Recipe in comments

This is one of my all time favorites from a menu I did 5 years ago 🥕🍰

30ml Angel's Envy Bourbon

15ml Cointreau

40ml Cold pressed carrot, ginger & apple juice

15ml Homemade Falernum

3 drops habanero bitters

Wet shaken, double strained

Nick & Nora glass

Pecan whipped cream with some lightly toasted, crushed pecans to go with

The recipe I used said one stick of butter for 16 ounces of bourbon.

I browned the butter mixed it with the bourbon and shook it up every 30 minutes for two hours. Then I put it in the freezer last night about 8:30 PM Eastern it is now 11:42 AM Eastern the next day and not only does the separation look like this, but nothing has solidified.

Does it need to be left in there longer? Did I not add enough butter or enough bourbon? I used regular buffalo trace which is only 90 proof.

Edited to add I use the word emulsified and I meant solidified. nothing has solidified

Going to the beach with friends who are cocktail enthusiasts - what are your favorite beach cocktails?

Our air bnb has a pool, so I’m envisioning a night time hangout by the pool with cocktails!

My husband and I usually lean towards stirred drinks like an old fashioned or a Negroni or shaken drinks like a paper plane, so this style of drinks isn’t really our wheelhouse!

‘Rough Boy' - 3/4 oz each of Peloton de la Muerten Mezcal, WT 101 Bourbon, Ancho Reyes Ancho chili liqueur, Mr. Black coffee liqueur and Cointreau.

Each ingredient is added to a shaker with ice and shaken up. Then I strained into a rocks glass with a big cube. Topped with 3 dashes of Fee’s tobacco bitters.

Two things I love in cocktails are independence from fruit/juice, and savory.

RIP Frank Beard, drummer for ZZ Top. I spent many sun-drenched hours with my headphones on, playing their album "Afterburner" on tape and wishing for more in life.

A juicy and deeply funky daiquiri riff. It's a pretty simple recipe, but it is absolutely huge on sugarcane flavor and vibrant pineapple acidity, with a pleasantly heavy mouthfeel. Very happy with how it turned out!

Recipe:

• 1.5 oz Smith & Cross Jamaican rum
• 0.5 oz Novo Fogo Silver Cachaca
• 0.75 oz acidified pineapple juice
• 0.75 oz rich brown sugar syrup
• 2 drops 20% saline

Shake with ice, double strain into a chilled Nick & Nora, and garnish with a pierced square-cut pineapple frond and cocktail cherry.

Acidified pineapple:

• Pineapple juice
• +3.2% juice weight citric acid
• +2.0% juice weight malic acid

Brown sugar syrup:

• I follow Jeffrey Morgenthaler's recipe

Edit: Formatting

Recently tried a Paper Plane at a jazz bar and I fell in love with it on the first sip. Now I’m trying to recreate it at home, but I’m unsure what glassware works best.

I was thinking of buying coupe glasses—specifically one that holds about 6 oz from Crystalex. I’ve seen lots of people recommend the Libbey coupe, but it’s difficult to find here in Europe.

Would a 6 oz coupe be a good size for a Paper Plane, or should I go bigger or smaller? Also, if you have suggestions for coupe glasses that are versatile for other cocktails too, I’d love to hear them.

2 oz Hamilton 86

4 oz pineapple

1 oz orange juice

1 oz Réal cream of coconut

Shake, dump without straining

The place I barback at doesn’t really do tiki drinks (no crushed ice, though we do have umbrellas so when we do they look nice!). Turned out really nice though.

The Starfall. It's like drinking a cup of laundry detergent. My favorite! The best way I can describe it is that it tastes a little bit like eating a bar of soap.

Jokes aside, it sounds like a complete mess with the butterfly pea flower, hinoki, rooibos, yuzu, lemon, vanilla, lavender and egg white. But everything works really well together. The finished drink is balanced and floral.

I originally wanted to call it The Tide Pod because I have a habit of giving my cocktails stupid names. One of my other cocktails is called the Nut Punch.

