Cocktail Confidential Vol. 10: Herb Syrup + Naming Cocktails
Green is the color of Spring
Living in New England, you really learn to love the changing weather every four months. We have very distinct seasons, and I truly don’t think I could handle anything differently.
~*bUt ThE sNoW iS aWfUl*~
Shut up. Grab a shovel, go outside and clear the sidewalks for yourself and enjoy some hot cocoa after.
I love seasons because the weather feels purposeful. Change inspires me to think about things differently and see them through a new lens. You get to look forward to tulips popping their little heads out of the ground in Spring, the buzz of farmers markets in the summer, driving through the White Mountains to see unrivaled foliage in the Fall and skiing those same peaks in the winter. Anything else just seems boring to me.
Winter is soon coming to a close, but even though we might not be done with snow, we can be done with baking spices and onto fresh herbs and all things green!
This week, we will be making a parsley, mint and dill syrup which is bright, fresh, delicious and versatile. It is super green. and will make your cocktails very healthy.
Below I will also discuss how I name drinks for the seasonal cocktail menu
Let’s get it
Trader Joe’s sells really awesome little herb containers that should be enough for this recipe.
What You’ll Need
Ingredients:
1/4 cup tightly packed mint
1/4 cup tightly packed dill
1/4 cup tightly packed parsley
2 cups very hot, almost boiling water
2 cups white sugar
Tools:
Measuring cups
Blender, Magic Bullet or Vitamix if you’re fancy
Fine strainer
Quart container or a Tupperware
Whisk or some other mixing utensil
Making the herb syrup:
Active time: 30 minutes
Pick the mint, parsley and dill off the stems, packing the leaves into your measuring cups until you have a 1/4 cup of each. Place them in the blender with the hot water and blend until smooth. Place the sugar into the quart container or Tupperware, and strain the herb mixture through the fine strainer over the sugar. Mix to combine.
You did it. You made herb syrup!
Now, let’s drink.
Herbs are a very gentle flavor, whereas warming and baking spices have a definitive punchiness to them. Because of that, I am going to be writing recipes in this volume that use primarily vodka, gin and white rum, which allow the herb syrup to shine through.
This is cool and all, but I’ve only ever made drinks a couple times: Gimlet
A gimlet uses lime juice, and a sour uses lemon juice. As limes are better than lemons, gimlets are better than sours!
1.5 oz vodka, gin or white rum
.75 oz herb syrup
.75 oz lime juice, freshly squeezed
Optional: 2 oz dry sparkling wine to top!
Add all ingredients to a shaking tin, add ice and shake for 15 seconds. Double strain into a chilled coupe glass and garnish with a mint leaf or a lime wheel. Do not drape a sprig of dill over it like a dickhead. It would be a waste of dill. Go cook some salmon.
Sipping Soundtrack: Cassie - The Light Shines On
I have a setup at home. Give me something I can impress with: Anise Daiquiri
Alright, so anisettes are super divisive because my generation, unless you were absolute sicko, give all our black licorice jelly beans on Easter to our grandparents who, for some reason, really enjoyed the taste. But some people still dig it. Most countries have an anisette - Herbsaint in the USA, Absinthe in France, Raki in Turkey, Ouzo in Greece - so it is a very commonly consumed beverage. This cocktail will include it and have a prominent anise flavor, but it will be complemented and brightened by the green herbs.
1.75 oz white rum
.25 oz anisette such as ouzo or sambuca
.75 oz herb syrup
.75 oz lime juice, freshly squeezed
Add all ingredients to a shaking tin, add ice and shake for 15 seconds. Double strain into a chilled coupe glass and garnish with a mint leaf or a lime wheel. Again, do not drape a sprig of dill over it like a dickhead.
