Falernum history & recipe

http://www.artofdrink.com/2008/08/falernum.php

Very, very interesting! I have one bone to pick. Am I the only one that finds Fee's Falernum to have a very one dimensional flavor profile. To test, I have poured a sample of Fee's, 2 homemade recipes, J.D. Taylor in shot glasses and have sipped back and forth between them and can only say that the Fee's tastes like simple syrup with lime juice. Every one of the others has different flavors which jump out. Besides the listed chemicals, is there another detectable flavor which anyone can identify? I was sorta beside myself to read that Dr. Cocktail helped develop the formula. I can only say that what is offered, now, must have changed since his input. Please forgive me if this is better covered in a previous thread.

This is really confusing.

Clearly, the falernum is described in this article is not the modern product as we know it. The falernum in the article is meant to be drunk with ice. "Today's" falernum is a syrup flavored with more than simply lime, and is quite thick and sweet.

I also agree about the Fee's falernum, it's not great. I'd really love to find a recipe to homemake a falernum with deeper flavors.

On 2008-08-28 16:45, bewarethe151 wrote:
Am I the only one that finds Fee's Falernum to have a very one dimensional flavor profile.

No.
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=11091&forum=10&hilite=falernum

Lots of falernum talk on TC, but this thread looked as good as any for me to post this. Estate sale find yesterday (I bought this 1, out of the 5 or so bottles there)...

In his book Potions of the Caribbean (p.91), Beachbum Berry shows a very similar bottle, but that bottle attributes the "Sole Distribution USA" to Sazerac Co, instead of Bellows & Co as shown on this bottle above. I've heard talk about the Sazerac falernum before, but hadn't seen Bellows. The only mention of Bellows I found in a quick search was this ad in the 1939 Princeton Alumni Weekly.

Some history sources like the link at the top of this thread say the original falernum formulation was created by Henry Parkinson in Barbados in 1750. And his great-great-grandson was Arthur Stansfeld, who registered it and brought it to the states in 1934 (A.V. Stansfeld on the bottle). John D. Taylor also claimed an "original" recipe, supposedly from 1890, but people seem to discount that.

The Bum says the Fee Bros syrup is closest to the Parkinson / Stansfeld "original formulation". I think I'll be more likely to try that in a drink than pouring the dark goo that's still in this bottle above.

-Randy

(ps, my wife went back to the estate sale today and the other bottles are still there, but unfortunately this is the last day)

Wow! Nice score on that bottle. There's just something about old labels.

Great post. Amazing score! Seems that bottle stresses the sweetness factor of falernum whereas Velvet and homemade recipes accentuate the spice aspect of things. Fees on the other hand, which is supposed to be modeled after "authentic" falernum, which this appears to be, has a lot more sweetness than the others. Interesting. As I stated in another thread, I believe the different varieties of falernum all have merit, it's just figuring out what drink application they each work best in that is the challenge.