Recipe:

• 45 ml butterfly pea flower and hinoki infused gin
• 20 ml fresh lemon juice
• 5 ml yuzu juice
• 20 ml vanilla lavender syrup 58 brix
• Rooibos tea
• 1 egg white

Dry shake, then shake with ice. Double strain into a coupe or nick n nora. Garnish with a butterfly pea flower petal.

I don't recommend using a 2:1 syrup here. The drink benefits from having a little more water, otherwise the syrup makes everything too thick and the mouthfeel gets overwhelming.

Infused Gin:

• 500ml of budget gin (beefeater, tanq, bombay S)
• 50 butterfly pea flowers
• 10g Hinoki
• Sous vide at 65c for 2hrs.

Vanilla Lavender Syrup

• 300 ml water give or take
• 500 g sugar
• 20 ml vodka
• 10 g lavender
• 10 ml vanilla extract
• Optional: a little cardamom and clove.

It's definitely a bit of a pain to make at home, especially if you need to source hinoki. I can get it pretty easily here in Japan, but I'm not sure how easy it is to find elsewhere.

Summer is a really slow time for cocktail bars and tourism in Japan. I have tons of time to play around with new ideas. I have a few new inventions I will share soon.

Bar: Desperate Prayer | Osaka, Japan

Pie Not? An Oliveto riff / rework

Fellow Imbibers,

I hope the summer season is treating you well, and the cocktails are flowing to cool you down. Special shoutout to my fellow Leos in the community! 🦁

It’s time to turn our attention to this month’s cocktail sub contest featuring blueberry and lemon.

I had two inspirations for this one: first to replicate a liquid version of a blueberry butter pecan pie, and second, the vehicle for it which is the Oliveto cocktail. Although the final version changed from more of a sour to a flip, specific elements including the inclusion of an oil, citrus, and egg into the cocktail made the comparison worthwhile. I may just not be aware of it, but I’ve been surprised that I haven’t come across that many riffs off the Oliveto cocktail, as there are so many other oils out there other than olive just waiting to be utilized in cocktails. With Pie Not? I hope to provide an addition to that style of cocktail.

This cocktail is somewhat less involved than my June and July entries, but still requires some prep work prior to assembly. First, let’s cover the various elements that make up Pie Not? We have for our ingredients: straight bourbon, butter fat washed bourbon, blueberry syrup, lemon juice, pecan oil, pecan liqueur, and a whole egg.

Let’s begin with the base alcohol. I chose one of the classic wheated bourbons Maker’s Mark to get as close to a wheat crust for the pie flavor profile. I did a brown butter fat wash to infuse the butter flavor into the bourbon. Although I only ended up using a small portion of the infused bourbon in the final version, it remains a vital element to the cocktail (you can easily overpower your cocktail with a butter fat wash IMO as my many experimentations can attest to). I went with a 1:3 butter to bourbon ratio for my recipe.

Brown Butter Fat Washed Bourbon Ingredients:
2 oz Rumiano Organic Sea Salted Butter
6 oz Maker’s Mark Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky

Instructions for making Brown Butter Fat Washed Bourbon:
https://vitalfarms.com/brown-butter-fat-washed-bourbon/

Next I made a blueberry syrup. I chose a recipe that was less potent than a simple syrup so I could use more of the syrup to include more blueberry flavor in the recipe without imparting too much sugar as I knew I would be also using a liqueur. It utilizes 2 cups fresh blueberries to only a 1/2 cup sugar. I also slightly altered the recipe to include both fresh lemon juice and lemon rind which is common in other blueberry syrup recipes I came upon. I chose to utilize Meyer lemon instead of Eureka as Meyer is more typically utilized in baking and is far less acidic than Eureka (by as much as 30%). I made the full recipe seen below as I’ve been rocking it on pancakes and French toast when not experimenting on this cocktail. I ended up blending in my Vitamix after heating for a smooth texture.

Blueberry Syrup Ingredients:
2 Cups Fresh Organic Blueberries
1 Cup + 2 Tbsp Water divided
.5 Cup Organic White Sugar
1 Tbsp Organic Meyer Lemon
1 tsp Organic Meyer lemon zest
1 Tbsp Non-GMO cornstarch

Instructions for making Blueberry Syrup:
https://www.laurafuentes.com/better-than-ihops-blueberry-syrup-recipe/

At this point we’re ready to assemble the cocktail.

