Kiwiberry sidecar

Kiwiberry Sidecar

1 3/4 oz kiwiberry infused brandy
3/4 oz cointreau
1/2 oz lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a shaker tin and shake with ice. Strain into a coupe. Sugared rim is optional and even less necessary than a traditional sidecar.

This is so good! It has a really mysterious tropical flavor from the combined lemon/orange/kiwiberry profile. It tastes like passionfruit or some fruit you've never tried but would come from an island.

I have a big kiwiberry vine growing at my parents house. It takes over a fence every couple years and needs to be hacked back. Last year I made some jam from them and infused some brandy with them as well. The main thing we like to drink with brandy is the sidecar so this made sense to try. Sidecars are a classic sour, made much like a margarita, with ingredients varying slightly between recipes. I usually make them 3:2:1 but for this infused version I bump the brandy a little more to increase the kiwi flavor.

Mocktails

3 oz Kombucha
1 oz blackberry shrub
1/2 oz lemon

This doesn't have a name and its only sort of a recipe, more of a suggested guideline perhaps. The proportions really depend on the flavor and intensity of your ingredients. Over the winter I've been brewing kombucha until its super sour then cutting it with sweeter fruit juice or ginger beer or anything else I can find. On this occasion, I took some kombucha before it was fully fermented, so it was sour but also still sweet. I made a shrub over the winter with some random cheap out of season berries. I don't know what recipe I used or if I messed it up, but it is also sweet and sour. Shrubs should be but this one is really sweet with a hint of tartness. So this recipe works really well for the ingredients I had but may not be reproducible. 

Kombucha in mocktails works very well because it is so intensely flavored. It has the oomph that a soda or fruit juice is lacking. I've been using club soda to stretch out the flavors if I use other intense ingredients like lemon or lime. I'll also use sparkling wine if its for someone that drinks alcohol but doesnt want a big drink.

Gold Rush Cocktail

Gold Rush Cocktail

2oz bourbon
3/4oz honey syrup*
1/2oz lemon juice

Pour all ingredients into a shaker tin. Add ice, shake and strain into a coupe or a rocks glass with a big cube. No garnish.

{*to  make honey syrup, use 2 parts honey to 1 part water and stir or shake in a sealed jar until dissolved}

This is a really delicious drink. It is sweet and tangy but still boozy, especially if you use 100 proof bourbon, which you should.

Surprisingly, it was only invented recently. It is one ingredient swap away from several classics like the bee's knees and brown derby but somehow no one ever came up with honey, lemon and bourbon, or at least never wrote it down. Sam Ross created this at Milk & Honey in Manhattan in the past ten years or so.  I don't know which he made first but it's also like a simplified penicillin cocktail.

North & South

I missed this months mixology monday but I made a maple pecan old fashioned. I had infused pecans in bourbon after seeing a post about it awhile ago on the Post Prohibition Blog. This was the best thing I've made with it so far.

North & South Cocktail

2oz pecan infused bourbon
1/2oz maple syrup (2:1)
Angostura bitters
Maple bitters
Whiskey infused pecans for garnish
Lemon peel for garnish

Stir with ice. Strain into an old fashioned glass with a big rock. Wipe the peel around the rim and toss it in.

I love this. Neither flavor overpowers the drink. It is still very spirit forward even with the maple. I even bump up the maple flavor a bit with maple bitters (but only because I happen to have them, they are not as crucial as angostura) The pecan garnish is also incidental. I still had some left in the fridge so I used them to add more pecan aroma. They were still soft from being full of booze, so they skewered easily. The lemon peel brightens the heavy whiskey and sweet maple flavors and should definitely be used.