Two At The Most » Recipes

Bourboned Cranberry Relish

Stevi — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:00:21 +0000

I’ve been experimenting with cranberry relish recipes for well over a decade now, and have finally found one that works well for me. It has the advantage of being incredibly easy to make, and well, bourbon!

It’s best to make this the night before. If you do, I recommend that you first make yourself a bourbon old fashioned to really enjoy the beauty of the bourbon while you prepare the relish.

Bourboned Cranberry Relish

1 orange
1 lemon
1/2 cup bourbon (Bulleit is an excellent choice)
1/2 cup sugar
1 dash salt
1 dash fresh ground pepper
12 ounces fresh cranberries

zest orange and lemon. obtain 1/2 cup juice from the orange and lemon — start by juicing the whole orange, and for anything less than 1/2 cup, obtain the remainder from the lemon. Pick over the cranberries to remove any bad berries or stems, then rinse the berries.

Put zest, juice, bourbon, sugar, salt, and pepper in a non-reactive saucepan and bring to a boil while stirring to dissolve the sugar. Add berries, return to boil and reduce heat. Simmer until the berries reach your preferred consistency (I usually go about 10 minutes). Remove from heat, allow to cool, then transfer to serving bowl and refrigerate, preferrably over night.

I like the sweet and tart balance of this recipe, and the bourbon brings a depth of flavor. Goes great on day-after sandwiches. This will keep well in the fridge, as well!

Happy Thanksgiving to my US readers, and have a great day to everybody!

Welcome Stranger Cocktail

Stevi — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:00:54 +0000

Here’s another drink I stumbled upon in Barflies and Cocktails.

Welcome Stranger

Welcome Stranger Cocktail

0.5 ounce gin
0.5 ounce brandy
0.5 ounce Swedish punsch
0.5 ounce lemon juice
0.5 ounce orange juice
0.5 ounce grenadine

Shake until good and cold, double strain into cocktail glass.

This was one of those recipes I couldn’t quite guess how it would taste, much less if I would like it. But it was invented by Harry McElhone himself, and the man who gave us the Monkey Gland must know a little something about mixing with orange juice.

I do like it, although it is a little sweet. Grenadine and Swedish punsch seem to work well together. This is one of those multi-ingredient drinks where all the flavors blend well, nothing dominating.

That said, next time I might try upping the gin and brandy to dry it out a bit. Glad I gave it a try.

Gloom Raiser

Stevi — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:00:29 +0000

I was paging through the delightful Barflies and Cocktails by Harry McElhone, one of the wonderful reprints by Mud Puddle Books. Amongst all the wonderful illustrations by Wynn Holcomb, I found a variation on the martini that was new to me.

Gloom Raiser

Gloom Raiser

1.5 ounces London dry gin
0.75 ounces dry vermouth
2 dashes absinthe (I prefer a white over verte here)
2 dashes grenadine

stir and strain into cocktail glass, garnish with lemon twist.

This is a great variation to my tastes. It takes the venerable dry martini and adds just enough absinthe for that wonderful anise scent and a hint of taste, and just enough grenadine for just a little sweetness.

I tried this with both a blanche (Kubler) and verte (Pacifique) absinthe, and found the blanche worked a bit better. The Kubler brought a great balance while the Pacifique, even at just 2 dashes, wanted to assert itself too strongly in this mix.

In the spirit of Harry’s New York bar, still located at 5 Rue Daonou in Paris, I used Citadelle, a French-made gin.

This cocktail is another great example of how just a little bit of a strong ingredient can change a cocktail for the better.

Tequila Por Mi Amante

Stevi — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 01:00:09 +0000

Tequila por mi amante¹ is a wonderful combination of tequila and ripe strawberries.

There Will Be Deliciousness

This is my second year making tequila por mi amante, and this year’s result was far superior to last. I pretty slavishly followed Chuck Taggart’s recipe.

Tequila por mi amante

750 ml resposado tequila (Sauza Hornitos)
3 pints fresh ripe strawberries, hulled and quartered (my store sells ‘em by the pound, I used two)

Place tequila and strawberries in a sufficiently large container and put in fridge for three weeks, agitating whenever you think of it.

