Gartending: Root + Rye
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For the Spring and Summer growing season, we bring you a new feature at Beekman 1802, the Soused Gnome. He’ll teach you how to “gartend”–create perfect seasonal cocktails using fresh ingredients from the garden.
This cocktail sounds like a song from long ago.
Root and Rye, a nickel will buy you some…
I love the flavor of Root the USDA Certified Organic Root Tea. It’s really not what you expect on the first sip. What is Root? Well, it’s USDA Certified Organic Root Tea. What is Root Tea you ask? Root Tea is a combination of roots and spices, herbs and other all- natural ingredients. A long time ago root teas were used in back-road country medicines as cures for a variety of ills. From fevers to other ailments, each roadside doctor would have in his bag a variety of old fashioned ingredients that healed in often unexplained manners. These root teas also contained alcohol and it wasn’t long before they morphed into ingredients to make a highly potent root beer.
Prohibition came around and the formerly alcoholic root beer got some carbonation and became the soda we know today. Root on the other hand is not like a candy syrup flavored vodka or sickly sweet cordial. It is unique in every way. Now I can’t tell you that it will cure a headache, but I can tell you that Root mixed with the small production, hand-made Rye Whiskey from Tuthilltown in New York State’s Hudson Valley makes for a fine cocktail.
I like to mash some home cured Apple Jack cherries into the mix for a luscious take on the famous Manhattan Cocktail. A very twisted version at that.
So how so we make the Root and Rye cocktail sing strange songs? By singing along with the Soused Gnome!
Root + Rye
Ingredients
to make two historically incorrect cocktails…
3 Shots Rye Whiskey from Tuthilltown
2 Shots Root- USDA Certified Organic Root Tea from Art in the Age
Carpano Antica Formula Sweet Vermouth
Mint from the garden (I prefer Kentucky Colonel Mint)
Perrier Sparkling Natural Mineral Water
Preparation:
To a cocktail shaker, muddle a handful of your mint to release the oils
Fill shaker ¼ with ice
Add Root
Add Rye
Shake until frosty
Strain into a short rocks glass with an orange zest in each glass and some ice
Finish with a splash of the Perrier Sparkling Natural Mineral Water
Warren Bobrow is the Food and Drink Editor of the 501c3, non profit Wild Table on Wild River Review located in Princeton, New Jersey. He has published over three hundred articles in about three years on everything from cocktail mixology to restaurant reviews and travel articles. Learn more from his website, The Cocktail Whisperer, or by visiting his blogs at The Daily Basic, Foodista, and Williams-Sonoma
