Ring in the season: Cocktails infused with baking spices bring on the holiday spirit
With so much in the world going, well, “not great, Bob,” it’s a cliché to suggest seeking out little things to be grateful for. For me, sometimes those little things are as small as a pod of star anise. Which brings me to adding spices to drinks, which can warm up your whole day.
Much mockery has been aimed at the ubiquitous PSL, but its basic formulation of spices — cinnamon, clove and nutmeg — is hard to debate. The combination works beautifully in so many holiday breads and pies, and they’re the backbone of the spice tincture I keep on my bar. But there are other spices that work great in holiday cocktails, too.
One of the best and easiest ways to spice things up comes in a little bottle every home bar should have: Angostura bitters. Its baking spice notes tie together Manhattans, add complexity to Old-Fashioneds and can enhance countless other drinks. That said, the intensity of bitters means you have to use them in careful measure — a dash too much and you can overpower a drink, not only with their spices but with the bitter botanicals.
Balancing liqueurs, on the other hand, requires compensating for their sweet side. Allspice dram, ginger liqueur, and a range of fruit and floral liqueurs that contain spice elements — St. George Spiced Pear and Sorel, made with hibiscus, are among my favorites for this time of year — are loaded with flavor; ditto some of the caramelly Italian amari — Averna, Ramazzotti, CioCiaro, Montenegro are all in the autumn-spiced zone.
One of my favorite seasonal cocktails, the Flannel Shirt, exemplifies how various sources of spice can build on each other for a drink that’s complex and hugely quaffable. With allspice dram, Angostura and Averna layered into rich Scotch whisky and fresh apple cider, its multiple parts add up to something bigger and better.
If you can’t get the flavors you’re after with a commercial bottling, you can make your own bitters and tinctures (think bitters without the bitter), spiced syrups or spirits infused with added spices. The main things to keep in mind for any of these: Heating spices helps release their flavorful components, and be sure to thoroughly strain the resulting liquids prior to use.
Having recently considering how well anise and orange work together, I turned to five-spice powder, a blend of multiple botanicals, to flavor a batch of simple syrup. The blend varies, but typically includes cloves, cinnamon, fennel, some kind of peppercorn and star anise. It’s a beautifully fragrant and complex mix, and like most spices, turns even richer when briefly toasted. The syrup worked beautifully for the Five-Spice Old-Fashioned, especially when the drink is zhushed with orange bitters and an expression of orange peel, which bump the aromatics even higher. Keep the leftover syrup for other holiday drinks — a more wintry Cosmo or a pomegranate daiquiri.
Toasting spices and then heating them again in a cocktail syrup gets their flavor and aroma into your glass. I usually lean toward making tinctures or syrups due to pure economics: Spices, sugar and a little grain alcohol are cheaper to experiment with than bottles of good spirits.
That said, if you’re hosting around the holidays, I encourage you to commit to the infusion required for the Pear of Queens, which is a tasty pre-dinner cocktail. It’s easy to scale up and pre-batch for company. The standard ground cardamom is what I used here, but if you’re grinding your own spices, be sure to use green cardamom pods — black and white cardamom have very different flavors. Real pear brandy is the perfect base, but it tends to be pricey. Instead, you can use a good pear vodka such as Grey Goose La Poire. Don’t sub in a pear liqueur, as it will make the drink too sweet.
• • •
Flannel Shirt Cocktail
For the rich demerara syrup
1 cup demerara sugar
½ cup water
For the drink
Ice
1¾ ounces Scotch whisky
1½ ounces fresh apple cider
½ ounce Averna amaro
¼ ounce fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon rich demerara syrup
½ teaspoon allspice dram
2 dashes Angostura bitters
1 large strip orange zest, for garnish
Make the rich demerara syrup: In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, combine the sugar and water and bring to a boil, stirring until the sugar is fully dissolved. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly. Transfer to a lidded container and refrigerate until completely chilled before using, 1 to 2 hours.
Make the drink: Fill a rocks glass with ice cubes and set aside. Fill a cocktail shaker with ice, and add the Scotch whisky, cider, Averna, lemon juice, demerara syrup, allspice dram and bitters. Shake vigorously to chill, and strain into the glass. Garnish with the strip of orange zest and serve.
Makes 1 drink.
— Adapted from “The Bar Book: Elements of Cocktail Technique” by Jeffrey Morgenthaler with Martha Holmberg (Chronicle Books, 2014)
• • •
Five-Spice Old-Fashioned
For the five-spice syrup
1 teaspoon homemade or store-bought five-spice powder (see related recipe)
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
For the drink
1 large ice cube, plus regular ice cubes
2 ounces bottled-in-bond rye, such as Rittenhouse
½ ounce five-spice syrup
2 dashes orange bitters
1 large strip orange zest, for garnish
Make the five-spice syrup: In a small saucepan over medium heat, toast the five-spice powder, shaking the saucepan or stirring the powder constantly so it doesn’t burn, until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly, then stir in the sugar and water until combined. Return the saucepan to medium heat and bring the liquid to a boil, stirring until the sugar is fully dissolved. Remove from the heat, let cool slightly, then strain through a few layers of cheesecloth lining a fine-mesh sieve or a nut-milk bag into a lidded container and refrigerate until completely chilled, 1 to 2 hours.
Make the drink: Add a large cube to a rocks glass and set aside. Fill a mixing glass with ice. Add the rye, syrup and bitters, and stir to chill and dilute, about 30 seconds. Strain into the glass, then express the strip of orange zest over the surface of the drink and drop it into the glass.
Substitutions: Instead of five-spice powder, try apple pie spice or pumpkin pie spice (with a very different flavor profile).
Makes 1 drink.
— From Spirits columnist M. Carrie Allan
• • •
Pear of Queens Cocktail
For the infused spirit
One (750-milliliter) bottle pear brandy (or good pear vodka, such as Grey Goose La Poire)
1 tablespoon ground cardamom (see Notes)
For the drink
Ice
1½ ounces cardamom-infused pear brandy or vodka
1 ounce pear nectar
¾ ounce fresh lemon juice
½ ounce ginger liqueur, such as Barrow’s Intense Ginger
¼ ounce maple syrup
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 thin pear slice or wheel, for garnish
Make the infused spirit: In a small saucepan over medium heat, toast the cardamom, shaking the pan or stirring the spice constantly to prevent burning, until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl and add the brandy or vodka (keep the bottle). Stir to combine and let infuse for 1 to 2 hours. Line a funnel with a paper coffee filter and strain the spirit back into the bottle. Label and store — in the refrigerator, freezer or at room temperature — until ready to use.
Make the drink: Chill a cocktail coupé or martini glass in the freezer for about 5 minutes. Fill a cocktail shaker with ice, add the brandy or vodka, pear nectar, lemon juice, ginger liqueur, maple syrup and bitters. Shake hard to chill and dilute, about 15 seconds, then double-strain into the chilled coupé. Garnish with the pear slice or wheel, and serve.
Note: If grinding your own cardamom, be sure it’s green (not white or black).
Makes 1 drink.
— From Spirits columnist M. Carrie Allan