Now the fun part. Strain tequila and then wrap the berries in cheesecloth. Squeeze every last bit of tequila strawberry goodness out of those suckers that you can into the rest of th. Rest. Squeeze them some more. Strain the result as many times as you care to and either return to your freshly washed soaking jar or another slightly smaller one. Let rest for at least three more weeks.

You may want to strain once again. And then enjoy.

Tequila Por Mi Amante

This year’s product was a little less sweet than I’d hoped. That’s easily remedied by combining it with the single best flavor to come with tequila – creme de casis. I like to pour two to three ounces tequila por mi amante over ice into a rocks glass, float a teaspoon or so of creme de cassis, and sip happily.

I also have to join in the chorus praising the Paloma por mi Amante. The Paloma is one of my favorite tequila drinks, and with the strawberry flavor it’s that much better. Currently I’m making it using a new soda brand called Oogave, which uses agave syrup for sweetener. Their grapefruit flavor works fantastic in a Paloma.

Tequila por mi amante is very easy to make, and a great way to make the delicious flavor of ripe strawberries last. I can’t see a beautiful basket of berries without thinking about making some more.

What other fruit should I try infusing in tequila?

[1] I am told by real speakers of Spanish this should be Tequila para mi amante. Blame Charles H. Baker, Jr.

Make Your Own Grenadine

Stevi — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 02:44:04 +0000

It took a long time for me to warm up to grenadine as a cocktail ingredient, after a childhood chock full of bright red Rose’s Grenadine Shirley Temples.

Rose's vs Homemade Grenadine

But now I know how many great cocktails include grenadine. A couple of personal favorites are the El Presidente and the Blinker. And now that I know how easy it is to make my own grenadine, I’ll never go back to Rose’s.

Like many a first time grenadine maker, I started with Paul Clarke’s epic Grenadine Face-off. The first time I make cold process grenadine, I shook and shook and shook…and finally gave up and used the blender. The results were fine.

Now I use my handy dandy milk frother, and it’s even faster, cleaner, and easier.

Cold-Process Grenadine

1 cup pomegranate juice (I used some POM Wonderful that was sent to me for review)
1 cup + 1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon vodka

Put juice and sugar in a conveniently sized resealable container. Take your milk frother and incorporate the sugar. Add vodka to extend life. Refrigerate. Will keep a good long time.

Have a Heart Comparison

Where Rose’s doesn’t taste much like anything but sugar to me, the homemade has the the taste of the pomegranate juice and a much richer, deep color to boot.

The best grenadine I’ve had to date was an experiment by Zane Harris (newly of Rob Roy), based on a recipe he’d uncovered that called for both pomegranate and raspberry. His process was long and complicated and someday I may try it, but for now, I’ll stick with a recipe that I can whip up even faster than simple syrup (because I don’t have to wait for it to cool).

I used my latest batch to try out a recipe in Ted Haigh’s newly reissued Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails, the Have a Heart. I dropped the lime juice to 1/2 ounce, adding a lime wedge garnish lets the drinker decide to tart it up.

Have a Heart Cocktail

1.5 ounces London dry gin (Voyager Small-batch)
0.75 ounces Swedish punsch (homemade)
0.5 ounces fresh lime juice
0.25 ounces homemade grenadine

Stir while thinking weepy 1934 thoughts, strain into cocktail glass, garnish with lime wedge.

As in the picture above, the cocktail on the left uses Rose’s, on the right, homemade. The fake color of the Rose’s carries through to the cocktail, while the homemade contributes to a drink with a much deeper, appealing, adult color.

Even more important is the taste. I didn’t care for this cocktail with the Rose’s. With the homemade grenadine, however, this is a tasty, well rounded drink.

I must admit, I also love using my homemade grenadine in homemade Shirley Temples. Fill a rocks glass with ice, some soda water, and spoon in up to a tablespoon of grenadine, and I have a light, refreshing drink that’s just sweet enough. And it’s a great base to experiment with bitters! I especially recommend a dash or four of blueberry bitters!

What’s your favorite way to use grenadine?

