HA! Apologies for the daft name, it’s just seemed to work (thanks to @kath_hartley).
This is a nice, well balanced and spicy cocktail – super simple to make and lots of fun to drink! You can mess about with the chilli of course, I’d like to try it with some chipotle or perhaps something superfruity like habanero.
And for my first trick….
This is very simple but VERY effective. The idea came from a visit to one of the UK’s leading craft breweries where they were creating a salted stout! Sounds silly eh?
Well no – it sounds delicious! Imperial stout is full of deep chocolatey flavours, and chocolate on its own is a savoury flavour, it gets the rep of being a dessert by tasting amazing with sugar, cream and the like. No cream in this imperial stout cocktail though (I’ve found it very difficult to achieve a good result) but there is usually bit of residual sugar in the brew plus coffee and chocolate flavours. Adding a salty edge, especially when it crackles on your lips, is a real real winner. Minerally fresh, biting salt cuts right through the sweetness and makes this combination greater than the sum of its parts.
The holidays have come and gone, but the time for sitting around a fire sipping good strong drinks with friends will continue for several months, especially here in the Pacific Northwest. Of course there are a variety of really nice winter ales on the market, but sometimes you need something with a little more kick than your average spiced ale.
For this drink I wanted to pair one of my favorite spirits, rye whiskey, with a style of beer that is perfect for the long winter nights. I came up with the idea for this drink while playing around with beer syrups, but I wanted a cocktail that wouldn’t require homemade ingredients. The pairing of orange and chocolate notes in this drink works really well making it a great sipper.
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