My first cocktail for Access Carolina, I make a Halloween-inspired cocktail, Jason’s Revenge. This features Scapegrace Gin from New Zealand and Apologue Spirits
https://www.foxcarolina.com/video/2022/10/21/spooky-cocktail-jason-revenge/
In the third installment of Books Over Drinks, M. Judson had bestselling author Mary Kay Andrews in town to promote her new book, The Homewreckers (St. Martin’s Press, 2022). From the author’s site:
Hattie Cavanaugh went to work helping clean up restored homes for Cavanaugh & Son Restorations at eighteen; married the boss’s son at twenty; and was only twenty-five when her husband, Hank, was killed in a motorcycle accident.
Broken hearted, but determined to continue the business of their dreams, she takes the life insurance money, buys a small house in a gentrifying neighborhood, flips it, then puts the money into her next project. But that house is a disaster and a money-loser, which rocks her confidence for years to come. Then, Hattie gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: star in a beach house renovation reality show called “The Homewreckers,” cast against a male lead who may be a love interest, or may be the ultimate antagonist. It’s a question of who will flip, and who will flop, and will Hattie ever get her happily-ever-after.
Filled with Mary Kay Andrews’s trademark wit, warmth, junking trips, and house porn, The Homewreckers is a summer beach delight.
With that in mind, I wanted something that would match the beach read-i-ness of the book (and all of Andrews’s books, from what I’ve gathered over time). Thus the Savannah Sunrise. It’s simple and light, and can be made lighter by cutting with club soda (or turned into a blended frozen drink on especially hot days).
Note: I’d also garnish with a mint leaf for color, but we were batching 80 cocktails and speed/efficiency was the name of the game.
Method: Add all ingredients to shaker with ice except grenadine. Shake well and pour into a Collins glass with ice. Drizzle grenadine on top. Garnish with a mint leaf.
One of the things I realized, quickly after starting working with the fine, fine folks at M. Judson for Books Over Drinks was that I enjoyed the challenge of working with books by authors that I didn’t know. It’d be one thing to create a cocktail for a book by an author I’ve read everything from (in case you want a drink, TC Boyle, you just say the word), but getting to experience new books by different voices is surprisingly fun. For this round, I was tasked with coming up with a drink for Kimberly Brock’s The Lost Book of Eleanor Dare. From the author’s website:
The fate of the world is often driven by the curiosity of a girl.
What happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke remains a mystery, but the women who descended from Eleanor Dare have long known the truth lies in what she left behind: a message carved onto a large stone and the contents of her treasured Commonplace Book. Brought from England on Eleanor’s fateful voyage to the New World, her book was passed down through the fifteen generations of daughters who followed as they came of age. Thirteen-year-old Alice had been next in line to receive it, but her mother’s tragic death fractured the unbroken legacy and the Dare Stone and the shadowy history recorded in the book faded into memory. Or so Alice hoped.
In the waning days of World War Two, Alice is a young widow and a mother herself when she is unexpectedly presented with her birthright: the deed to Evertell, her abandoned family home and the history she thought forgotten. Determined to sell the property and step into a future free of the past, Alice returns to Savannah with her own thirteen-year-old daughter, Penn, in tow. But when Penn’s curiosity over the lineage she never knew begins to unveil secrets from beneath every stone and bone and shell of the old house and Eleanor’s book is finally found, Alice is forced to reckon with the sacrifices made for love and the realities of their true inheritance as daughters of Eleanor Dare.
In this sweeping tale from award-winning author Kimberly Brock, the answers to a real-life mystery may be found in the pages of a story that was always waiting to be written.
The inspiration for this drink came from the beautiful cover, specifically the peacock feathers. To capture their essence, I used butterfly pea flower tea, which changes color when it interacts with acid. (You can read the science behind it at Bon Appétit.) From there, I added some rum and a few other ingredients, and voila!
Method: Add rum, tea, and simple syrup to a shaker with ice and shake well. Strain into a glass with ice. Top with lemon and lime juice and stir to see the color change.
