Rosemary cordial - damn fine.
The backstory: B & I stopped by 43 on our way to dinner to get liquored up (we weren't looking forward to that particular dinner w/ friends - they chose the place). It was a quiet Wednesday night, it was early. We sat at the bar. The bartender was in a good mood, and when we tried one of his special drinks off the menu and loved it, he offered us some other fun stuff he'd been making. Cordials, bitters, and so on. All very good, very fun. But what blew me away was the rosemary cordial. He added pear nectar, a squeeze or two of lime, and crushed juniper berries - zowie.
Fast forward a few months, we're back at 43 because I need more of that rosemary cordial. And he doesn't have any more - he's on to new things, cool things, but they just aren't the same. So I basically start whining about the lack of rosemary cordial, so he tells me how to make it:
steep a bunch of rosemary in vodka (he recommends Cold River vodka, from Maine, a real and wonderful potato vodka, though he definitely endorses using cheaper stuff for the cordials because the taste will be mutated) for a week. Stir in half as much sugar as vodka, let it steep another week. Taste it. Take the rosemary out if you like it. Drink it.
That's it.
So of course we didn't just make rosemary, we made rosemary with honey, regular rosemary, chai spices, and hot pepper - you know those little asian dried hot peppers? We also tried to make cilantro - but after the week it was funk dog so we tossed it.
The chai is amazing - we made an iced cocktail with condensed milk and black tea. I've been drinking the rosemary with pear and lime and crushed juniper berries. The hot pepper - well, the cocktail part eludes us. The cordial is very very very hot. So we're still mulling it over.
The backstory: B & I stopped by 43 on our way to dinner to get liquored up (we weren't looking forward to that particular dinner w/ friends - they chose the place). It was a quiet Wednesday night, it was early. We sat at the bar. The bartender was in a good mood, and when we tried one of his special drinks off the menu and loved it, he offered us some other fun stuff he'd been making. Cordials, bitters, and so on. All very good, very fun. But what blew me away was the rosemary cordial. He added pear nectar, a squeeze or two of lime, and crushed juniper berries - zowie.
Fast forward a few months, we're back at 43 because I need more of that rosemary cordial. And he doesn't have any more - he's on to new things, cool things, but they just aren't the same. So I basically start whining about the lack of rosemary cordial, so he tells me how to make it:
steep a bunch of rosemary in vodka (he recommends Cold River vodka, from Maine, a real and wonderful potato vodka, though he definitely endorses using cheaper stuff for the cordials because the taste will be mutated) for a week. Stir in half as much sugar as vodka, let it steep another week. Taste it. Take the rosemary out if you like it. Drink it.
That's it.
So of course we didn't just make rosemary, we made rosemary with honey, regular rosemary, chai spices, and hot pepper - you know those little asian dried hot peppers? We also tried to make cilantro - but after the week it was funk dog so we tossed it.
The chai is amazing - we made an iced cocktail with condensed milk and black tea. I've been drinking the rosemary with pear and lime and crushed juniper berries. The hot pepper - well, the cocktail part eludes us. The cordial is very very very hot. So we're still mulling it over.
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