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.

Rockledge Mule

One of my favorite simple mixed drinks is a Moscow Mule. Its a ginger beer and vodka and fresh lime. Its tangy, spicy, sweet, sour, and refreshing. (Most liquor pairs nicely with ginger beer in my opinion but more on that later.) The recipe I like to do, when I feel like measuring, is 2oz vodka: 3oz ginger beer: 1/2 lime squeezed and thrown in a highball glass filled with ice. This is Gary Regan's recipe. I generally do measure all my cocktails but this one I occasionally just pour til it tastes right.

Ive made some variations on this simple formula with success. My favorite was using lemon thyme infused vodka. I had the opportunity to try a new variation today and it is exceptional! My parents have a large raspberry patch and when they're ripe there's waaaay too many berries for them to pick or use. So I infused 20oz of vodka with a pint of fresh raspberries, thinking I would make a liqueur eventually. The berries sat for about a month. The booze turned beautifully pink very quickly. This was probably too many berries for this much alcohol but it worked great for this drink. Yesterday I tried making a boozy raspberry limeade by using the raspberry infused vodka to make a caipirinha style drink. It was super gross! The lime and the tartness of the raspberry was too much. I couldn't even drink it. I was bummed. 

I always use Reeds Ginger Beer, extra ginger brew, for any ginger ale/beer recipes. Its pretty sweet, very citrusy and really spicy. It balanced out the wild tartness of my vodka so well. I was pleasantly surprised. I really thought I would need to cut it with plain vodka. Nope. SO GOOD!

Rockledge Mule

2 oz Raspberry infused vodka

3 oz Ginger Beer

small lime wedge

Build in an ice filled highball.