Sipping Soundtrack: The Rakes - Capture / Release
Sound the cool guy alarm, because I have a full home bar: Minthe’s Demise
This was a recipe I came up with for the cocktail menu at the restaurant I work for, so it has a little Greek twist. It is light, refreshing, bright and bubbly. It definitely can be made into a pitcher of cocktails for an early Spring barbecue by multiplying everything by 4 or 5! The idea with this drink, which you will see in the mixing instructions, is to use 1 ice cube to aerate the cocktail but not dilute it or chill it even. Just gotta liven up the juices by giving it a shake.
1.5 oz vodka or gin
.5 oz mastic liqueur, such as Roots or Mastiha
.5 oz herb syrup
1 oz lemon juice, freshly squeezed
.5 oz grapefruit juice, freshly squeezed
1 dash orange bitters
Soda water, to top
Add all ingredients besides soda water to a shaking tin with a single ice cube and shake. Dump into a highball filled with ice and top with soda water, about 2 oz. Garnish with a lemon twist for an extra citrusy aroma!
Sipping Soundtrack: Niagara - Ouro Oeste
I don’t feel like drinking today: Sparkling Herb Lemonade
This drink slaps. It is so refreshing and lemonade is just begging people to make it more exciting.
All you have to do is mix equal parts freshly squeezed lemon juice, herb syrup and soda water over ice and gently stir. For a single serving, 2 oz of each should do, and for a pitcher go with 8 - 12 oz of each.
Feel free to adjust for tartness and sweetness as well. I personally prefer 1 part lemon juice, 1 part syrup and 1.5 parts soda water.
Sipping Soundtrack: Merrell and the Exiles - Dessert Island Treasures
The Insane Practice of Cocktail Names
Every Bar Manager/Beverage Director has their tricks. Maybe they’re drawing inspiration from a dish their mom cooked for them as a kid. Perhaps they’re citing specifics of a mythological tale that is relates to the style of food being cooked at the restaurant. Sometimes, simply adding a relevant descriptor in front of the classic cocktail they’re riffing on is the answer. Occasionally it seems it’s okay to just write “The [insert base spirit here] Drink”.
For me, naming cocktails is the most annoying part of making them. My process includes talking to the kitchen team about what they’re cooking to get some inspiration, I read the Flavor Bible for seasonally relevant ideas, get a classic cocktail in mind that I want to riff on, start some infusions and syrups and all that, then I make a cocktail. It usually takes my bar staff a couple weeks to a month to put together an 8-10 drink long seasonal menu.
Then I have to put names on them all. Working at a Mediterranean restaurant, I fortunately have a lot of mythology to pull from. Persephone’s Curse, for example, was a crowd-pleasing, Springtime whiskey sour with bourbon, ginger, pomegranate, lemon and bitters. Persephone was the daughter of Zeus and Demitria who was kidnapped by Hades and ate pomegranate seeds upon arrival in hell which cursed her to spend four months in the underworld as Hades’ wife while being able to spend 8 months on earth.
Minthe’s Demise, which is above, is a delicious vodka highball that is light and herbaceous. Minthe was an underworld river nymph that Hades, god of the dead, fell in love with. She eventually became his mistress, but Persephone, Hades’ wife banished her to the earth’s soil where she would grow and be stepped on. In order to partially right this while unable to reverse Persephone’s curse, Hades gave her a lovely smell, taste and color. Minthe is where the English word mint derives from.
As I mentioned above, sometimes highlighting the classic cocktail you’re riffing on with a descriptive word to indicate some changes you’ve made. One of my favorite restaurants in the South End in Boston called Toro has a Jerez Manhattan on the menu which uses sherry in in place of vermouth. I have made a drink called the Marrakesh Mai Tai which used two rums, curacao, orgeat, lime and prickly pear. Marrakesh is in Morocco and is known for its walled city lined with textile, pottery and food vendors. Prickly pears are sold in the spring and summer months by street vendors in Morocco, and they are known for producing prickly pear oil used for hydration in the arid desserts of North Africa. The flavor of pickly pear is extremely unique, as some say it it taste like a combination of watermelon and bubble gum.
But all that aside, I now name drinks using song lyrics from an album or band I listen to during that season. Last summer, I made a whole cocktail menu with Sublime lyrics. No one noticed.
