Monday, December 6, 2010

lapsang souchong buck

1 oz Old Monk Rum
3/4 oz Lapsang Souchong Syrup
3/4 oz Lemon Juice
1/2 oz Hartley & Gibson Amontillado Sherry

Shake with ice and strain into a highball filled with ice cubes. Top with 1 oz of ginger ale, and garnish with Smoking Ban Bitters (substitute Abbott's or other aromatic bitters), a wide lemon twist, and a straw.

I envied Andrea's 7:16 L.S. Cocktail (rye, Lapsang Souchong syrup, bitters in Old Fashioned format) at Ben Sandrof's Sunday Salon, but I want something a little different. Therefore, I asked Ben what else he could do with the Lapsang Souchong tea syrup. After suggesting that we stick with rum, Ben filled in the gaps with lemon juice, amontillado sherry, and ginger ale. While the drink was a tasty highball, Ben commented that it would probably make an excellent cocktail as well if he left out the soda.
The drink's nose was full of allspice, clove, and bay rum notes from the bitters and lemon oil from the twist. A ginger and lemon sip was followed by a rich rum flavor, a slight nuttiness from the sherry, and a smoky aftertaste from the tea. When Andrea had a taste, she commented that it "tastes like bacon!" which I will have to take her word on.

3 comments:

Craig said...

Is the tea in this recipe a syrup? If so, do you know the tea/sugar ratio used to make the syrup?

frederic said...

From having spoken to Ben a lot in the past about making various syrups, he probably made a strong (but not overly steeped time-wise, i.e.: 5 minutes) tea infusion -- like 2 tsp to a cup of water. Remove tea and add an equal part of sugar (if you used a cup of water, add a cup of sugar). Recipe is scalable. If you're going to keep the syrup for any length of time over a week, add about 1 oz of 80-100 proof vodka per 16 oz or so of syrup (1 cup water + 1 cup sugar = 1.5 cup or 12 oz syrup), and store in a bottle in the fridge.

Craig said...

Thanks. I made this tea syrup last night, and used it an tequila old-fashioned (grapefruit peel, 2 barspoons of syrup, homemade hot chili bitters, 3 oz. of El Tesoro anejo) because I don't have any Mezcal, which a lot of bars seem to use in their tequila-based old-fashioneds. I will try this drink tonight, as I am making a soup that has some sherry in it, so it'll be a nice tie-in drink.

Also when I was messing around with the Lapsang Souchang tea, I was inspired to whip up a new bitters recipe using them as a smoky base flavor. I'll let you know how they turn out.