Tangled Up In Blue – Black Trumpet Blueberry Cordial Meets Charanda

It’s been four years since I first reviewed Tamworth Distilling’s Black Trumpet Blueberry Cordial, and their spirits lineup has matured substantially since. You’ll now find over 40 bottled products, all organized into themed collections. The Art In The Age lineup is their first collection that interested me. Their discontinued lineup of Snap, Root, Sage, and Rhubarb first captivated me with their unique formulations based on historical recipes and quality ingredients. While those specific bottles are no longer available, I think their new expanded lineup offers much more. 

The current Art In The Age bottlings feature 13 unique recipes, which range from the standard Mountain Berry Cordial to the more exotic Sweet Potato Vodka and the Black Trumpet Mushroom Blueberry Cordial. Unfortunately, these products have not seen as wide of a distribution as their early releases. (If anyone living near their distillery in New Hampshire is reading this, I’d love to acquire a bottle of their Eau de Musc.) 

I approached this tasting much differently than I did back in 2016. For starters, I always taste any spirit or cordial by itself, then I compare it with similar products. This isn’t about ranking and selecting a winner, it’s about increasing the ability to define a flavor profile. Side-by-side tastings allow one to compare levels of sweetness, alcohol, the intensity of flavor, etc.. 

I selected three additional berry liqueurs to provide this comparison–Chambord, Lucien Jacob Crème de Framboise, and Mathilda Cassis. Again, the only similarity here is that they are all berry liqueurs. Chambord, for example, is a combination of red raspberries, black raspberries, blackberries, and black currant, infused with Madagascar vanilla in a base of XO cognac. If anything, it’s the opposite of Black Trumpet Blueberry Cordial.

A few things stood out in this tasting. The Black Trumpet Blueberry Cordial has a higher alcohol content (25%) than other berry liqueurs which hover around 15%. It is also much more dry and complex with tannic and bitter notes. Other berry liqueurs seem to emphasize a single flavor with added sweetness. There is nothing wrong with either approach, but it’s important to understand these key differences when crafting a cocktail recipe. 

Despite containing black trumpet mushrooms, the cordial doesn’t have any identifiable mushroom or umami notes. What the mushrooms do provide is an earthy complexity. A sip of the cordial reminds me more of licking homemade blueberry jam directly off a rusted spoon than of a refined French berry liqueur. 

This little bit of “funk” led me to think of the flavors to be found in Rhum Agricole. Since those flavors can be a bit much on their own, I decided to use Charanda as the base spirit for the cocktail.

Charanda is a Mexican-style rum produced from sugarcane, and the only one to have a protected domain of origin, Michoacán. The particular Charanda that I’m using in the cocktail is Charanda Uruapan Blanco. What makes this particular one unique is that it’s a blended rum with 50% being distilled from fresh sugar cane juice in a copper pot still (similar to Rhum Agricole) and the other 50% being distilled from molasses in a modified French column still. This blending provides just the right amount of vegetal funk to pair with the black trumpet mushrooms, but not overtake the blueberry notes. 

The fresh ingredients of the cocktail are natural flavor buddies–blueberry, basil, and lemon. The resulting cocktail is vibrant and punch-like, but not cloyingly sweet. While I chose to serve this cocktail up, I think that with some modification of the ratios it could work well served on ice and topped with club soda. Even better yet, serve a version in a champagne flute and top with a dry sparkling wine. 

If you come across the Art In The Age Black Trumpet Blueberry Cordial, I highly recommend picking up a bottle. ($45 for a 375ml bottle) While it’s not an ingredient you’ll use frequently, it’s a unique ingredient to share among friends and try in cocktails. 

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PS – If you need some background music while mixing up this cocktail, I recommend some Bob Dylan!

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Additional Resources:

• Tamworth Distilling
• 3 More Cocktail Recipes for Black Trumpet Blueberry Cordial (From Tamworth)
• Purchase Art In The Age Black Trumpet Blueberry Cordial
• Julep vs. Smash, Featuring Black Trumpet Blueberry Cordial
• Mezcalistas: Demystifying Charanda
• Imbibe: Charanda
• Wikipedia: Charanda
• The Daily Beast: Top Bartender Will Thompson’s Current Obsession: Mexican Rum
• Chicago Tribune: Charanda, a rumlike spirit is coming your way