Saturday, April 25, 2009

Hibiscus Cocktails Gone Wild

Papawow (who always cracks me up) posted a Hibiscus Champagne Cocktail recently that looks so wonderful, I found myself wishing the gi-normous megabyte photo was real. P'dubs took the exploration a step further by rolling up his sleeves and walking us through the recipe for making the hibiscus extract. Slurp, delish! I might have thought this was just overachieving and not considered it much further had I not recently had an exceedingly chuggable - ok two exceedingly chuggable - Hibiscus Cobblers at Bluprint with a BFF in the Merchandise Mart two Fridays ago. The experience convinced me that happy hour is in fact just as medicinal as Xanex, and with far fewer side effects. You haven't met the Hibiscus Cobbler? Let me introduce you:

Hibiscus Cobbler

2 oz. gin
dry vermouth
pineapple juice
hibiscus syrup
grenadine
bitters

Now that you're acquainted, I bet you're wondering about the name. A Cobbler cocktail uses a base of wine, sugar, fresh fruit, and ice. The original was the Sherry Cobbler, which was most popular in the late 19th century. (Your silver cocktail shaker with a built-in strainer at home? That's called a Cobbler shaker, but then you probably knew that.) The vermouth is the wine in this case, although I'm guessing it's used in a very small quantity. I tried going back to Blueprint this Friday to bribe the barkeep for the recipe, but they were closed for an event.

Curses! I'll try again soon and will share the bounty.

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