Archive for May 2020

Beeline to Ptown

beelineToPTown

Beeline to Ptown

  • 2.0 oz. Short Path Gin (SPD)
  • 0.5 oz. cranberry liqueur (Flag Hill)
  • 0.25 oz. Short Path Triple Sec
  • 0.25 oz. Cocchi Americano
  • dash of Fee Brothers Cranberry Bitters

Stir with ice and strain into martini glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Still playing a bit with Flag Hill’s cranberry liqueur, I thought I might toy with a Cosmo/Cape Cod type cocktail. Not something I generally drink, but I like the sour template of the spirit, cranberry and triple sec. Here I opted for gin over vodka. Short Path has a New Western style (not their London Dry or seasonal offerings, all of which I enjoy but I opted against here) as well as a triple sec. Then the cranberry liqueur and some vermouth to lengthen with some bitterness. I chose the cranberry bitters to add to the color and cranberry flavor without sweetening. Because of the tartness of the cranberry liqueur I didn’t think any additional acid was needed.

Since Short Path was used for two ingredients (they also have a vermouth if you want to go all in) I wanted a nod to them in the name. “Short Path to Cape Cod” was too much on the nose, but I liked the B and P interplay of “Beeline to Ptown”. So hop on the ferry and raise a glass.

Strawberry Fennel Forever

StrawberryFennelForever

Strawberry Fennel Forever

  • 1.0 oz. akvavit (Aalborg)
  • 1.0 oz. genever (Hofland)
  • 0.5 oz. strawberry fennel simple syrup (Royal Rose)
  • 0.25 oz. Green Chartreuse
  • 0.25 kümmel (Combier)
  • 0.25 oz. thyme liqueur (Thym)
  • 0.25 oz. lemon juice
  • dash of lemon bitters (Bitter Truth)

Shake with ice and strain into coupe. Garnish with strawberry.

I started here with the Royal Rose strawberry fennel syrup. For the base I split akvavit/aquavit for some caraway and genever for a little funk. I decided to go all in with the herbal ingredients and grabbed Chartreuse, Thym and kümmel for its fennel flavor. To this I added lemon for acid and some bitters to round everything out.

I was stuck for a name for a bit, but when I focused on “strawberry fennel” as the catalyst for the drink this one came pretty quickly. Let me take you down.

Impassioned

impassioned

Impassioned

Stir with ice. Strain into old fashioned over ice. Garnish with cherry “rose.”

I wanted something on the boozy, Old Fashioned side, and I thought I might play with Tamworth’s chicory liqueur. For the base I went with apple brandy (Tamworth also makes an excellent offering here, if you can get it) and added my mainstay Benedictine to play with the bitterness of the chicory. Riffing on the Old Fashioned’s (sometimes) cherry and orange, I added cherry and orange liqueurs to sweeten things up. The coffee bitters completed it with a nod to NOLA’s coffee and chicory.

The name just came from rhyming Old Fashioned — nothing particularly insightful there. The rose seemed appropriate for the name. No thorns provided, except perhaps from the bite of the alcohol.

A Night in the Forest

nightInTheForest

A Night in the Forest

Stir with ice and strain into snifter. Garnish with rosemary.

I wanted something piney. Generally in this case I reach for my Clear Creek Douglas Fir eau de vie, but I had just picked up the Rogue Spruce Gin and thought I’d explore that. To enhance the herbaceous notes I added in the Leopold Bros alpine liqueur, and at this point had all the pine I wanted. It needed something sweet and, I thought, floral, so then came the elderflower. To brighten it up and add some bitterness I finished with Lillet Blanc and a touch of lemon bitters.

The name comes from Annie’s Song by John Denver, this line of which was the first thing I thought of when I sipped this. It certainly filled up my senses, in all the right ways.