tea berry-blue

Darn! It is almost my bedtime and I promised apple cocktails today. So here we go!

Fall has come and with fall come APPLES. If you live in the Northeast, like me, you are inundated with apples of all shapes and sizes, from tiny hard little sour apples to great big, soft apples that are good for piemakin’! Yellow apples, green apples, pink apples, red apples, even some purpley looking apples. All for us to eat!

But how can apples enhance our cocktail-makin’ experience? I mean, short of a sour appletini (and you know my feelings about those)?

Apples are AMAZING with liquor. They are especially good with gin or bourbon, although each complements apples in a different way.

For those of you who aren’t big drinkers or who are just learning, gin is light and usually citrusy and/or herbal. Bourbon is a bit heavier and often has rich caramel overtones. Gin tends to be better for refreshing, summer drinks (although it’s very versatile and can make some good winter drinks, too), and in the winter, I start mixing more drinks with bourbon.

For today, I have two different bourbon-and-apple recipes that are good fall drinks.

1) Sappy Apple

Sappy Apple

For two drinks:
6 oz bourbon (I use Maker’s Mark) or bourbon-style whiskey
1/2 large apple (I used Cortlands, a large, tart red apple) plus two slices of apple
2 Tbs maple syrup
2 Tbs brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon (I used Saigon cinnamon)
Ice
2 sprigs cinnamon basil for garnish

Put ice in martini glasses to chill with slices of apple
Add ice to shaker
Add maple syrup, brown sugar, and cinnamon to shaker and shake.
Chop 1/2 apple into small (1/4″) pieces and add to shaker.
Shake again to coat apple in syrup mixture
Open shaker and muddle with wooden spoon (”muddling” is when you stir something with a wooden spoon to crush it. Get the apple good and crushed until it is mooshy)
Add bourbon and shake again
Remove ice from glasses and pour drinks! Add apple and basil for garnish.

2) Honeypie

Honeypie

For two drinks:
6 oz bourbon
6 oz bourbon (I use Maker’s Mark) or bourbon-style whiskey
1/2 large apple (I used Cortlands, a large, tart red apple) plus two slices of apple
1 lemon
1/4 cup chopped cinnamon basil, plus two sprigs for garnish
2 Tbs clover honey or other local honey.
Ice

Put ice in martini glasses to chill with slices of apple
Add ice to shaker
Add honey to shaker
Squeeze in juice from lemon
Add chopped basil.
Chop 1/2 apple into small (1/4″) pieces and add to shaker.
Open shaker and muddle with wooden spoon (”muddling” is when you stir something with a wooden spoon to crush it. Get the apple good and crushed until it is mooshy)
Add bourbon and shake again
Remove ice from glasses and pour drinks! Add apple and basil for garnish.

You will notice that the actual process for these recipes is pretty similar, but they look and taste very different– the honey, basil and lemon versus the maple and brown sugar make for really different flavors. You can vary the ingredients however you want, use different herbs and sweeteners. The one important thing is to chop the apple up very small and crush it. Crushed apples let some of their juice into the liquor and sweeten and flavor the drink. If you are finding that your apples are not flavorful enough even after crushing them a lot, add a 1/2 oz of Applejack (apple brandy) to the mix.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.