The Gold Rush - A Deliciously Simple Cocktail with a Twist.

I have a shameful secret. Occasionally, people ask me what my favorite 'everyday' cocktail is. Something to make after coming home from a long day at work. (Or after stepping into the kitchen from a long day at work. Working from home is pretty sweet.) My favorite cocktail to make at the end of a long day is: beer. Seriously, who wants to juice limes and muddle cucumbers and make syrups after nine hours of work? Not me. Cocktails are delicious. But I am lazy. 

However! Lately, the thing I find myself reaching for is not a beer, or even a nice tall glass of wine. It's a Gold Rush, a delicious (and stupidly simple) amalgamation of bourbon, lemon and honey. Jason gets credit for discovering the Gold Rush when we went to LA's Copa D'Oro, part of a disturbing trend where my friends always manage to order delicious-er drinks than me at schmancy cocktail bars. I thought of this cocktail when another friend texted me wanting to know of a good bourbon cocktail for someone who found an old fashioned a little too strong. Recollecting the Gold Rush and its bourbony deliciousness, I decided to mix one up for myself. Here are a couple of recipes I found, courtesy of the internets:

Gold Rush 1 

(from Spirited Cocktails)

2 oz bourbon

.75 oz lemon juice (fresh-squeezed, and don't cheat)

.75 oz honey syrup

Gold Rush 2

(from the Lush Chef)

2 oz bourbon

.75 oz lemon juice

1 oz honey syrup

To make the honey syrup: mix one part honey with two parts hot water. Stir. Super easy. 

To make the drink: combine all the ingredients in a shaker full of ice, shake the hell out of it, and strain into a cocktail glass. 

I tried both variations: version 2 is a smoother cocktail, whereas the one with less honey is a little saucier. At the time I couldn't decide which one I liked better, but after a while I decided to go with version 2, mostly because this recipe lends itself quite well to the addition of a little bit of lavender bitters, which will give the drink a little something floral on the nose and a certain je ne sais quoi on the tongue. I've decided to call the lavender version 'Purple Rain'. I'm sure I'm not the first person to call a drink that. But I'm sure mine is the best. 

Purple Rain

2 oz bourbon

.75 oz lemon juice

1 oz honey syrup (from local wildflower honey!)

I dash lavender bitters (I used Bar Keep Lavender Spice bitters. Don't go too crazy with this stuff, or your drink will taste like a bar of soap.)

Quick, put on a Prince album. And drink up. 

A new twist on an old favorite.

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. It is also the mother of delicious cocktails. Such as! A few weeks ago (okay, maybe months - I've been a bit remiss in updating the blog) Gojee featured my blueberry gin rummy as one of their top 3 drinks of the week. Since my skills of the photography have improved since I originally conceived the drink, I decided to do another photo shoot - you know, make it look really good. So I went the grocery store, and bought blueberries and lemons and stuff, and of course when I got home I realized that, like a dummy, I didn't have any ginger ale. What I did have was a bottle of Dry Lavender Soda, and it looks the same in the photos, right? Nobody would know I cheated. So I made the drink with the lavender, and then I took some pictures of it, and then I tried it, because I was curious, and it was even better than the original drink. So there you go.

The Blueberry Gin Rum-y
Thawed (or fresh) blueberries
2 oz rum
.75 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 tbsp brown sugar
DRY Lavender Soda

Prepare according to the directions you find here.

Verdict: All the rummy blueberry sweetness of the original, but a bit lighter and more floral. In other words, just perfect.

Even More Harry Potter Cocktails.

It's that time again, y'all. Time for EVEN MORE Harry Potter cocktails. If you're looking for the big 3 (that would be Harry, Ron, and Hermione), get yourself over to this post and check out the cocktails I made for them. This time around, I selected four more of our favorite fictional persons to be immortalized in liquid form.

The Luna Lovegood


Luna Lovegood: a little strange, a little spacey, and infinitely lovable. Unaged corn whiskey (also known as moonshine) seemed like the perfect expression of Luna's particular brand of home-grown wackiness. It was only after I made the drink that Garret pointed out to me that Luna means moon, which makes it even more perfect.


Luna Lovegood
8 mint leaves
1.5 oz unaged corn whiskey (I used Georgia Moon)
1 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
.75 oz simple syrup

Place the mint and simple syrup in your shaker and muddle. Add the lemon juice and moonshine, fill the shaker with ice, and shake and strain into an ice-filled glass.

The Draco Malfoy


I don't know about you, but when I think of a Draco-esque cocktail, I immediately think of a martini. But it couldn't be just a martini: that's boring. One night, while mixing up a test batch of Lunas for the roommate, I had a brilliant idea: pickle juice. I had a jar of pickle juice tucked away in the back of the fridge, hoping that someday at some party I could convince some of my braver friends to do pickleback shots (shot of bacon-infused bourbon, followed by a shot of pickle juice and a chaser of beer. really). Into the mix the pickle juice went, and out came a cocktail that was just like Draco: smooth, sleek, and a little bit nasty.


Draco Malfoy
2 oz gin (or vodka, if you prefer)
1/2 oz dry vermouth
1/2 oz pickle juice (I used the juice of a jar of Claussen Kosher Dill sandwich slices, which are, in my opinion, the very best pickles.)

Stir (or shake) all ingredients together with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Drink deeply. Think evil thoughts. (Lauren, the roommate, came up with a brilliant idea: rimming the martini glass with salt will really bring out the savory flavors in this drink.)

The Neville Longbottom


Tea-infused gin and Pimm's: a little fussy, quintessentially British, and unexpectedly strong.

