Birthdays have always been a production in our house. Favorite meals, cakes (yes, multiple cakes), candles and gifts with close friends and family. One would then expect nothing less for my brother’s 21st birthday, except that he is the most soft spoken, shy jokester of the fam. He would do away with all of the production (if my mom would allow it), hates being in the spot light and could careless about going out to a bar to be served his first legal drink. So in true shy guy style, we stayed in.

 

Now I couldn’t let him off the hook that easily, so I busted out some new recipes I had been waiting to try: special for his 21st! I recently discovered, shake by Eric Prum and Josh Williams, a cocktail recipe book that claims to have a new perspective on cocktails, and honestly it does!  I highly recommend checking it out:  the formatting and layout are truly superb and the recipes simply mouth-watering.  When I first leafed through I wanted to try each new recipe more than the last.

 

For my younger brother, who is still fairly new to the cocktail scene, I landed on the Rosemary Maple Bourbon Sour.

 

I wanted to introduce him to the smoky perfection of bourbon, without scaring him off; the addition of the maple syrup I thought would take the fire-breather burn out of the drink.  shake’s recipe calls for lemon juice, but there were no lemons in the house and I have never been one to shy away from improvising, so I substituted fresh squeezed orange juice.  I also added a couple dashes of Scrappy’s Orange Bitters, which I add whenever possible; bitters works wonders in any cocktail I have come to  find.

The combination of flavors was amazing!  So different from a manhattan, old fashioned or whiskey sour.  The rosemary is subtle and more noticeable with the nose than the palette, and the maple and citrus notes are addicting.  So here’s what I did:

Rosemary Maple Bourbon Sour

• 2 oz bourbon
• 1 oz fresh orange juice
• 1/2 oz maple syrup
• 2 dashes orange bitters
• 1 sprig of rosemary
• 1 can of seltzer water
• 1 sprig rosemary and 1 twist of orange for garnish

Crush 1 sprig of rosemary with your hand and add it to a 2 cup measuring cup.  Add the bourbon, orange juice, maple syrup and bitters to the measuring cup and gently stir to combine.  Fill a rocks glass with ice and pour mixture over the ice.  Top off with a splash of seltzer water and garnish with rosemary and twist of orange.  Optional:  When adding the twist of orange, if you carefully heat the orange peel with a lighter and while heating squeeze the peel’s oils into the glass, it adds a layer of smoky orange flavor that is incredible!

 

Tips and Suggestions:

• For this recipe I used Black Ridge Bourbon.  This is a smooth middle shelf bourbon that is great to use in drinks as well as sip on its own.  I wouldn’t use the most expensive bourbon you have, because there are so many other flavors you are layering in, but it is up to you.  Make it your own!
• Next time I make this, I will use half lemon juice and half orange juice.  I love the sweetness of the orange, but I would have liked the added tartness from the lemon.  While the drink was not overwhelmingly sweet, both the maple and orange are sweet flavors, so I think adding lemon juice would cut that sweetness just a bit.
• Lastly, I choose to add a splash of seltzer because a) I love carbonation and b) adding water to bourbon does not in fact dilute the cocktail, it actually enhances the flavor of the bourbon.  Without going into too much detail and geeking out, in Amy Stewart’s The Drunken Botanist, she explains that when water is added to bourbon, it actually allows the flavor molecules, which are fats, to break away from the ethanol, so our tongue can taste the flavor more fully.  How cool is that!

 

Needless to say, it was a hit with my brother and the perfect birthday beverage for our low key celebration.  Hope you enjoy this tasty treat as much as we did!