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Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Mixology Monday: Preserves

This months Mixology Monday theme is preserves and can include anything that has been preserved not just jams and stuff. I had so many ideas but I've been working a lot this week and didn't get to try most of them. Perhaps I'll try to do more experiments and update this post throughout the week. This month is being hosted by Craig at A World of Drinks. I am posting this super late after work and hope he still includes me, we'll see....

I have several jams, a couple shrubs, some syrups and dried herbs that all wanted to be used in a drink this month but I decided to go with raspberry syrup. It's a classic cocktail ingredient that is rarely used these days. The traditional way to make it would be to make a simple syrup and put some raspberries in it, wait a couple days and then strain the fruit out. My parents have a big raspberry patch and they make jelly every year. My dad gave me some jelly that didn't set up properly. The pectin didn't work and it never jelled. So it is syrup. Useless for toast but perfect for cocktails. It is made from sugar, raspberry juice and (worthless) pectin.

Bramble in the Rye

2 1/2 oz Rye whiskey
1/4 oz Benedictine
2 barspoons Raspberry syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 dash Orange bitters

Stir with ice and strain into an old fashioned glass with a large rock.
Adjust to taste depending on the sweetness and the raspberriness of your syrup.

I really like this one. The rye gives it some weight and some spice, the benedictine brings some sweet herbal notes, the syrup brings a fruity sweetness and the bitters bring the bitter complexity. I've made it using less raspberry syrup and a little simple syrup but I cant decide which way I prefer it. Even with 2 barspoons of my raspberry syrup it isn't too sweet nor overwhelmingly fruity. The photo looks much more red than the real thing because it was backlit by a beautiful day.

4 comments:

  1. That looks very good! I just ran out of the blueberry syrup I made for MiMo, and may mix up a batch of raspberry next. Cheers! :)

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  2. Thanks! I put up lots of blueberry jam last summer and was thinking about using that in some drinks (using a good hard shake rather than stirring, of course) Perhaps Ill try making a whiskey sour with that. The benedictine brings something interesting to the fruity flavor of my drink and I encourage you to try adding some, if you have it around.

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  3. Hi Mike! Your drink looks and sounds delicious. Can't wait to give it a try the next time I have raspberries and sugar in the house.

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    Replies
    1. Tanks Stacy! it is delicious! And as i stated above, the benedictine really adds an interesting bitter and herbal component to the drink which otherwise might be very sweet and fruity. (as in if you made an old fashioned with raspberry syrup.

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