June Drink of the Month - Sharon's Desert Rose

This month's drink was part of the same creative outburst that produced the Pomme de Feu last month. Friend of the blog Zack brought over a bottle of Sotol, an emerging agave-adjacent spirit that originated in the deserts of Chihuahua, Mexico. Sotol is somewhere between tequila and mezcal, but the plant that is roasted and fermented to produce sotol (dasylirion, once believed to be a member of the agave family, but since reclassified) grows in the wild, and is much more influenced by terrior than the agave plants. The drink itself is slightly smoky (not quite so smoky as mezcal), but also has grassy notes that produce something distinct from its agave-based cousins.

When deciding on what to do with the Sotol, we borrowed from some of our old favorite recipes. I had just made a batch of hibiscus-habanero syrup for a frozen watermelon cocktail a few days before. The heat from the syrup and the sweet and floral hibiscus complimented the smoke and vegital notes in the Sotol, similar to the way the hibiscus and Signani play in the Blade. Add a little lime, and we were fairly well satisfied with our initial attempt. However, for the sake of science, we played a bit. Remembering one of our favorite original drinks, the Smoke on the Water...Melon, we tweaked the drink by adding a pinch of sea salt. The salt livened up the flavors nicely, but we were still having trouble finding the hibiscus (the syrup I made was admittedly on the spicy side, but I liked it!). Zack had recently acquired a few "Fruitlab" bottles from Greenbar Distillery in LA, including a hibiscus liqueur. We added just enough to make the hibiscus stand out, and declared ourselves satisfied.

Before "going to market," as it were, we decided to make the same drink with tequila, to make sure that Sotol was the proper application for this mix. The tequila drink was enjoyable (and a very clean sip), but we found ourselves missing the smoky finish that the Sotol provided. Without the smoke at the back of our throats, the heat from the habanero became much more pronounced (whereas with the Sotol, the heat mingled deliciously with the smoky aftertaste). We felt confident we had crafted something to make the Sotol shine, and we are happy to share it with you!

Ingredients: 2 oz sotol, 0.5 oz lime juice, 0.5 oz hibiscus/habanero syrup*, 0.25 oz hibiscus liqueur, generous pinch of sea salt.

Preparation: In a Boston shaker, combine all ingredients, including salt. Shake over ice, and strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with a lime wheel and/or hibiscus flower. 

*To make the hibiscus/habanero syrup, combine 1 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar in a saucepan over medium heat. Add 0.5 cups of dried hibiscus flowers and three habanero peppers, sliced long-ways. Stir until sugar is fully dissolved, and allow to steep over medium-low heat for 20 minutes. Allow mixture to cool, and then strain through a cheesecloth and bottle. Syrup will keep for 3 weeks.

Notes: The name comes from the common name for the dasylirion plant - the "Desert Spoon," and the common name for hibiscus - the "Rose of Sharon." We could have just gone with "Desert Rose," but there are like 50 different desert rose cocktails on the internet. Plus, Rose of Sharon makes me think of high school English class, and who doesn't want to contemplate that mess while drinking (aah!).

May Drink of the Month - Pomme de Feu

The past week was a productive time for cocktail exploration. Frequent collaborator and friend of the blog Zack brought over a few new and unusual spirits to sample, and we debuted a new method of drink building that seems super obvious, but was incredibly fun and fruitful. Occasionally, when trying to replicate a bar-made cocktail that we enjoy, we "scientifically" sit down and make multiple iterations of the same drink, swapping one ingredient at a time, or changing one ratio, to control the variables of our drink. Surprisingly, we rarely used this method when creating original cocktails. But this past week, we applied this methodical process to make a few new drinks, which I will feature for May and June. The refrain of "for science" rang out often, as I would run down to the bar to collect a new ingredient, so we could taste the difference between using Aperol or Campari, tequila or sotol, or apple brandy or apple jack. This method produced better cocktails, as we could more definitely say what exactly we liked about each formulation, instead of just declaring a drink to be "good" or "bad."

The first success story from this process began with a bottle of Wood Smoked Apple Spirit (called Fumus Pumila) from the Baltimore Spirits Co. We both enjoyed the apple brandy, and it lived up to the name - it was smoky as heck! Almost to the point where you could lose the apple flavor, but that was more of a problem from me than it was for Zack. We added ginger liqueur to the mix (who doesn't love apple and ginger?), lime juice, sparkling cider, and a little simple syrup (stuck on flavor combinations? I've been using the Flavor Bible more to help me with ideas). The result was tasty, but very smoky - and not terribly "apple-y," despite the addition of the cider.

From this initial formulation, the scientific method took over. I ransacked my back bar for all of the apple spirits I could find. I had a nice aged apple brandy from Blackstar Farms in Traverse City, MI. as well as a bottle of Laird's Applejack. We repeated our recipe with the new base spirits, to see what each brought to the table. The consensus was that applejack fell flat, but that the "Spirit of Apple" from Blackstar shined - and produced a really pleasant apple flavor. As to which drink was superior between the Fumus Pumila and Spirit of Apple, we were split. Zack loved the smoke (as did I), whereas I really loved the strong apple flavors. Zack could live without the more pronounced apple notes, and I was just fine without the bite from the wood. Each drink has its own nuance, but we decided that we didn't need to make a definitive pronouncement. Below is the recipe for our finished product - choose your spirit wisely, depending on your taste.

Ingredients: 2 oz apple brandy*, 0.5 oz lime juice, 0.5 oz ginger liqueur, 0.25 oz simple syrup, 2 oz sparkling cider

Preparation: Combine all ingredients except cider in a Boston shaker. Shake over ice, strain into an ice filled Collins glass**. Top with sparkling cider, garnish with a lime wheel.

Notes: *use an aged apple brandy, unless you'd like to make Zack's drink with the Fumus Pumila

**If using Fumus Pumila, serve neat in a chilled coupe glass instead (without ice).