I am absolutely positive that joke has been used a million times already, but I refuse to let that dissuade me. I do feel bad for the lack of pictures in this post but oh well, I don’t want to fire up the grill for just one lemon…
Next week I’m headed out to a pool party and one of the hosts asked me to make some punch for it. Of course I agreed, and then immediately moved to Twitter to ask for recommendations. After all, I barely make cocktails at home most of the time, much less punch. Fairly quickly I got two recommendations.
The first came from Rick aka @martinigroove.
@highwaystar Here’s a fancy one that I made that’s pretty solid: http://t.co/AtszauBgmC
? Cocktail Rick (@martinigroove) July 24, 2013
So, off I went to try it. I took it in a couple of steps.
About once a week or so I tend to have a long grilling session where I smoke cigars, listen to music, and grill up veggies and proteins for the upcoming week. Typically I do a steak for that night and chicken and pork for the upcoming week (typically they end up in taco form) along with asparagus, onions, peppers, and jalapenos. That’s honestly how I’ve been losing weight lately. This time, after finishing the other veggies but before the meats, I followed the recipe and put a thinly sliced (as best I could) lemon on the grill.
After it cooled down I threw it in a ziploc bag.
The next day Marshall and I hit Ace Beverage for supplies. The recipe called for 8 ounces of bourbon, specifying W. L. Weller, and 2 ounces of apricot liqueur (Rothman & Winter). After some hijinks I ended up with what I needed. Later that night I headed over to Marshall’s apartment for the experiment.
Now, one thing I did realize was that I only bought one bottle of W. L. Weller, so I used Four Roses (which is one of my favorite bourbons especially in terms of value). I muddled the lemons in a pitcher, added the bourbon, apricot liqueur, and simple syrup, then added ice and stirred.
A few observations from this point:
- This makes a lot less than I expected.
- And the punch is mostly booze. Both a good and bad thing.
- We had particulate matter in the drink.
Garnished with fresh mint, we sipped, and it was fairly tasty. However, after tasting, I thought about a few things, and here’s how I’ll change it when I do it next weekend.
- I’m doing a a triple batch.
- As Rick noted, it’s all about the presentation, so I’ll make it there rather than batching ahead of time. I will batch the liquor part of it, though.
- Before adding ice, I’ll stir it up. Otherwise, it’s hard to get the lemon fully incorporated it seems. Then I’ll strain it through a fine mesh strainer to get out bits of char and seeds. I might grill an additional lemon to use as garnishes.
This punch is good, but I think it could also be livened up with some spice components. I don’t know if I’ll have time to experiment ahead of time on it, but some clove could be nice in it, or even perhaps a dash of heat in terms of some hot sauce. I’d want to avoid anything else sweet, as it’s already pretty sweet despite the lemon, but at the same time bitters might be the wrong way to go. Like I said, I might think on it a bit…
The second suggestion was a Pimm’s Cup punch. While the reasoning behind suggesting it wasn’t appealing (neither I, nor my hosts, give a shit about the royal baby) the drink itself is a classic.
But which recipe?
After spending hours (okay, maybe minutes) combing the web, finding old websites that might be compromised, and craving cucumber sandwiches, I had an epiphany. Instead of a Bloody Mary bar, I’ll do a Pimms Cup bar!
A few bottles of Pimm’s, a couple of gin, lemonade, lime juice, ginger beer, 7-Up, etc.
As our friend Ed would say: “It’ll be great!”
And so I hope. This time, I will take pictures, and I’ll give you an update later. (Especially since I’ll be sober for two weeks in August, I’ll need?something to talk about!)