MxMo XXXIV: Spice — Juniper Berry Syrup

Stevi — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 02:40:24 +0000

Another month, another Mixology Monday. This month is hosted by Craig at Tiki Drinks and Indigo Firmaments, who offers up the theme of Spice. For guidance, he tells us:

Spice should give you plenty of room to play – from the winter warmers of egg nog, wassail and mulled products to the strange and interesting infusions of pepper, ceubub, grains of paradise, nutmeg — what have you! I would like to stretch the traditional meanings of spice (as the bark, seed, nut or flowering part of a plant used for seasoning) to basically anything used for flavoring that isn’t an herb. Salt? Go for it. Paprika? I’d love to see you try. I hear that cardamom is hot right now.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of gin. So it felt natural to look at the defining spice of gin, juniper, for this Mixology Monday.

Juniper Berries

The juniper flavor in gin comes from the juniper berry. Juniper berries are actually cones with unusually fleshy and merged scales, giving them a berry-like appearance. When immature, the cone is green. It matures into a purple-black color.

Gin is usually made with fully grown but immature berries, which have a flavor that is dominated by pinene, the chemical compound that gives pine resin its distinctive smell. Junipers are a distant relation of pines.

As the berries mature, their flavor is balanced by “green-fresh” and citrus. It’s these darker, mature berries that are dried and used as a spice for food. Juniper berries are a popular winter spice, melding well with other cold season favorites such as clove, cinnamon, and allspice. And while some poor quality gins can be faulted for tasting too much like a Christmas tree, that scent and smell is very seasonally appropriate!

Juniper berries have been used as a medicine and flavoring for thousands of years. At least two species of juniper berries were found in King Tutankhamun’s tomb, one of which does not grow in Egypt and was likely imported from Greece.

In Greece, juniper berries were used by athletes at the Olympic games who believed them to improve stamina, one of the first performance enhancing drugs. The Romans used juniper berries as a replacement for black pepper.

Gin itself, like so many other liquors, was originally created as a medicine, and its English name comes from the Dutch word gevener, meaning juniper.

I decided I’d start by making a juniper berry infused simple syrup.

Juniper Berry Syrup

25 juniper berries (about 1/2 tablespoon)
1 cup water
1 cup sugar

Solstice Sour

Lightly crush 15 of the berries (I used a meat tenderizer), and place all ingredients in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and let steep for at least four hours. Strain off solids and bottle.

This gives off a pleasant scent of juniper while on the boil. The resulting syrup has a bright, spicy flavor that isn’t too overpowering.

I find the best way to start experimenting with new infused simple syrups is to substitute them in favorite recipes. I looked over the list of my favorite drinks, and decided that the best way to try out the juniper berry syrup was in a whiskey sour.

Solstice Sour

2 oz bourbon whiskey
1 oz juniper berry syrup
0.75 oz lemon juice
1 tsp egg white (optional, but highly recommended)

Put ingredients in shaker. If using egg white, give a dry shake (no ice) for at least 10 seconds. Add ice, shake until good and cold. Strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with cranberries.

I was inspired by the use of bourbon as a winter spirit, and I was not disappointed. The juniper berry syrup provided a bright, clean counterpoint to the bourbon and lemon, making this is a very enjoyable drink. The pinene exists mostly in the aftertaste, but very subtly.

I’m very pleased with how the juniper blends with the bourbon, and will experiment with some other combinations. I’m tempted to try a daiquri with the juniper berry syrup, but not quite sure how that will work.

Thanks, Craig, for a great MxMo theme. Be sure to check out his site for the roundup!

Zen Green Tea Liqueur and the Matcha Cocktail

Stevi — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 08:53:14 +0000

I have fond memories of witnessing a traditional Zen Buddhist tea ceremony at the Smithsonian Museum. We were given small sweets, and after the ceremony, a taste of the matcha tea. It was bitter and strong, not like any tea I had tasted before. I can still remember that taste today. Thus, when I read on the back of the Zen Green Tea Liqueur bottle I received that it used matcha tea, I was intrigued.

Matcha Cocktail

Zen Green Tea Liqueur, produced in Japan, infuses ground and whole green tea leaves, lemongrass and other herbs and flavors in a neutral grain base. The final product is 40 proof (20% ABV).

I initially tasted the liqueur at room temperature, straight from the bottle. The liqueur is a more muddled green than I expected. I found this promising, in that it made me feel the drink was less reliant on artificial colors.

The nose was sweet. I could place the lemongrass. On the tongue, the sweetness was dominant. I sensed the green tea mostly in the aftertaste, and it was reminiscent of my memory of those tastes of green tea at the ceremony I had attended.