The Lyrics:
I don't practice Santeria, I ain't got no crystal ball
I have no sunglasses as I step into the sun
Bright sun sinking low, I never feel afraid to let emotions show
Run to the party, dance to the rhythm it gets harder
You may hold some vision of truth
And I'd be waiting for you in the middle
Screaming that second gear was such a turn-on
Feel the break and I got to live it up, oh yeah huh
The Menu:
Crystal Ball - gin, sesame orgeat, falernum, lemon, peach
No Sunglasses - two rums, mastiha, cucumber, mint, lime, soda water
Bright Sun, Sinking Low - tequila, mezcal, mango, aleppo, lime, chamoy
Run To The Party - raki, rum, mastic, pineapple, coconut, lime
Vision Of Truth - rye whiskey, cognac allspice, plum, lemon, orange bitters
In The Middle - bourbon, roasted sweet corn, bitter corn liqueur, aleppo oil
Second Gear - french dry vermouth, spanish citrusy vermouth, gentian, gin
Got To Live It Up - vodka, basil, honeydew melon, green cardamom, lemon
I guess my point is this - you can take naming cocktails as seriously or lightheartedly as you’d like. If you’re making the gimlet from above, maybe you call it Herbal Gimlet. Or is can be Minthe’s Sipper. Or The Vodka One. Or quote LCD Soundsystem. Do whatever you want. It’s all gonna be in the toilet within 2 hours anyways.
FAQs
You’re talking a lot about cocktail tins and .75 oz and other stuff I’m unfamiliar with. Can you elaborate?
So in order to make these cocktails, you’ll need some basic bar tools. You can usually purchase these in a set with a cocktail shaker, a jigger (measuring tool), a barspoon for mixing, a Hawthorne strainer and a mixing glass. Jiggers typically have a 2 oz side with a 1.5 oz line, and a 1 oz side with a .5 and .75 line.
I don’t have a bunch of these cocktail tools, but this seems interesting. Where can I get all this stuff you’re talking about?
I personally would recommend checking out Cocktail Kingdom’s complete sets. They’re very high quality and beautifully crafted.
You’re talking a lot about glassware. What’s the difference between all of them and what would typically be served in them?
There are three primary cocktail glasses that every home bar should have - highball, double old fashioned and coupe.
Highball - Ever order a vodka soda close it? Jamo ginger? That is a highball glass! Tall and thin, usually 12 - 16 oz in volume.
Double Old Fashioned - The style is in the name! Old Fashioned! Other names include ‘rocks glass’, ‘tumbler’ or ‘low ball’. They’re short and sturdy and usually 10 - 12 oz in volume.
Coupe - This is a stemmed glass that has a broad, shallow bowl to sip your concoctions out of. Think martini glass but you don’t have to be scared of the physics behind drinking out of it. 6 - 8 oz in volume is the typical size.
My cocktail doesn’t seem ‘balanced’. What should I do?
Bartenders love getting into discussions about the ideal build for a classic gin gimlet or whiskey sour. Some prefer a 2:1:1 build which would mean 1.5 oz base spirit, .75 oz citrus juice and .75 oz bar syrup, while others prefer a 2:.5:.5, which would mean 2 oz base spirit, .5 oz citrus juice and .5 bar syrup. Some might even go 2:.75:.5. But the point is, people have different preferences and you can feel free to adjust. If you want more of an acidic pop, add more lemon or lime juice. If you want it a touch sweeter, add more bar syrup.
Why is there a ‘Tip Your Bartender’ button on here? Can’t you just make it a paid subscription?
Yes, technically I could. But unfortunately the minimum charge is $5 a month, and quite frankly I find that too steep. I’d like this to be accessible to everyone who wants to mix drinks at home, so I thought a ‘pay what you’d like’ system makes the most sense for this newsletter. Tips are absolutely not necessary but always appreciated!
What’re you concocting and talking about next week?
I dunno, that’s for next week. Stay tuned!