GUD BLOG: SINGLE POST
Blood Orange in Cocktails
Suz picked up some fresh blood orange juice at Western Market today, so I’ve been tinkering with it in cocktails. The results are simultaneously a bit disappointing but nonetheless quite promising…
Drink 1 – Blood Orange Whiskey Sour
I tried this drink twice, the first time using bourbon, blood orange, simple syrup, cointreau, and egg white. But in tweaking it a bit, I found I preferred this recipe:
- 2 oz bourbon
- .75 oz blood orange juice
- .5 oz simple syrup
- .25 oz lemon juice
- Egg white
- Shake with ice, double strain into chilled cocktail glass
My whiskey sours are not generally all that sour, but the first take was just way too sweet. The second blood orange take has a nice flowery balance, and while the lemon doesn’t make it sour, it dries it out nicely. Cointreau and bourbon just don’t work. Never have, never will.
Drink 2 – The Bloody Scotsman
- 2 oz rye whiskey
- .5 oz Aperol
- .5 oz lemon juice
- .5 oz blood orange juice
- Islay scotch
- Rinse a chilled cocktail glass with the scotch, shake the remaining ingredients with ice, and double strain.
Oddly, the ingredients really cancelled each other out. It didn’t taste like there was any whiskey in there at all, and the blood orange thinned the drink so much that there was no bitterness and just a hint of smoke from the scotch. It was good and quite drinkable — poundable, really — but not anything electric. I’d like to tinker with this some more and see what happens.
Drink 3 – The Bronx River Runs Red
Inspired by the original (and often kind of weak) Bronx Cocktail:
- 1.5 oz gin
- .5 oz Aperol
- .5 oz Lillet Blanc
- 1 oz blood orange juice
- .25 oz lemon juice
- Shake with ice, double strain into a chilled cocktail glass
This is a really light, really subtle, really aromatic take on a Bronx cocktail. If you like a Bronx or any lighter drinks, you’d probably like this. That’s not to say that it’s perfect by any stretch – Campari might be an improvement over Aperol here – but this is another pretty quaffable cocktail.
2011.03.09 Evan Hansen at 10:09 pm
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2 Responses to Blood Orange in Cocktails
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Thanks for the suggestions. These days I’m making a lot of this very simple but still super-tasty blood orange cocktail (http://hostessdiary.wordpress.com/2011/04/06/blood-orange-cocktails-redux/), but I adore Aperol and Campari, so I’m excited to play around with the Bronx River Runs Red. It sounds right up my alley.