Next I tried it over ice, which really quieted the sweetness. The green tea flavors were far more forward and dominant, although still not strongly present on the nose. The lemongrass was lost completely. The flavor did remind me of green tea ice cream, minus the dairy.

This isn’t a particularly complex liqueur. What it has to offer is a unique flavor profile in the matcha green tea. In a chilled cocktail, you can bring out the green tea flavor, but the mix must be aware of the sweetness this low proof liqueur brings.

I spent some time trying to think of a cocktail using Zen Green Tea Liqueur. Then I remembered my last trip to Zig Zag Cafe. I’d asked Murray Stenson to make me a drink to follow he Rembrandt I had just finished. He turned around to look at the bottles arrayed behind him, and came up with a tasty libation for me. I asked him to write it down, and managed to keep the coaster all this time.

I made a couple of small changes. The biggest change was to switch the garnish. Murray used a pearl onion. I decided to go with a red pepper stuffed olive. I also gave the drink a name.

Matcha Cocktail

1.75 oz London dry gin (No. 209)
0.5 oz Zen Green Tea Liqueur
0.5 oz bianco vermouth (Martini & Rossi Bianco)
0.25 oz Grand Marnier
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Stir over ice. Strain into cocktail glass. Garnish with red pepper stuffed green olive. Based on original by Murray Stenson, Zig Zag Cafe, Seattle, WA.

The resulting cocktail is a coppery gold, the combination of the Zen Green Tea Liqueur, Angostura bitters, and bianco vermouth. The drink does start quite sweet on the palate, but the high level of gin plus the bitters and the green tea aftertaste keep it in check. I picked a very large olive, that brought just enough brine to the party to dilute the sweetness towards the end and give a nice, palate cleansing bite. To make it less sweet, make it a little dirty, or use a dry vermouth in place of the bianco.

What flavors can you imagine pairing with green tea?

MxMo XXXIII: Made from Scratch — Swedish Punsch and the Suédois de vanille

Stevi — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:47:57 +0000

It’s Mixology Monday again. This month, Doug Winship at the Pegu Blog has declared the theme to be “Made from Scratch.” We are to make at least one of our own ingredients and decide if it’s worth the effort.

I have written about Swedish Punsch before. This mix of Batavia arrack, neutral spirits, sugar, water, and various flavorings is common in its namesake country, but has largely become a lost ingredient to the US.

Making Swedish Punsch

Haus Alpenz has helped minimize that loss by importing Batavia Arrack van Oosten, the one essential ingredient to making Swedish Punsch that is not readily available. I picked up a bottle when it became available in Washington State. I took one taste and was astonished at the aftertaste. I presume the source is the red rice that’s fermented as the start of the arrack making process. On its own, I found the Batavia arrack simply undrinkable.

Luckily, Erik Ellestad at the Underhill-Lounge has already done the initial research on Swedish Punsch recipes, which is what I really wanted to make with the arrack. I decided to try his Tales of the Cocktail version. It sounded like a more traditional recipe and a great place to start. As I can’t get El Dorado in Washington, after consultation with Erik, I went with Appleton V/X.

Swedish Punsch (Tales Version)

1 750 ml bottle Batavia Arrack
2 750 ml bottles Appleton V/X Rum
8 lemons, sliced thin and seeded¹
750 ml water
8 teaspoons loose black tea (Rishi Golden Yunnan)
2 crushed cardamom pods
4 cups sugar (unwashed)

put the lemon slices, rum, and Batavia arrack in a gallon jar, seal and let steep for 6 hours. Make a tea with the water, tea, and cardamom pods, let steep for six minutes, then strain. Add sugar, let cool, and refrigerate if you’re making it ahead of time. Strain rum and arrack off lemons (do not juice the lemons). Mix with tea. Bottle and let sit at least overnight. Pour into resealable bottles (start with all those rum and arrack bottles you emptied). Total will be slightly over 3 liters (I filled four and a quarter 750 ml bottles).

Comparing Punsches

On first taste after mixing the lemon steeped rum and tea, I was a little worried, but the day I let it steep made a difference. I’m really happy with this recipe.

