Gott im Kümmel!

Today I found a bottle of kümmel so I can make a recipe from a couple weeks ago in my calendar .

Of course, you've all drunk kümmel regularly at South Beach clubs. If you haven't, kümmel is a caraway-based liqueur. Yes, that's right, caraway. The original recipe was brewed up by a firm in Berlin, but today it's made in Cleveland. How the mighty have fallen.

I love caraway in bread and sauerkraut. The cocktail recipe called for gin, kümmel, and lemon juice. Verdict: not so great. The caraway goes well with the juniper in the gin (I used Gordon's), but the lemon juice just complicates the taste palette.

I decided to give it another try, so I shook up Tanqueray 10 with the kümmel. I thought the herbal flavors in the 10 would go well it. Verdict: wrong again. The 10 overwhelmed the kümmel. Not good at all.

One more try: vodka (Stoli), triple sec (since it's very sweet and orangey), and kümmel. Better than the other two but still not great. Surely there's a good kümmel out there. Or, if nothing else, pour some in next time you're cooking a nice Alsatian dish.