More Infused Spirits and a Holiday Drink Recipe

By now you’ve all figured out that I’m on quite the infused spirits tear here and it doesn’t really show any signs of slowing down.  This week’s treat is a rosemary infused gin.  Yes my friends…herbs are not just for cooking.

I had a fantastic cocktail when I was in New York a couple of months ago that was my inspiration for this drink.  It was a rosemary infused gin with peaches, tomatoes and a bit of balsamic.  I know it sounds really strange, but it was so good I went back the next night for that drink and got several other takers that agreed with me that it was confoundingly delicious.  I of course needed to create yet another one of my infused spirits science projects all under the guise of classic cocktails research.

I got to thinking that I needed another holiday drink recipe to add to the Apple Sidecar and thought the flavors of this would make for a perfect starter drink to go with all of those tasty appetizers…or maybe this would be the appetizer (there is a slice of apple in this holiday cocktail – so that counts as food in my book).  I like the apple sidecar and this little number (soon to be added to the annals of holiday cocktails) as a nice change of pace to the usual holiday cocktails that tend to be overly sweet.  This one has a touch of sweetness, a bit more than the sidecar, but not too much.

The base of this drink uses Hendrick’s gin.  This is not your typical gin, in fact, it’s very atypical gin.  Hendrick’s gin isn’t the stuff of James Bond mystery or uptight businessmen in suits and ties.  No….Hendrick’s gin is a bit more….shall we say bohemian?  Oh, it’s gin alright, but it’s infused with rose petals and cucumbers.  Seriously!  But don’t go thinking this is some kind of sissy girly juice.  It’s still a gin, which means it too is made with juniper berries (among other things) but you don’t find yourself with a sudden urge to start cleaning your floors when you open the bottle.  Oh yeah, did I mention it’s made in Scotland?  I know, weird right?  But because of it’s unusual herbal base, it’s the perfect candidate for adding a wee bit more herbage (no, not that kind), I’m talking about rosemary.

But back to me and my cocktailmania….Rosemary is one of those classic flavors we associate with Spring and Fall.  So I set out to put together a cocktail that brought together as many of Fall’s great flavors as I could while still allowing them all to shine.  If I do say so myself, I think I did with this one.  In fact, pretty much all of these flavors can be found in my holiday turkey recipe.  Although I think this drink tastes a whole lot better than those Thanksgiving dinner themed Jones soda packs.

See if this doesn’t become one of your classic cocktails, or at least a favorite holiday drink recipe.

I don’t really have any sage advice for you today, since this was a rosemary posting day (oh I crack myself up sometimes – not really).  But I have been hearing the new Cee-Lo Green song ‘F**k You’ and I love it.  If you really listen to the words there’s a great message in there, and no matter how many times our parents tried to tell us these things, we just didn’t believe them.  But if people learned this earlier (both men and women) everyone would be much better off.  In a nutshell: you might be the greatest guy in the world but she doesn’t like you because you don’t have enough money, but at some point down the road you’ll have more and what will she have…not you.  So don’t pine away for someone that doesn’t like you, move on and find someone who will because you won’t be the same person 2-5-10-15 years from now.

Tags: classic cocktails, drink recipe, hendrick's gin, holiday cocktails, holiday drink recipes, infused spirits, juniper berries, Relationship Advice, tasty appetizers