I tasted mine alongside the Carlshamns. While the Carlshamns leads with sweetness, the Tales version starts with the lemon citrus flavor. The arrack is far more noticeable in the Tales version, but it’s much tamed down and the aftertaste I noticed drinking it straight is gone. Overall, I find the homemade Tales version to be far more flavorful and complex, and far less sweet than the commercially produced Carlshamns.

I need to make all the cocktails I’ve tried with the Carlshamns, but naturally wanted to try something new. Searching for recipes, I stumbled on the Suédois in the CocktailDB. The only hint as to the source is that this is invented by G. Buller. If anybody knows who that is, I’d be delighted to know. The cocktail’s name is French for Swedish.

Made as listed, I found that the gin brought out the harsher flavors in the Punsch. I added some vanilla simple syrup, and this smoothed out the drink and brought it all together.

Suédois de vanille

1 1/2 oz gin (Bombay)
1 oz Swedish Punsch (homemade, Tales Version)
1/2 oz dry vermouth (Martini and Rossi Bianco)
1/4 oz vanilla simple syrup

stir over ice for at least 30 seconds, strain into cocktail glass, sip and think of Sweden.

For the vanilla syrup, I used Rick’s recipe on Kaiser Penguin

Vanilla Simple Syrup

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
1 vanilla bean, split

bring ingredients to simmer, simmer covered for 2 minutes, remove from heat and steep for 2 hours. Strain into bottle.

A big thanks to Doug for hosting this MxMo, which finally inspired me to make Swedish Punsch. I’ll be enjoying it for quite a while, given the amount I made, but happily, the recipe was a big success and I’m looking forward to more experiments with my ingredients, Made from Scratch! Now head on over to the Pegu Blog to see the whole wrap up from everybody who participated!

[1] I used the 7mm insert on my mandoline

Ginger Syrup

Stevi — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:39:58 +0000

I love ginger. Ginger ale, ginger beer, gari, gingersnaps, gingered mashed potaotes, you name it, I will presume I’ll love it if it’s flavored with ginger.

Back in my homebrewing days, I flirted with making my own ginger beer, but never followed through. I did make my own ginger syrup, and found that when mixed with soda water, it make a very tasty, and very affordable, version of ginger beer.

After several recent Thursday Drink Nights featured high usage of ginger syrup, I realized it was time to try making some of my own again. Naturally I’ve lost my old recipe, which I recall being terribly complicated. This time I wanted as simple as possible. After checking out several, I decided to start with a version offered by the Minimalist.

I didn’t see the need to make the simple syrup first, so I went the super lazy route.

Ginger Syrup

3 cups water
2 cups sugar
6 ounces ginger root, roughly chopped (no need to peel)

put ingredients in decent sized saucepan. bring to boil. let simmer for 15-20 minutes (until up to half-reduced). strain solids from syrup. let syrup cool. put in easy to pour bottle. use with joyful abandon!

I couldn’t understand why it was taking so long for my syrup to boil until I recalled that I used frozen ginger root. I put ginger root in the freezer so it keeps longer. I also find it grates much more easily when frozen. But it takes longer to get to boiling temperature when put in water and sugar. Next time I’ll try unfrozen¹ ginger root and see if it makes much difference in the taste. The kitchen smelled absolutely wonderfully of fresh ginger while this simmered, and the syrup has a fantastic aroma.

Using this recipe, I ended up with just shy of 750 ml (25.36 ounces, or the size of what we think of as a fifth of liquor). I poured this into a recently emptied bottle of Lillet, and labeled it prominently so I don’t surprise myself.

Instant Ginger Beer

2 oz ginger syrup
soda water

pour ginger syrup in a rocks glass filled with ice. top with soda water. stir. enjoy!

My first use was to make my own instant ginger beer. I started with 2 ounces in a rocks glass, and found that that plus ice plus soda water made exactly what i wanted – sweet gingery goodness.

Naturally I started adding ginger to everything I could think of. One of my favorites is to use it in place of simple syrup in a daiquirí. Use a dark Jamaican rum instead of a light rum, and you get something that hints at the flavors of falernum.

Dark Ginger Daiquirí

2 oz dark Jamaican rum (Appleton Estate Extra 12 year)
1 oz ginger syrup
3/4 oz lime juice

shake over ice. strain into cocktail glass. sip happily.

What uses can you think of for ginger syrup?

