigger The small side of a standard jigger, filled to the top: 25 ml, with 50 ml on the other side. Green Chartreuse
- 25 ml Jigger The small side of a standard jigger, filled to the top: 25 ml, with 50 ml on the other side. Maraschino liqueur
- 25 ml Jigger The small side of a standard jigger, filled to the top: 25 ml, with 50 ml on the other side. Lime juice
- 1 wheel Lime (optional)
Measured in Millilitres (UK). Sign in to read these in American measures. Print a kitchen card at this size.
What the jigger, the spoons and the jug hold, in millilitres and in fluid ounces, is on the measures reference.
Quick version
- Shake equal parts of everything with ice and strain into a coupe.
Method
- Chill a coupe.
- Put the gin, Chartreuse, maraschino and lime juice in a shaker with ice and shake hard for 12 seconds.
- Double strain into the coupe - the maraschino can leave a haze behind.
- Float a thin wheel of lime on top.
Serve it
Last Word
Invented at the Detroit Athletic Club just after the First World War, this drink then went missing for roughly fifty years. It was rescued by a Seattle bartender called Murray Stenson in 2004 and has been on every serious cocktail list since, which makes it one of very few drinks to have had two separate careers.
Getting it right
Equal parts is the joy of it and also the danger: Chartreuse is 130-odd herbs at 55% and it does not take prisoners. If this is your first one, pour slightly short on the Chartreuse and slightly long on the lime. It is also an enormous drink for a small glass, so pace yourself - it is a last word for a reason.
Tasting notes
Herbal and green up front, then a long aniseed tail from the Chartreuse with the maraschino flicking cherry stones at you from the side. There is nothing else quite like it.
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50 ml Gin, 25 ml Lemon juice, 12.5 ml Simple syrup, 15 ml Crème de mûre, 2 berries Blackberry