Letter 173 - AIeeeee!!
The relevant part of that title was the first two letters. AI. Wow, has that particular construct hit hard lately.
Why is that, you ask? (You did ask, right ….?)
Well, a few days ago I posted a Not a Note regarding THE MOST DELICIOUS COCKTAIL IN THE WORLD! Or at least at Chez Satz. This one, in case you missed it:
Okay, so the point was to discuss a cocktail I’d created, along with the precise recipe for my paid subscribers. All well and good. And then … one of my subscribers (call him Ishmael) wrote directly to me. Turns out he’d asked an AI agent about the cocktail and the response was … disquieting. You see, I’d journeyed a bit in recipe-land before hitting on the cocktail’s final form, and I’d forgotten the actual origin point beyond the certainty that it had been sparked by an Anders Erikson YouTube video. My subscriber entered the recipe I’d written down, mentioned Erikson, and then asked his AI agent this question:
What is the name of this cocktail?
And the response was:
“I think I found it.
The recipe you posted appears to be Anders Erickson’s “Corpse Reviver No. Blue” (or Corpse Reviver #Blue) riff, but with a modified spec using Amaro Nonino and Chartreuse. Anders has featured a cocktail by that name, and the combination of:
gin
lemon
blue curaçao for the color
absinthe rinse/spray
a greenish-blue appearance
is strongly associated with the Corpse Reviver No. Blue family.
However, your version doesn’t match the published Corpse Reviver No. Blue recipe exactly. The inclusion of Amaro Nonino and a smaller amount of Chartreuse makes me suspect this was either:
An original variation Anders created in a video,
A subscriber-only/patreon recipe,
Or a house riff inspired by both the Corpse Reviver No. 2 and the Last Word.
A clue is the color: your recipe uses only a few drops of blue curaçao—just enough to turn the yellow-green mixture emerald. That’s exactly the sort of visual trick Anders likes to use, and it suggests the intended name was probably something green-themed rather than simply “Corpse Reviver No. Blue.”
So okay, let’s pause for a second. This seems VERY much what you might expect to receive from what we often refer to as a “human”, doesn’t it? Let’s jump forward a bit, to where Ishmael asked for more in-depth information.
“Your version looks less like a direct Corpse Reviver riff and more like someone “evolving” it toward a more herbal, modern-craft profile.
The most interesting substitution is Cocchi Americano → Amaro Nonino + Chartreuse. Together, those two ingredients recreate some of the bitter-herbal-wine complexity that Cocchi contributes, but in a richer, more concentrated way.
One thing jumps out, though: your recipe says “stir for 30 seconds.” With ½ oz fresh lemon juice, that is highly unusual. Virtually every Corpse Reviver-family drink is shaken because of the citrus. I’d bet either:
the recipe was originally shaken and someone wrote “stir” by mistake, or
the modifier deliberately turned it into a clearer, more spirit-forward cocktail.
If I had to guess, I’d say the person who passed it along started with Anders’ Corpse Reviver No. Blue and then:
reduced the sweetness,
replaced the aperitif component with Nonino,
added Chartreuse for depth,
kept just enough blue curaçao to preserve the green/blue visual gimmick.
At that point it’s probably no longer a recognized cocktail at all—just a personal riff. The flavor profile actually sounds pretty good: sort of halfway between a Corpse Reviver No. 2, a Last Word, and a gin-and-amaro sour. The green tint plus Chartreuse makes me wonder if they even renamed it something unrelated after modifying it.”
To which Ishmael responded:
Correct... named The Hairball”, inspiration for that coming from the yellow/green tint of his cat’s hairballs.....
And AI then retorted:
“That sounds exactly like the sort of name Anders would come up with.
The Hairball makes sense given the color chemistry:
Yellow-green from the Chartreuse.
Golden notes from the Amaro Nonino.
Just enough blue curaçao to push the color into that murky yellow-green territory.
Absinthe adding another layer of herbal complexity and a slightly medicinal aroma.
The result would likely be a cloudy chartreuse-green color that, unfortunately, is pretty evocative of a cat hairball.
What’s interesting is that the recipe you have is actually fairly well-balanced despite the joke name. Roughly speaking:
Gin provides the backbone and botanicals.
Amaro Nonino contributes orange peel, gentian bitterness, and sweetness.
Chartreuse adds intense alpine herbs.
Lemon keeps the drink from becoming syrupy or heavy.
Absinthe acts as an aromatic accent.
Blue curaçao is essentially a color correction tool with a tiny hint of orange flavor.
If I were tasting it blind, I’d probably place it somewhere between:
a Last Word,
a Corpse Reviver No. 2,
and a modern gin-and-amaro sour.
One thing I’d still question is the stirring. Citrus drinks are almost always shaken. If you’ve made it both ways, I’d be curious which version you prefer. Stirring with lemon can produce a silky, crystal-clear drink if done carefully, but most bartenders would instinctively shake this recipe. The fact that your version is served up in an absinthe-rinsed coupe makes me wonder whether the creator intentionally chose stirring to preserve the eerie green color and give it a more martini-like texture.
In any case, “The Hairball” is memorable enough that I’d never forget the recipe after hearing the origin story.”
Okaaaaay. It even added emojis. Relevant ones.
I can’t say I’m happy with any of this. For sure, if I’d received what you’ve just read in an email from a human, I’d have believed they wrote it. SO happy I’m out of academia at this point. There’s nothing excellent about the prospect of grading a student’s work when it’s this easy to fake it.
And make no mistake, the AI’s “insights” are spot on. I know that I did indeed start developing the Hairball from existing cocktails. I did reduce the sweetness because both Lovey and I prefer our cocktails on the “not so sweet” side. I used Nonino because of its botanical/bitter elements and I felt they’d play well with the gin. And I added the Chartreuse just for the reason the AI fiend suggests, for additional complexity. The blue Curaçao was simply to get the desired green hue and a tiny hint of orange flavour.
Even more, the proportions were chosen to parallel an older style martini and finally, the choice to stir and not shake was completely conscious and done for the reasons given.
AI displaying this level of “expert mixologist” is scary. I have those skills because I’ve spent time developing them. AI has it because it has all the books and all the videos in the world to read at a rate of 184 billion pooka-flops per microsecond.
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But what really irks me about the response is the use of “I”. I dislike that sort of thing so much that I’ll waste my time complaining to Apple helpers (the human ones, not the AI ones) that the use of “I” in their automated phone answering is highly offensive. AI responses should be in the third person and the correct pronoun for it to use is ‘it’. “It would never forget” is fine. But “I” implies cognitive agency.
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So AI should either pay taxes like all the rest of the sentient (and not so sentient) humans or it should quit referring to itself as a conscious being.
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However, I know I’m just whistling in the wind, shouting at the sky and punching at the wind. AI makes everything easy and easy is the Devil’s codpiece. At least that’s what my grandad used to say and who am I to argue?
In an ironic coincidence, I just recently reread a comic of Bill Watterson’s. This one:
