September Drink of the Month - The Hummingbird Daiquri

Last time Zack and I sat down to fiddle with drinks, he had a very specific challenge in mind: find something to do with a tasty bottle he had just purchased. The bottle in question was Flora from Cardinal Spirits, a raspberry and edible flower liqueur. He had sampled the wares at Cardinal, and declared this bottle was the most interesting thing they had to offer. So we went to work crafting a drink to highlight the sweet, floral notes found in "Flora," using the scientific method.

"Scientific Method" Round 2

"Scientific Method" Round 1

The process involved lemons, limes, and lots of agave, grape, and sugarcane based spirits. For those keeping score at home, pisco, brandy, and mescal were non-starters. The grape-based spirits provided too much of the same flavors as the Flora, masking what made it special. And the mescal was just too much for this delicate liqueur. Rum and rum-adjacent spirits, however, played really nicely with what Flora brought to the table. At the end of the day, we settled on concocting a daiquiri riff, swapping in the Flora as the sweetener instead of sugar. That led to a second round of experimenting with different sugarcane spirits using our base formula, and a momentary disagreement. Zack found a drink made with Havana Club rum to be just about perfect. I preferred the extra earthiness that came from using cachaça. Instead of arguing ad-nauseam, we relied on a trick we had just learned from the Cocktail Codex: we used a split base, keeping Havana Club as the dominant flavor, but adding a little cachaça for seasoning. The drink by itself stands up with rum alone, but the split base is divine. Want to try this, but can't find Flora in your local spirits store? They sell and ship online: Cardinal Spirits. Or else sub out the Flora for 0.75 oz creme de framboise and 3 dashes of rose water. It won't be the same, but it is a close approximation.

Ingredients: 1 oz white rum, 0.5 oz cachaça, 1 oz lime juice, 1 oz Cardinal Spirits Flora

Preparation: Combine ingredients in a Boston shaker. Shake over ice, strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with an edible flower.

August Drink of the Month - Fram-brandy Sidecar

I've detailed over the years my great love for the Sidecar, perhaps one of the perfect "mother" drinks, and my favorite formula to play with. Early on in the history of this blog, Zack and I performed a "side-by-sidecar" test with a number of (cheap-o) fruit brandies, our first foray into the scientific method of drink production. We tried out a number of flavors, and Apricot took the cake (and bad cherry brandy was the worst). However, raspberry (framboise in French) was missing from that list, and I now realize this to be a glaring omission (or perhaps a felix culpa, as I don't have memories of bottom shelf raspberry brandy to poison by brain).

While I was not on the lookout for new fruit brandies, a chance conversation at a family wedding this summer resulted in me becoming the proud owner of a bottle of "Nick's Red Raspberry Brandy," lovingly made by Ann's Uncle Nick. While it is quite sippable on its own, I can't resist an opportunity to tinker at the bar. A sidecar is brandy's best friend (and grappa, and pisco, and signani, and...), but a traditional formula with Cointreau would have been far too sweet. Tinkering with the ratios and subbing a dry curacao for Cointreau resulted in a gem which I'm looking forward to enjoying again this weekend (since my little sample bottle has now been replaced with a full fifth). Below is the formula for the Fram-Brandy Sidecar.

Ingredients: 1.5 oz raspberry brandy, 1 oz dry curacao (I use Pierre Ferrand), 0.75 oz lemon juice.

Preparation: Combine all ingredients in a Boston shaker. Shake over ice, and strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with a fresh raspberry and a lemon twist.

Notes: Can't find Nick's Red Raspberry brandy? He'll trade you for some! Or else St. George Spirits makes a nice bottle as well ;).

July Drink of the Month - Bourbon Slush (Guest Post)

Hello loyal following (of three)! I apologize for a lack of posting this past month and a half - between kitchen renovations, anniversary celebrations, and the start of the school year, I've been quite incommunicado. But we are back with a vengeance, and I hope to have us all caught up before October hits. Let's begin with a guest post that has been sitting in my email inbox since June 23: my mom's foolproof bourbon slush recipe. She uses this for almost any occasion, and sometimes even travels with it her (like on a trip to Branson, MO a few years back). Here is her quick pitch for this recipe: "I have a great summer pre-BBQ cocktail for this summer.  My guest enjoyed them as our featured cocktail during appetizers at our Summer Solstice neighborhood cookout last night.   Even those who professed to not like Bourbon admitted that this drink goes down verrrrrry easily."

So there you go! Why not make one at home if you have the freezer space? Note: the recipe is for a batch, as freezing individual drinks is a foolish venture (and since breaking up the slush with a spoon is half the fun of making these drinks):

Ingredients: 6 cups *strong Constant Comment tea, 1 cup sugar, 12 oz frozen lemonade concentrate, 12 oz frozen orange juice concentrate, 2 cups bourbon

Preparation: Brew the tea using 4 tea bags per six cups of boiling water. Allow the tea to cool to room temperature with the tea bags still steeping. Let sit for 1-2 hours. Remove tea bags, pour the tea into a gallon pitcher, and add sugar. Stir to combine. Add lemonade & orange juice concentrates, and stir to mix. Refrigerate for one hour. Add bourbon, and place in freezer overnight. To serve, remover from freezer for 30 minutes to begin thaw. Attack with a wooden spoon, and place "crunchy layers" into a old fashioned glass. Garnish with a brandied cherry.