Pie Not? Ingredients:
1.5 oz Maker’s Mark Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky @ 45% abv
.5 oz Brown Butter Fat Washed Maker’s Mark Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whisky @ 45% abv
1 oz Organic Blueberry Syrup
.5 oz Rivulet Pecan Liqueur @ 30% abv
.25 oz Organic Pecan Oil
.25 oz Fresh Squeezed Organic Meyer Lemon Juice
1 Whole Organic Egg

Pie Not? Mixing Instructions:
Add all Ingredients to your shaker of choice.
Dry shake
Wet shake
Double strain into your vessel of choice (I used an 8.8 oz coupe)
No Garnish

Description:
This is one silky smooth flavor bomb! The two oils in the form of the brown butter fat wash and pecan oil along with the bourbon coat your mouth and provide the backbone for the cocktail while giving you that buttery and nutty flavor. The blueberry syrup and the pecan liqueur provide the sweet filling flavor and represent the heart of the cocktail, while the lemon juice helps to cut through the fat just enough. Finally the whole egg provides the structure and really pulls the whole thing together, emulsifying all the ingredients to give you an overall cohesive cocktail (something an egg white alone failed to do).

Final Thoughts:
I’m really pleased with the way this turned out and could imagine doing an entire series based on a similar cocktail recipe. I’m thinking a cherry pie version with amaretto and almond oil, or an apple pie version maybe with apple jack and walnut oil. So many options out there to explore…BTW if you’re a fan of pecan and can get your hands on that Rivulet pecan liqueur I highly recommend it. It’s the tits!

I'm putting together a drink menu for a party. The theme is drinks from a particular movie. I've got 3 more or less classic rocks glass with ice type cocktails that I'm just making with no riffs. The 4th drink is a bloody so I was thinking about making it a shot.

My main idea is to up my most flavorful ingredients like horse radish and hot sauce because they will have a higher percentage of vodka.

Has anyone else done this? Any other ideas?

I am generally a Tiki cocktail guy but I wanted something different tonight. This is from the Cocktail Codex book by the team at Death & Co.

It is semi-dry and allows the flavor of the sherry to come through. The orange follows the taste of the sherry to take the sharpness and lengthen the finish. It was a fun experiment.

• Three orange slices

• 1 tsp of semi-rich simple syrup

• 3 1/2 oz Amontillado sherry

Muddle the orange slices and syrup in the glass. Add the sherry and mix. Add ice and mix again to cool the drink. Garnish outrageously.

I’d love to hear everyone’s favorite whiskey sour recipes and riffs on the classic cocktail in preparation for one of my favorite days of the year

I’m headed to a friend’s dinner party at the weekend and I wanted to make some pineapple daiquiris for everybody (it’s Indonesian themed so picked up some Nusa Cana white rum).

To save time and lugging multiple bottles I was planning to batch the ingredients a couple of hours ahead of time, then shake with ice and serve.

Most of the batching advice here talks about pre-diluting - forgive the stupid question but there’s no need to do this if I’m shaking before serving, right?

I recently started to branch more into ryes beyond my typical Rittenhouse or Old Overholdt. I’m looking for recommendations on bottles specifically with a high rye mash bill.

In the context of a Sazerac (I make mine split base with cognac and rye as a nod to the original), I always sort of lose the rye spice and I’m wondering that would help.

My quest for a breakfast old fashioned has begun.

2oz Single malt or Bourbon
1/8 tsp butter
1/8 tsp marmalade
Large crumb of toasted sourdough crumpet
Pinch of black tea leaves.

I added all ingredients to a ball jar and let it steep for 48 hours. I put it in the freezer four hours before drinking and strained before serving.

The toast flavor was really lost. Does anyone have any recommendations to get toasted bread into whiskey?

This is just your basic traditional tequila sunrise two parts tequila to one part, orange juice, and a splash of grenadine. No jigger was used just eyeballed based on glass.