A few weeks ago, I was attending an event at my local indie bookstore, M. Judson Booksellers, to celebrate the launch of my friend Taylor Brown’s incredible new book Wingwalkers — y’all need to read it, by the way — when I had an idea. The event, Books Over Drinks, gives you a chance to meet the author, hear them read, get a copy of a book and a cocktail (or beer/wine if you prefer). That night, because of the book, we were having Paper Planes. It was a perfect pairing. After the event, I went up to the owner of the shop and offered up a proposition — I’d be happy to come up with the custom cocktails and serve them if she gives me a copy of the book to work with and allows me to be at the event. She agreed. Easiest win-win ever, in my opinion. Thankfully, M. Judson had a couple in the immediate future, so I got to work.
The first event I participated in was with Katherine Reay and her new book The London House (Harper Muse 2021). From the author’s site:
An uncovered family secret sets one woman on the journey of a lifetime through the history of Britain’s WWII spy network and glamorous 1930s Paris in an effort to understand her past, save her family, and claim her future.
One call could bring ruin to her family name.
Caroline Payne thinks it is just another day at work when she receives a call from Mat Hammond, a doctoral candidate, who has uncovered a dark and scandalous family secret: her British great-aunt defected to the Nazis to marry her German lover.
The letters tell a different story.
In search of answers, Caroline flies to London to search her grandmother’s diaries and her aunt’s letters. In them she discovers the “Waite girls” and a time of peace and luxury in the interwar years that is beyond anything she ever imagined. But the buoyant tone quickly changes as the sisters grow older, fall in love with the same man, and one leaves home to join the glamorous art scene of 1930s Paris—all amid the rumblings of war.
But history won’t let its secrets go so easily.
The more Caroline learns, the more questions she has. Together Caroline and Mat work to dig out answers, uncovering stories of spies and love, of family rifts, and of one fateful evening in 1941. Will the truth they uncover heal the decades-old family wounds, or will they tear the family even further apart?
From this, I knew I had to use gin, and I wanted to use other ingredients that evoked London. So, tea (naturally).
Note: This one is great hot, too.
Method: Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice and shake well. Strain into a glass with ice and garnish with a lemon wedge.
I’ve been a fan of Stranahan’s for a few years now, since getting to experience the annual Snowflake release for the first time in 2017.
(Sidebar: I also made one of my best booze-writing friends on that trip, too! There’s something to be said for being outside and a little drunk on coffee and whiskey at 3 a.m. in Denver in December.)
While at the distillery, I had my first real experience with American Single Malt whiskey and got to try not only their Original and Diamond Peak but of course the Snowflake release (which people used to line up for days in advance, camping out outside the distillery.) I forget what the release was for that year, but this year, I was able to go back to Stranahan’s for the first Snowflake release in two years. Instead of being at the distillery, as it used to, this year’s release took place at the iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre. I could go into the natural beauty of the spot, but words wouldn’t do it justice. Well, one word does:
Damn.
(I’ll be getting to the cocktail, I promise, more on Snowflake first.)
Seeing Red Rocks for the first time is a humbling experience. Then, when you pair it with delicious whiskey it becomes a whole new experience. Seeing that many people coming together to celebrate a special release is fun, and it is a nice reminder that sometimes all it takes to get along is a good drink.
This year featured two releases, Sunshine Peak (the 2020 release) and Mount Eolus. Sunshine Peak was finished in apple brandy (Calvados and Applejack) as well as Moscatel and Cabernet wine casks. Mount Eolus, on the other hand, was finished in rye, reposado tequila, extra añejo tequila, French oak, lightly peated whisky, and tawny port barrels. They are very different whiskeys that appeal to different palates.
I preferred the fresher, brighter Sunshine Peak over the richer, spicier Mount Eolus, but both have their place. I think of Sunshine Peak as a spring and summer whiskey while cooler fall days call for Mount Eolus. The unfortunate thing about Snowflakes, though, is that unless you are there that day, you ain’t getting any. The whiskeys sell out every year, and for good reason. I will, however, be savoring my bottles as long as possible.
Anyway, cocktail time. This drink features Stranahan’s Blue Peak, an American Single Malt that is aged in new American oak and Solera finished. (Solera being a fractional blending method, which results in a variety of ages being blended together.) I liked the mix of mellow single malt whiskey with tropical pineapple and just a bit of added heat from the cayenne. I couldn’t necessarily have more than one of these, but that’s what a rocks glass, a big ol’ cube, and straight whiskey are for.
