Tastes Like Summer!
How about something bright and refreshing with your soon to be favorite liqueur?
Two Atmosphere songs in a row? Entries once a week? I know, I know, finally finding my rhythm here, so allow me to do my thing.
I finally got around to getting a bottle of Leopold Bros. Rocky Mountain Blackberry Liqueur a bit ago, which I had been meaning to get for a while now to make Don’s Own Grog as featured in Smuggler’s Cove book. And I gotta say, it’s an absolutely lovely liqueur, with a bright and beautiful reddish color that is only matched by its flavor. It’s a perfect summery liqueur, or maybe that’s just how blackberries make me feel as I think about picking them with my grandfather so my grandmother could make a pie or picking them along the trails of northern Minnesota while hiking.
That got me to thinking of other lovely summery bottles in my collection. While I enjoy a good blackberry, my favorite summer fruit is without a doubt the humble peach. I’ve been working my bottle of Rothman & Winter Orchard Peach Liqueur pretty well over the past year (how else are you supposed to make a good rum punch?)
From there, then it was a question about what to do with the wonderful flavors of peaches and blackberries. That always makes me think of a nice cobbler. Lemon always shines with stonefruit and berries (lemon zest will make all your baked goods with fruit better, I hope I’m not the first person to tell you that), so lemon seemed like a good citrusy base of choice. And while I was thinking about cobbler, I grabbed all the fun liqueurs and syrups you might use to compliment a good cobbler, a bit of vanilla, some cinnamon, a dash of allspice. From there it was simply a question of which liquor made the most sense.
Well in this house, it’s usually rum, and I didn’t see any reason to deviate from the norm. But of course, there is still the question of which rum(s)? I wanted to lean in with more complimentary rums that carried similar notes, so the obvious choices as I thought about it were Barbancourt 8 and Flor de Caña 12 because I really wanted softer rums with vanilla and caramel notes I guess? Anyway, here is where I landed with the first take on this drink:
1.5 oz lemon juice
.25 oz cinnamon syrup
.25 Vanille de Madagascar
.5 oz Blackberry Liqueur
.5 oz Peach Liqueur
.75 oz Barbancourt 5 Star
1 oz Flor de Cana 12
a bar spoon of Allspice dram
Take that all and put it in your mixing tin, give it a real good shake, and strain into a double rocks glass. Top with fresh crushed ice, garnish with mint, raspberries, and a touch of nutmeg.
I would adjust the lemon down a bit next time, and maybe bring the cinnamon syrup up. It ended up a bit tarter than I intended (though I didn’t mind, it was like a super refreshing lemonade, but I didn’t mean to dial up that flavor next time.
Tastes like summer!
Until next week
This is Trader Jane’s, a periodic newsletter about drinks (mostly tiki) and other fun writing. Follow me on Substack for something every week or two (if we are being honest), and follow me on Twitter and Instagram for more timely updates on my beverages (and for lots of other things of course!)
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