Drink #23: ‘the fragrant flask’ | The Tainted Cup

The twenty-third drink of my book as a bev series is a spiced golden coconut milk pandan latte. This bev is based on my paperback copy of The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett.

This can easily be made vegan by swapping the coconut/condensed pandan for pandan extract!

I immediately bought this after seeing a friend talk about it earlier in the year, and I’m annoyed with myself for not getting to it sooner. It was a really good read that was perfect for the season! I’ll probably post a more in depth review later 😊 As a fan of all Sherlock-like stories, I liked Ana and Din and the world reminded me of Attack on Titan a bit.

This beverage’s name is:

‘the fragrant flask’

Name Explained: Resisted the temptation to use the word cup or chalice in the drink title, and went for an alliterative synonym instead, haha. Scents are such an important part of the story, there’s a cool element in the world building that goes beyond simply associating them with memories. So, this drink is a blend of a whole bunch of different spices and flavors that – if I do say so myself – all work well together and blend into something new.

Pandan Cold Foam: Pandan is supposed to have a nutty flavor, and is normally very green so I decided to use its flavor and appearance as the bulk of the cold foam. I added a bit of vanilla to draw out some of the vanilla-like notes in it.

Golden Coconut Milk: Since the pandan is already fairly sweet and coconut flavored, I decided to build on the coconut profile of the beverage and use coconut milk for the base. To get the yellow on the cover I decided to have a loose take on golden milk with a mix of turmeric, cinnamon, and ginger. The resulting shade was perfect, and the milk itself was so good I feel it could be consumed on its own!

Black Coffee Syrup: In the first iteration of this drink I added coffee to the golden milk and that darkened the hue of the yellow more than I wanted it to. So, to keep the layers separate I decided to make a coffee syrup for the bottom. I used instant coffee, brown sugar, and water and whisked them into a syrup-like consistency with some black cocoa. Instead of instant coffee, 3 oz – or 2 shots – of coffee prepared as desired would work for this drink as well.

RATING: Overall I’d give the final drink a 4.75.

Flavor Combination: I made a version of this drink without black cocoa and I would give that a perfect 5 for the flavor combination. The coconut, spices, and pandan work together well. The cocoa adds a little too much excess flavor and for that reason I docked a little off the score. Since I added the latter for color, I’d suggest making the drink without it!

Ease: This drink was fairly simple to make. Each component itself is easy, it’s just that there are 3 of them which is what made it take a bit of time to assemble.

Appearance: I think the drink resembled the colors of the cover perfectly. This was my first time experimenting with pandan, and I think I would’ve had a better color match if I used pandan extract and not a coconut/condensed pandan which was much lighter in hue. This is the second and final iteration of this drink; had to cheat with some green spirulina to get the color closer to where I wanted it.

Ways to Improve: As mentioned before, I would say that the black cocoa is not needed for the drink and is much better without it. Depending on one’s tolerance to caffeine you could also up the coffee syrup up to a tablespoon instead of a half (in a 1:1:1 ratio) if desired.