[1] What’s the word I’m looking for…prefrozen? Oh. That’s right. Fresh

MxMo XXX: Local Flavor — Blackberry Gin Shrub

Stevi — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:24:00 +0000

When Kevin Kelpe at Save the Drinkers announced that August’s Mixology Monday would be about local flavor, I knew I’d have to come to terms with the blackberry, my great summertime foe.

In the Seattle area, we are overrun by the Himalayan wild blackberry, considered an invasive weed. When I ride in the summer, I wear chaps to protect my legs from the thorny vines I swear I can see growing, while my horse has to put up with them grabbing her legs and chest. We spend hours every summer cutting back the latest incursions into our trails so we can continue to get through. Leave a trail for a summer, and you may lose it forever to blackberry brambles.

Still, the fruit of these weeds is quite tasty. In late summer, we declare a truce and enjoy stopping every few feet to grab a berry or ten to munch as we go.

Thinking about blackberries, I realized this would be a great time to try making a shrub. A shrub is a blend of fruit juice, syrup, and spirits. Frequently the syrup includes vinegar for some acidity and balance. I went out to the nearest blackberry thicket to pick some fruit.

I’m not sure if it’s the cold, wet summer we’ve had,¹ but the fruit this year is barely visible, still very green. There was no chance of picking my own fruit for this month’s drink. I went to the store to discover that blackberries from Puyallup are available, but they were a tad pricey and I needed two pints for the syrup recipe. Plus, I just hate paying money for blackberries, even if what they sell in the store are large, cultivated berries.²

Then I remembered that I have a bottle of blackberry wine. Looking at the label on this homemade speciality, courtesy of friends of the family, I was worried about whether it had kept since it was bottled in 2002. Happily, it was just fine. A slight taste of vinegar, but no more so than many homemade wines we’ve had before. My trusted taster Bryan liked it enough to pour himself a glass to drink straight.

I set to making it into syrup,³ figuring that the acidity of the wine would be a suitable replacement for vinegar in the shrub. Once the syrup had cooled, I tried the shrub recipe I’ve found in several places, only using gin instead of rum.

Why gin? Mostly because I like it and wanted to see how it would work here. Also, because it would give me a chance to buy another bottle of Dry Fly, distilled in Eastern Washington. It’s a “Washington Dry.” I like the taste of apples and hint of mint. In this drink, the apple and mint manage to sneak in under the blackberry and hit your tastebuds first, followed by the blackberry and finally the ginger of the ginger beer.

Bryan does not like Dry Fly at all.⁴ He describes the taste as boring in comparison to the brightness he finds in gins like Bombay Sapphire.

Made with Sapphire, this drink has a more consistent taste; there’s less a parade of flavors than a subtle blending which invites you to try to pick certain flavors out.

Personally, I like both. Which experience I prefer depends on my mood.

Blackberry Gin Shrub
2 oz gin (Dry Fly or Bombay Sapphire, depending on availability and your taste)
1 oz blackberry shrub syrup or blackberry wine syrup
4 oz ginger beer

build in highball glass over ice, give a nice stir, garnish with blackberries reserved from making syrup

Blackberry Wine Syrup
1 3/4 cups blackberry wine
1 cup sugar
6 fresh blackberries

bring wine and sugar to a boil over medium heat. add blackberries. let boil for 5 minutes, remove from heat to cool. strain into storage container. reserve blackberries for garnish, or just eat ‘em.

Blackberry Shrub Syrup
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
2 pints blackberries
2 cups white wine vinegar

Bring water and sugar to a boil. Add blackberries and reduce to simmer for 10 minutes. Add vinegar, bring to boil for two minutes. Allow to cool and then strain into storage container.

I suspect this would also be tasty with soda water instead of ginger beer, as the syrup is sweet enough on its own and the gin and blackberries bring plenty of flavor to the party.

Speaking of party, head on over to Save the Drinkers and enjoy the rest of this month’s Mixology Monday posts. A big thank you to Kevin for hosting!

–
[1] Or I’m just not patient enough…
[2] Pardon me, aggregate fruit
[3] That’s right, Gabriel, a drink with ingredients you can’t get!
[4] In the interest of full disclosure, Bryan’s not a big gin fan in general. cf. MxMo: Bourbon.