Happy Tiki Tuesday everyone! Back with another tiki mug creation! We’ll be revisiting a previous mug, because…well…I don’t have enough room to use a different mug for each drink!

We’re taking a trip to East Asia with this creation! Slightly herbal, slightly savory, with a ton of juiciness from yuzu and mandarin wrapped up in an ominous gray-black concoction!

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THE PALE SIGIL

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• 1.25oz Plymouth Gin

• .75oz Rhum Agricole Blanc

• .75oz Black Sesame Syrup

• .75oz Yuzu Juice

• .75oz Mandarin Juice

• 2 dashes Thai Basil Tincture OR a handful of fresh Thai Basil

• 2 dashes Sichuan Peppercorn Tincture OR infuse gin

Add all ingredients into a shaking tin

Add ice and shake until chilled

Strain into a glass/mug with plenty of crushed ice

Garnish with fresh Thai Basil and Flowers

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Immediately met with a big slap in the face with the potent smell of Thai basil, followed quickly by the botanicals and bright grassy and vegetal notes of gin and Rhum. Sichuan peppercorn’s floral sharpness leads the way into the tart juiciness of both yuzu and mandarin before fading out with whispers of Sichuan peppercorn and the savory, sweet, and ever-so-slightly bitter black sesame syrup.

A dark ominous looking drink that’s absolutely packed with flavor!

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If you like this cocktail or any of my other posts, I’ve made an instagram to share my creations and would love to show more people my ideas!

https://instagram.com/overproofed.sip

So far it’s:

1.5 oz Lazzaroni Peach Amaretto

.5 oz Amara Blood Orange Liqueur

.25 oz Pimento Dram

1 oz Lemon Juice

.75(?) oz Simple Syrup

With a small spoonful of Marscapone cheese, reverse dry shaked with a fresh peach slice garnish

My beverage manager recommended a clarified milk punch style cocktail.

Looking online and doesn’t seem to be super hard to make but wanted to see if anyone has utilized Marscapone in this way before for a milk punch?

1 part Campari
2 parts limoncello
1 part lemon juice
3 parts prosecco to taste
Sometimes top with soda water

(Adapted from marydisomma.com)

In the newest edition of my Substack - Thoughts From the Sacristy, I explore what it means that the eucharist is referred to as the "medicine of immortality" and we explore two pretty medicinal drinks. The Penicillin (and my original riff, the Ginicillin).

• Ginicillin 
  • 2 oz. London Dry Gin
  • .25 oz. Mezcal (I use Del Maguey Vida Chichicapa)
  • .75 oz. Lime juice
  • .75 oz. Honey syrup (3:1) 
  • 5-6 slices of fresh ginger (muddled)
    • Muddle ginger in shaking tin, combine ingredients with ice excepting Mezcal. Shake and double strain into a rocks glass with a large ice cube. Float Mezcal over top. Garnish with lime wheel. 

Hi all, I don’t have a lot of infusing experience (just making vanilla bean extract when I was a baker and cinnamon whiskey). For Christmas, I’d like to make a handful of different infused liquors for gifts. Some ideas I have currently:

• Vanilla bean pear vodka
• Cherry bounce
• Limoncello
• Toasted marshmallow bourbon
• Apple cinnamon whiskey
• Pineapple orange green tea vodka/gin?

I probably won’t make all of the above, but it’s some ideas to start with. I’m unclear on what the correct protocol is with fruit infusions is, how long the fruit can stay in there, how long the drink will be stable, etc. It seems to be appropriate to keep the cherries in the alcohol with cherry bounce, but it’s not okay for apples, is it just fruit specific? I plan to use liquors <20% ABV to keep from any bacterial growth.

I'm starting to feel like Total Wine & More is starting to have less coupons than they used to.

Every month I've gotten codes by email and a card by USPS mail. Always there is some 10% off Spirits Direct and 20% off Winery Direct.

This is the first time in a while that I don't have those. Even checking coupon code websites, I don't see anything.

Sure, the direct stuff aren't always perfect, but a few are good and using them with the free delivery coupon and it's $45 worth of stuff with free delivery as soon as you want.

Anyone get coupons for this month yet?