January Drink of the Month - The Amelia

I was lucky enough to get a few new cocktail books for Christmas this year, and I'm sure they will influence my choices for Bar Kiley posts over the next few months. So far, I've been able to tackle two of them: Alchemy in a Glass by Greg Seider and Speakeasy by Jason Kosmas and Dushan Zaric. I've not yet had a chance to get through The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart, but I'm excited to read that one - it promises to have lots of tips on homemade bitters and tinctures, which is an area I'd like to play around with more.

Speakeasy was the most straightforward of the three books. It chronicles the best recipes from NYC's Employees Only bar, which was one of the establishments on the forefront of the cocktail revolution, featuring fresh and homemade ingredients. I was visiting my parents when I was reading Speakeasy, so there were plenty of cocktails I wasn't able to try out because I lacked the necessary ingredients.
However, one recipe caught my attention and was easy enough to make using what we had on hand (luckily I hooked my parents on the St. Germain cocktail last summer, so there was elderflower liqueur available!). Named the Amelia, this drink was meant to be a stepping stone from the Cosmo into the more nuanced world of craft cocktails. The recipe follows below. While this month's post might have been a little light on exposition, I hope to make it up to you with some good technique notes below:

In a mixing glass, combine the following ingredients:

1.75 ounces potato vodka
1 ounce elderflower liqueur
0.75 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
0,75 ounce blackberry puree*

*To make the blackberry puree, combine 1 cup fresh blackberries (one small carton) with 2 tbsp superfine sugar, 2 tbsp distilled water, and 2 tbsp lemon juice in a blender. Blend until smooth and coarse strain the mixture. It will keep for 3-4 days.

Shake the ingredients over ice, and double strain** into a martini glass. Garnish with a sprig of smacked mint leaf.***

**Double straining involves using both a Hawthorne strainer and a fine mesh strainer when you pour out your drink. The Hawthorne strainer gets out the big pieces of ice, while the fine mesh strainer will get out the remaining blackberry particulates that survived the coarse strainer and the chips of ice that occur when you shake your drink. The recipe in the book only calls for using the Hawthorne strainer, which left bits of blackberry puree floating in the glass. I like the mouthfeel of pureed fruit for some drinks, but since this is meant to emulate the Cosmo, we much preferred the drink to be smooth and clean without the itsy-bitsy bits of blackberry. Fine straining means that the puree still imparts plenty of flavor and juice to the drink, but it gets rid of the texture of the pulverized fruit.

***You smack herbs to release their essential oils and fragrance. Grasp the stem firmly in one hand and gently but firmly strike the leaf against your palm. Hit too hard and you bruise the leaf, but do it just right and you will release some wonderful scents!

I hope you enjoy your Amelia!