Sips & Synopsis

• This Weeks Makings

• Trivia Question

• Drink of the Week - Gold Rush

• Behind the Bar - Honey Syrup

• Bonus Cocktails

• Mocktail or Zero Proof Option

This Weeks Makings.

Labor Day falls on September 7 this year, so this is the last long weekend of the summer.

You can feel it coming. The grill gets one more big night. Somebody hauls out a cooler. The pool posts its final hours.

September is also National Bourbon Heritage Month. The Senate named it back in 2007, and it has stuck ever since. So this week we’re making the Gold Rush. Bourbon, lemon juice, honey syrup. That’s the entire recipe. Shake it, strain it over one big cube, and you are done in under a minute.

In this week's newsletter:

• The Gold Rush, a modern classic built from three ingredients

• Honey syrup, the small change that makes this drink work

• Two bonus cocktails, one tequila and one rum, both easy on a crowd

• A trivia question about what bourbon legally has to be made from

• A zero-proof version with real body to it

Trivia Question❓

Bourbon has to be made from a grain mash that is mostly one grain. Which grain is it, and what is the smallest percentage the law allows?

Answer at the bottom of the newsletter

The Gold Rush

Bourbon, lemon, and honey syrup. Three ingredients, no bitters, and one of the best drinks of the last twenty-five years.

Ingredients

• 2 oz bourbon

• 1 oz fresh lemon juice

• 0.75 oz honey syrup (3 parts honey to 1 part warm water)

• One large ice cube

• Lemon peel to garnish

Directions

1. Add the bourbon, lemon juice, and honey syrup to a shaker with ice

2. Shake hard for about 12 seconds, until the outside of the tin frosts over

3. Strain into a rocks glass over one large ice cube

4. Twist a lemon peel over the surface and drop it in

Why It Works
T.J. Siegal made the first one at Milk & Honey in New York around 2000. He was sitting at the bar after a shift, ordered his usual bourbon sour, and asked the owner Sasha Petraske to swap in the honey syrup Petraske had been working on (the full story is here). One swap, and the drink became a staple by 2002. Honey is thicker than sugar syrup and it carries flavor of its own, so it does two jobs at once. It rounds off the lemon and it gives the whole glass a weight that a plain bourbon sour never has. Three ingredients, and none of them are hiding.

Behind the Bar - Honey Syrup

Straight honey will not mix into a cold drink. It sinks, it clumps on the bottom of the shaker, and you end up with a sour first sip and a sweet last one. Thinning it first fixes that permanently.

The ratio worth memorizing:

• 3 parts honey

• 1 part warm water

Stir until it runs off the spoon in a smooth stream. Three quarters of a cup of honey and a quarter cup of warm water gives you about a cup of syrup, which is roughly thirteen Gold Rushes. Refrigerated in a sealed jar, it keeps about a month.

A few things that make a difference:

• Use warm water, not hot. Boiling water dulls the flavor of good honey and you lose the reason you used honey in the first place.

• Match the honey to the drink. Clover honey stays in the background. Orange blossom and wildflower push forward and change the drink noticeably.

• Shake harder than you think. Honey syrup is heavier than simple syrup and needs the extra few seconds to fully combine.

• Learn the ratio underneath it. Two parts spirit, one part citrus, three quarters sweetener. That is the sour template. It works with bourbon, gin, rum, or tequila, and the Gold Rush is one branch of it.

Make a jar of honey syrup Friday afternoon. It turns a two-minute drink into a thirty-second one all weekend.

Bonus Cocktails

Two more for the cookout, each with a different bottle doing the work.

The Paloma

Tequila, grapefruit soda, lime, and a pinch of salt.

Ingredients

• 2 oz blanco tequila

• 0.5 oz fresh lime juice

• Pinch of kosher salt

• 4 oz grapefruit soda, chilled

• Grapefruit or lime wedge to garnish

• Ice

Directions

Add the tequila, lime juice, and salt to a tall glass and stir until the salt dissolves. Fill with ice. Top with cold grapefruit soda and stir once. Garnish with a wedge.

Why it works
The origin of the Paloma is genuinely unsettled. The story repeated most often online traces back to a 1953 book that turned out not to exist, and the bartender usually credited denied making it (cocktail writer Camper English walks through the evidence here). What is documented is thin. Grapefruit soda did not reach Mexico until 1955, and the first references to the drink by name show up around 1999. The drink itself needs no story. Salt sharpens grapefruit the way it sharpens a piece of fruit on a plate, and the soda does the diluting for you, so this one scales to a pitcher without breaking.

The Dark 'n Stormy

Dark rum floated over ginger beer.

Ingredients

• 1.5 oz Gosling's Black Seal rum

• 4 to 5 oz ginger beer, chilled

• Lime wedge to garnish

• Ice

Directions

Fill a tall glass with ice. Pour in the ginger beer first. Float the rum slowly over the top so it sits in a dark layer. Add a lime wedge. Serve without stirring and let the drinker mix it.

Why it works
This one comes out of Bermuda, where sailors combined local ginger beer with Gosling's Black Seal rum, and Gosling Brothers holds trademarks on the recipe filed in 1991 (the history is here). The order of the pour is the whole trick. Ginger beer is lighter than the rum going in, so a slow pour leaves a dark cloud sitting on a pale gold base. It looks like weather in a glass, which is where the name comes from.

Mocktail or Zero Proof Option

The Zero Proof Gold Rush

Tea instead of bourbon, and the same honey and lemon around it.

Ingredients

• 2 oz strong brewed black tea, cooled (English breakfast or Assam)

• 1 oz fresh lemon juice

• 0.75 oz honey syrup

• 2 dashes non-alcoholic aromatic bitters, optional

• One large ice cube

• Lemon peel to garnish

Directions

Brew the tea at double strength and let it cool completely. Add the tea, lemon juice, and honey syrup to a shaker with ice. Shake for about 12 seconds. Strain over one large cube. Twist a lemon peel over the top and drop it in.

Most zero-proof drinks fall apart because they taste like juice. Black tea is the fix. Tannin is the thing that makes bourbon feel like something on your tongue, and strong tea has plenty of it. Brew it double strength or the lemon will run right over it.