Do we need another official/unofficial cocktail holiday? When it’s for the Saturn, the answer is yes!
The recognition is the brainchild of Derek from Make and Drink on YouTube, whose history of the Saturn video is incredible, insightful, and a full stop must see. Really, go watch it now.
This week Derek is following up with another video and promoting May 22 to be Saturn Day, in recognition of the day in 1967 when the cocktail’s creator J. “Popo” Galsini won the California Bartenders Guild competition and essentially introduced the Saturn to the world.
The Saturn is one of the last great cocktails from tiki’s golden area, using familiar ingredients such as orgeat, falernum, and passionfruit syrup and notably using gin as the base spirit. As Derek noted, Galsini was not a purist and said that using vodka or a light rum was perfectly reasonable. The cocktail was originally served to judges in an ungarnished coupe glass, and later to attendees in a whiskey sour glass with a cocktail cherry dropped into the bottom and garnished with an lemon wedge. Those fancy planet-style garnishes are a 21st century invention and are sort of incorrect because the cocktail was named after the Saturn rocket, not the planet.
Saturn
½ oz Lemon Juice
½ oz Passion Fruit Syrup
¼ oz Falernum
¼ oz Orgeat
1¼ oz Dry Gin
Shake with ice and strain. Garnish as you please.
The rich flavors from some of tiki’s stalwart syrups blend together in harmony, with subtle juniper notes from the gin. This is a gin cocktail that even gin-haters love, and I’ve served this to reluctant guests to great effect.
Cheers to Popo on his creation, and cheers to Derek for keeping the flame going for a new generation.