Thursday, December 23, 2010

I Am Giving a Scotch Cocktail for Christmas

I bought a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red two weeks ago. When I buy scotch I usually go for the single malts and mostly because I am going to sip it with my dad who loves scotch. He actually gave me my first drink of it many years ago. I still remember how surprised everyone was that I didn't hate it. That must have been a sign of things to come!

I bought the JW Red specifically to make cocktails with. There are several very well known scotch cocktails including the Rusty Nail and the Rob Roy. Being the spirits adventurer that I am I felt I needed to pull something together myself; challenging my mixology skills and adding an element of surprise. What I came up with is clearly a twist on a Sazerac using scotch instead of bourbon or rye.

My Little Ginger

3 oz Johnnie Walker Red
1 oz ginger simple syrup
4 dashes Regan's orange bitters
1 ice cube

Mix the scotch and ginger syrup in a rocks glass with one ice cube. Remove the ice and add the bitters, mixing slightly.

The ginger syrup was made by steeping slices of fresh ginger in boiled water. After extracting intense ginger flavor I removed the ginger and used the liquid for a 2x simple syrup.

The balance of spicy, sweet and smoky is excellent. It reminded me of the warmth of a crackling fire with the aromas of Christmas treats in the air. This drink is potent to be sure but I suspect that might be an asset during upcoming family gatherings where the noise and number of people can easily induce headaches!

I wish a very Merry Christmas to my faithful readers!

--Jason

5 comments:

Rich said...

Wow, this sounds like a pretty good cocktail; I may give myself a couple of these tonight as a pre-Christmas gift ...

Lori said...

Oh, that's a great little cocktail. We learned that Johnnie Walker is huge in Brazil so when we lived there we had to switch from bourbon to that. I like scotch, but my heart belongs to Woodford Reserve Bourbon. :)

JodieMo said...

Oh this sounds good. I vaguely remember a few Sazeracs I had in NOLA many years ago and they were delicious.

The Food Hunter said...

Sounds great. I love your little twist

Kate said...

Sounds wonderful, Jason! Hope you and Margot had a wonderful Christmas!! If you like scotch, you might like the Boss Tweed I've got on my blog. Even Connie who doesn't care for scotch happily drinks it. And, I LOVE scotch and request it about every other month. Kate @ kateiscooking