We're after the same rainbow's end,
Waitin' round the bend,
My huckleberry friend, Moon River, and me
Let that song play through as you read...
...I'm perfecting a new cocktail I named for the lowly huckleberry. Huckleberries are indigenous to the Pacific Northwest. I first tasted them in a sauce at Chez Pannise about 20 years ago. Unique flavor.
The closest cocktail prior art is a recipe for a Huckleberry Hound. The Huckleberry Hound calls for generous quantities of huckleberry syrup, limeade, and vodka. BTW, those are the three basic things for a good cocktail: Sweet, sour, and booze. I have so many recipes for drinks based around this or that liqueur plus citrus and of course vodka or gin.
But I wanted to make a proper cocktail...something Audrey Hepburn would drink...a little piece of the hinterland in the smart set's glass. Sure, there's always 44o North, but I like a challenge.
So I got my hands on some good quality huckleberry syrup:
The stuff is available through Amazon (please use Lem's portal). Torani also makes a huckleberry syrup which I tried.
The first attempt recipe was:
1 part huckleberry syrup
1 part freshly squeezed lime juice
4 parts Finlandia vodka*
Mix with ice in a shaker and shake shake shake. Pour into a favorite chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lime twist: Viola:
What a gorgeous color!
Now, my designated taster said, "Why not try gin instead of vodka?" to which I replied "Huckleberry Gin!"
_____________________
*Any vodka will do but I chose Finlandia because Finlandia/Finn -- get it?
12 comments:
The only Finlandia that matters.
Very, very nice.
The best part of messing around with mixology is that you get to drink your mistakes.
I can't read or hear "Huckleberry" w/o thinking of Phil Rizzuto.
i want one.
Is the plastic version available yet?
Could might do, sixty, though I'd like to reproduce the little huckleberry seeds that sink to the bottom. Little poppy seeds would probably work.
I'm working just now on a commissioned pair of champagne in special glasses. Turns out people like the special high-end glassware. The same guy also wants a champagne bucket with 60 ice cubes!
Thanks for that music link. I'm hearing it now for the first time. It sounds very ominous--Wagnerian.
Read the history of that piece of music - it is appropriate even today. I have always been fond of the hymn that Sibelius wrote for that tone poem. I tend to think of that music as something anti-Wagnerian - it is about a longing for freedom, not the government oppressing a population.
Sixty ice cubes - nice number!
I tend to think of that music as something anti-Wagnerian - it is about a longing for freedom, not the government oppressing a population.
Hey, I enjoy listening to Wagner while reading Nietzsche in the original, wearing my Lederhosen und sipping Liebfraumilch.
I won't listen to Wagner.
But I did hear the overture to Der Freischütz the other day, written by Karl Maria von Weber. And that's another thing, how come some many German dudes have "Maria" as a middle name? What's up with that?
"In some countries, for example Germany, Poland and Italy, Maria is occasionally used as a masculine middle name." linkage
News to me. I never met a German with a middle name. Well, except for one of Krupps. He had two last names.
Time to rewrite West Side Story, stat!
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