Artisan Series Brandies & Smoke

I just had an interesting cocktail making session at home this evening, and thought I should throw up a quick post about it.

I've been working on some new cocktails for the Pear Brandy, the Kirsch, and the Grappa. This has been a bit challenging because the brandies have a wonderful nose and a delicate flavor that I don't want to bury with too many other ingredients. In addition I've been working on some cocktails for a couple of cocktail paired dinners in the near future. One of the flavors I've been working with is smoke. You can incorporate smoke into cocktails a number of different ways. You can use peaty Scotch like Laphroig, add smoked ingredients, or as I tried this evening smoke your glass. To smoke a glass basically light some wood, herbs, or spices on fire in a metal dish, and cover with your glass you will serve your cocktail in. As your ingredient smolders it's smoke coats the inside of your glass.


This is not a new technique, but one that is used very infrequently and I think should be explored more thouroughly. So, after a number of trials here are the two that stuck for me.

Smoky the Pear
2 oz Great Lakes Distillery Pear Brandy
1/2 oz Honey Syrup (3 parts honey to 1 part water)
1 Bay Leaf
- In a heat proof dish light a dried bay leaf on fire. Let it burn momentarily and slowly cover with the glass you will pour you drink into. While the glass is smoking combine pear brandy and honey syrup in a shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into the smoked glass. Enjoy.

Smoldering Grappa
2 oz Great Lakes Distillery Grappa
1/2 oz Agave Nectar (found in most health food stores)
1 tsp wormwood
- In a heat proof dish light a wormwood on fire. Let it burn momentarily and slowly cover with the glass you will pour you drink into. While the glass is smoking combine grappa and agave nectar in a shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into the smoked glass. Enjoy.

These are way too much fun. Just enough smoke and sweetness to enhance the brandies, but not so much flavor that the subtlties of the spirits are lost. Although these drinks are probably not for everyday drinking the technique is a lot of fun and the cocktails are delicious.

Bonus:
While digging through my collection of herbs, spices and whatnot looking for things to light on fire for my smoke experiments, I found some dried chamomile. So I made a chamomile syrup (1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup chamomile - dissolve sugar simmer for 20 min, strain). This is awsome with gin, in fact I am finishing my second Chamomile Sour as I write this.

Chamomile Sour
2 oz Rehorst Gin
3/4 oz fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 oz chamomile syrup
1/2 of an egg white
dash of my homemade ginger ginseng bitters, or orange bitters will do
-Shake all ingredients with ice extra hard for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Enjoy.

Cheers.