Tea-Infused Gin
In an airtight jar, combine 1.5 cups of gin and 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon of loose English Breakfast tea leaves. Seal the jar, shake once, and allow to sit at room temperature for two hours. After two hours, open the jar and strain out the gin.


Neville Longbottom
1.5 oz tea-infused gin
1 oz Pimm's
.75 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
.75 oz simple syrup

Combine all ingredients in a shaker. Shake and strain into an ice-filled glass.

The Severus Snape


Oh, Snape. Snape is by far my favorite character in the Harry Potter series, played to perfection by Alan Rickman, who is by far my favorite actor. Think about it: in the first book, Snape seems like some generic, greasy, throw-away villain, but then you learn that he's actually this hugely important character upon whom the whole series turns. Remember when you were anxiously awaiting the release of the seventh book, because you had to know whether Snape was good or bad? Well, if you haven't read the books and are waiting for the movie, I won't ruin things for you, but SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER I always knew that Alan Rickman would never betray me like that. And the delicious candy center at the middle of all Snape's turncoatery and snarkery turns out to be...unrequited love, which is one of the most romantic things ever. Snape is J.K.'s true masterpiece.

I held off on making a making a Snape cocktail last time, because how could I ever do him justice? And how could I ever make a cocktail that was an accurate reflection of Snape's personality and actually tasted good? Enter...Fernet Branca. Fernet Branca is a highly bitter, very complicated herbal Italian liqueur, and the very first time I tasted it I knew it was exactly what I need for my Snape. Add to that Blackstrap rum (a very deep, dark, molasses-y dark rum), falernum, and a dash of lavender bitters. Why the lavender? I wanted something floral to remind us of someone else with a floral name who Snape never forgot.


Severus Snape
1.5 oz Cruzan Blackstrap Rum
.5 oz falernum (I used Fee's)
.5 oz Fernet Branca
dash of lavender bitters (I used the Bar Keep Lavender Spice variety.)

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass over ice. Stir for thirty seconds, allow to sit for thirty seconds (I'm warning you - this one is strong), and strain into a cocktail glass.


I'm sad to think that the release of the last movie might be the end of all the Harry Potter madness. It's been a wild ride, and I hate to see it coming to an end. Whatever will we do? Well, I don't know. But have a drink.

MxMo the First: The Summer Old-Fashioned

Before there was the Backyard Bartender, there was Mixology Monday. Every month, mixologists from all over the globe (I am not lying - this month there's one from Germany) create drinks to fit a particular theme. I stumbled across the site one day while looking for a recipe and was immediately delighted and awed and overwhelmed. It was like I was a cocktail adventurer standing on the edge of the cocktail Grand Canyon - it was so beautiful, and there was so much out there, and I could not possibly explore it all. But I wanted to try.

This is the first mixology monday since the inception of the backyard bartender (so I guess sometimes it's not every month), and the theme (and the host blog) is Brown, Bitter and Stirred. Make a drink that is brown, possibly because it is made with some kind of brown liquor, and...tastes bitter and is stirred. (I might have cheated a little on the "bitter" part. I am still learning to like bitter things. I do not yet have the palate to appreciate, say, campari, which other people seem to think is wonderful. But my cocktail contains bitters, so...that's a start?)

Of course when I think "brown", I think bourbon, my very favorite of the brown liquors. Problem is, when I think bourbon, I do not think summer. More like, sitting around a campfire trying desperately to stay warm. That's what bourbon is to me. Unfortunately, although in some places the weather may have started to resemble that lovely season they call "fall", here in Houston it is still hotter than hell. The other day I got into my car and the thermometer read 112 degrees. I think the last time I saw a thermometer reading 112 degrees was at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. (Or, y'know, just last summer. It gets hot here.) (Also: second Grand Canyon reference in one post. I love the Grand Canyon.)

You know what else I love? Bourbon.

So how could I summer-ify bourbon? Here was my thought process: I have, in the works (meaning: the idea is in my head), another drink involving apples and lavender, because the internet told me this was a good flavor pairing and I am dying to try it out. I thought about adding bourbon to the mix, since I knew that bourbon and apples were good together - Dale Degroff says so. (Also: bourbon + apple cider is a winner.) So the only question was - bourbon and lavender? Well, a google search yielded enough intriguing results to make me think I was on the right track. (The bourbon french toast with lavender butter? Must. try. now.)

I wasn't really sure about trying to pass off a drink with apple in it as "bitter", so instead I turned to our old friend, the old-fashioned. (The exact recipe for an old-fashioned is one of those things that cocktail geeks always argue about, but everyone seems to agree that the basics are: bourbon, sugar, orange, (in some capacity) and bitters.) What I was going for was an old-fashioned that was was light and a bit floral, but still tasted like an old-fashioned. After a few tries (okay, maybe a lot of tries) I got it right. Here it is:

Lavender Old-Fashioned
1.5 oz bourbon (or 2 for a stronger bourbon flavor)
.5 oz fresh-squeezed orange juice
.5 oz St. Germain elderflower liqueur*
1 oz Dry lavender soda**
dash of angostura bitters

*I know I'm a little behind the game, but I just discovered St. Germain and I have been putting it in pretty much everything. This blog calls it "the bacon of the cocktail world" (because it goes with everything), which I think is both funny and true.
**Tried this originally with muddled lavender greens from the garden and was unconvinced. (My lavender, the "Goodwin Creek" variety, stands up well to our crazy heat but inexplicably never blooms, so all I have to work with are the greens.) So the only local ingredient here is the garnish. I promise to try harder next time.

Mix all ingredients but the soda in an old-fashioned glass full of ice. Stir lovingly for 30 seconds. Add the soda. Garnish with an orange slice and a sprig of lavender.

Yum.