Boozy McGuzzles

I need to make a post about my experience at the Manhattan Cocktail Classic, but that requires me getting at least one photo off my camera and I am super lazy. So until I stop being so lazy, a cocktail recipe!

I promised there would be cocktail recipes for the vanilla-ginger rum, and I was not a liar. I just had to take some extra time for tasting, and an even longer time because I couldn’t think of names for the cocktails, which is like the most important thing! Well, maybe not most important.

First, the cocktail:

Porcupine Racetrack

Ingredients:
2 oz vanilla-ginger rum
champagne
4-5 dashes of orange bitters

Put the rum in a glass! Top with champagne! Dash some orange bitters on there! You have yourself a drink.

And why did I call it what I did? Because I asked a friend, “What should I call this drink?” And she answered, “PORCUPINE RACETRACK,” because that is what she answers almost every question with. And the more I thought about it, the more I liked it; the drink is a little prickly and easy to drink very quickly. It is perhaps what the posh porcupine racetrack goers might consume! Also, this should be known, I am a very silly person.

Now, I promise not to name the next cocktail I come up with the “Barry and Levon”.

It’s time for another nerd drink for nerds! Yes, another drink inspired by that fine bit of children’s programming (no, really, it’s good for adults, too!) Avatar: The Last Airbender. But you can drink it even if you’re not a big nerdface. This is another one that involves infusing a sugar syrup, because by god! I just love infusing things! It makes me feel like a mad scientist a little bit. (As an aside, when I was filtering the vanilla-ginger rum, with funnels and the what not, a friend my roommate had over passed through the kitchen and said, “What’s happening here?! Science is happening!” Drunk science, sir.)

ANYWAY the drink.

Fire Nation

Ingredients:
2 oz. shochu
1/2 oz. lemon juice
1/2 oz. habenero-ginger infused sugar syrup (recipe follows)

Combine all ingredients into a shaker filled with ice. Shake and strain into a cocktail glass. Enjoy, breathe fire.

Habenero-Ginger Infused Sugar Syrup

2/3 cup of sugar
2/3 cup of water
1 habenero pepper, chopped roughly
3-4 inches of ginger root, peeled and sliced into rounds, then crushed (squeeze the pieces in your hand before adding them to the pot)

This recipe makes a pretty decent amount of syrup, and it’ll keep in your fridge for about 2-3 weeks. Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan, and bring to a boil. Drop the heat to medium and simmer for about 10-15 minutes. It’ll thicken up some, and take on a nice reddish-brown, caramel-y color. Turn off the heat, and fish out the larger pieces with a spoon, and then strain the smaller fibers and seeds through cheesecloth or, as I did, my ever so handy tea ball. Chill in the fridge or freezer, depending on your patience level.

This syrup is sweet and flavorful and brilliantly spicy. It’d probably be good on some other stuff! Like… I don’t know, some fruit? Maybe why not!

As for the cocktail itself, if you didn’t want to go to the trouble of infusing syrup, you could probably mimic the taste by muddling a habenero and some ginger with sugar, but this method is untested, so don’t come crying to me if it’s bad and you burned your tongue and feel bad about yourself now!