Ingredients:
Method: Stir Stranahan’s Blue peak, pineapple liqueur, maple syrup, chili bitters, and orange twist in a glass over a large ice cube. Garnish with dried pineapple and a sprinkle of cayenne.
No long screeds about anything today. I was sent this cocktail from Catoctin Creek Distilling Company, located in Purcellville, VA, and they had me from Tajín. (Well, they had me before that, because I’m a fan of the distillery’s whiskeys, but the Tajín sealed it.)
Tajín, the spicy, citrusy Mexican spice blend that graces the rims of many, many Micheladas and other drinks (both sweet and savory), was invented in 1985, according to Kat Thompson, writing for Thrillist. It’s infinitely useful and I always have some in my house. Here the piquancy is heightened by the citric acid, which then bring out the lemon peel flavors in the whiskey. Pair these notes with the sweet orange flavors and the vanilla in the whiskey and you get a nice, incredibly bright (without being too tart) cocktail. It’s a reminder that summer is just over the horizon and we’ll soon be sweating our asses off (at least here in South Carolina). This one would work well, too, as a batched cocktail for Taco Tuesday or any other excuse you might have to drink with friends.
(Cocktail recipe courtesy Denise Petty, tasting room manager at Catoctin Creek Distilling Co., Purcellville, VA)
Method: Stir, fine strain, and pour over fresh ice. Garnish with Tajin dusted orange rose.
(Note: As there will be with most of these recipe posts, scroll down to the bottom to ignore all the personal crap that only we as writers care about and everyone on the internet decries when looking for recipes. But… this is my site, so my personal crap stays.)
Flavored whiskeys have, historically, been always iffy for me. It may be the fact that my first experiences with them are the cheapest, sugary-est, bottom shelf-est iterations out there (because college), but so many quite literally have left a bad taste in my mouth over the years. When I was in grad school (Round 1, Montana), Fireball was new on the market and as a poor grad student — and this is not something I’m proud of — would buy it by the pint and mix it with Sprite or other sodas.
Remember, not proud of that. I liked the slogan “Tastes like heaven, burns like hell” and at that time in my life I wasn’t exactly picky with what I was drinking. (Read: I’d drink anything and copious amounts of it while telling myself it was to stave off a Montana winter when it was more just me not being in control of myself, but that’s for another essay at another time). Thankfully, once I left Montana, I’ve only had a few select experiences with Fireball since (one in which I lost a sandal walking home), but for the most part, have successfully avoided it. What I found time and again is, yes, a flavored whiskey should taste like the flavor it is purporting to be, but it should also taste like, you know, whiskey. Most do not.
Skip ahead, skip ahead, and now it feels like we’re seeing more and more flavored whiskey products hitting the market than I remember seeing before. Myriad flavors seem to occupy the shelves now, from standards like cinnamon or ginger to newer combinations, like peanut butter (okay, Skrewball and its competition aren’t that new anymore) and coffee. That’s how I was introduced to Kentucky Coffee.
Kentucky Coffee is a 33% ABV spirit made from “Kentucky Whiskey & Rich Coffee” and is produced in Bardstown, KY. A quick taste on its own gives off coffee on the nose and a hint of whiskey on the palate. The most prominent flavor I got was maple syrup, which I assume was in some way involved in the sweetening process. I proceeded to dump the rest of my pour into my coffee and it was great. The sweetness is nice with plain black coffee and not overwhelming. I’d only be able to have one — I’m usually a straight bourbon in my coffee kind of person — but for those that usually use sweetener or flavored creamer, this would be an admirable substitution.
Anyway, the cocktail.
Originally proposed as a shot, I did not want to do that, so I added a few ingredients to both make it a sipper and make it less sweet (added ingredients are italicized). I’m sure it’s lovely as-is, but as-is wasn’t for me in this case.
Method: Add ingredients into a cocktail shaker. Add ice and shake. Strain into a glass, and garnish with a pinch of toasted coconut flakes.
On its own, the original would’ve been way too sweet for me, even as a shot. I wanted to make it more bitter and make it something that would be sippable instead of shootable. I thought about adding soda to disperse the sugars a little more, but decided against it in the long run.
Kentucky Coffee retails for around $19.99.
