Little Southern Bartender

2 SPARROWS IN A HURRICANE

VALENTINES DAY COCKTAIL SERIES (3/3)

FEATURING: fuji and green apple infused Stoli Vanilla vodka. Cinnamon, candied ginger, blueberry syrup. Bitterman’s tiki bitters. fresh squeezed lemon. Hurricane Glass.

MOUNTAINSIDE MOCKIGBIRDS

VALENTINES COCKTAIL SERIES 2/3

…A VERY INTENSE BUT BALANCED GRAPE ABSINTHE SOUR.

FEATURING: Copper&Kings Absinthe, muddled green grapes, fresh lime juice, Regan’s Orange Bitters, Egg White, Fresh Basil, Double Simple Syrup. Collins Glass. Over ice. Basil & Grape Garnish.

SONG PAIRING //  - CHRIS ISAAKS - WICKED GAMES

above this jump^^^

JAILHOUSE LOVEBIRDS

1/3 VALENTINE’S DAY COCKTAIL SERIES
@CORNERBAR, ALOFT HOTEL LOUISVILLE.

FEATURING: Old Overholt Rye, Hibiscus petals, lemongrass, candied papaya, green tea leaves, cinnamon passionfruit syrup, fresh squeezed lemon, St. Germaine (bartender’s ketchup), Angostura bitters. Classy, tiki-inspired, and bold. Ice sphere. Coupe Glass.

SONG PAIRING // 6 GOD - TELL YOUR FRIENDS FREESTYLE

above this jump^^^

GAL FROM IPANEMA

A MEZCAL & BOURBON MINT JULEP RIFF,

featuring:

Fidencio Estate Grown 100% Organic Mezcal, Four Roses Yellow Label, California White Grapefruit, Green Chartreuse, Demerara Syrup, BitterTruth Creole Bitters, Cinnamon Dust, Freshly spanked mint, hand crushed ice. Julep tin, all day long.

SONG PAIRING // ^^^ STWO - DRIVE SLOW, above this jump

ROOH AFZA MY AFZA

Hey lovelies! So very sorry for the delay in beautiful cocktails, but I’ve been doing all kinds of crazy shit in the Louisville mixology world, like competing in the Bombay Sapphire Contest (future post), helping my real-girl job at Against the Grain release an all new and innovative craft cocktail menu (finally! yay!!)…and between all of that, there’s been a million new pop-up bars, and summer cocktails to drink on patios and long nights catching up with people and things…so I’ve been a busy girl. BUT all work and no play, makes Ashley a dull girl :( I’ve been severely neglecting my M&S world here, so I’m promising you all a blast of incoming post as soon as Forecastle Festival is over and this new menu launches at work. Busy, busy. However, to hold you over, I recently went to an Indian food market and picked up some really interesting ingredients for some cocktail venturing, so here we go!

ROOH AFZA is a non-alcoholic concentrated squash made with fruits, herbs and vegetable extracts. It was formulated by Hakeem Hafiz Abdul Majeed, in 1906 in Ghaziabad, India. Basically, this versatile syrup-like substance encompasses everything you love about spices and summer and flowers and fruits. Its build can include any of or all of the following:

• Herbs: purslane (“Khurfa seeds”, Portulaca oleracea), Chicory, wine-grape raisins (Vitis vinifera), European white lily (Nymphaea alba), blue star water lily (Nymphaea nouchali), lotus (Nelumbo), Borage and Coriander
• Fruits: orange, citron, pineapple, apple, berries, strawberry, raspberry, loganberry, blackberry, cherry, concord grapes, blackcurrant and watermelon
• Vegetables: spinach, carrot, mint and mướp hương (Luffa aegyptiaca)
• Flowers: rose, kewra (Pandanus fascicularis), lemon and orange
• Roots: vetiver (Chrysopogon zizanioides)

SO of course, I bought a million bottles of this and made some concoctions with it. Here, I’ve made a hibiscus forward berry slinger soda, complete with tiki-like flower and layers of flavor. Enjoy this recipe, it has been my favorite in home Southern Sipper with Eastern World flair!

ELEMENTS

1 ½ ounces Bombay Sapphire

½ ounce Hibiscus Syrup

½ ounce ROOH AFZA syrup

¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon

3 blackberries for muddling

Small batch Elderflower soda, to top (mine is from World Market)

Fee Brothers Rhubarb bitters (2 dashes)

METHOD

Take a skinny profile tall glass, chill it, and when you are about to make the drink, muddle three blackberries and rhubarb bitters together into the bottom of the glass only. In shaker tin, combine the rest of the ingredients WITHOUT Elderflower soda, and shake with ice until well chilled. Pour this mixture into glass, over the blackberries, fill with big chunky ice cubes, and top the rest of the glass with Elderflower soda, to taste. Top with 1 dash Peychauds Bitters, let this seep into the drink.

GARNISH

Hibiscus petal and stem, and Cinnamon Thai Basil Leaves for aromatics

Thanks for reading! This one is a beautifully fruity soda cocktail and starts off dainty and light, and ends saturated with bitters and tart, dark fruits. You know I love drinks that change as you drink them. CHEERS!

SONG PAIRING // SINDEN - HIGH DEMAND ^^^

AGUACATE 

I’m gettin hippy trippy over here with this one. Did you know that Mezcal is not only the shit, but it’s an aphrodisiac as well? Did you know avocados were too? Did you also know that having a really nice blender enables you to not only make your versace python work-out smoothies, but some bodacious cocktails too? Yas. All the yasssss. I haven’t really found a unique combination to pair with Mezcal that I haven’t already seen before (like a Mezcal old fashioned, Mezcal manhattan, Mezcal margarita, etc., etc., blah, blah, right?), until now. I’ve been cooking a lot at home and this flavor profile just hit me - the smokey pungent taste of Scorpion Silver Mezcal - paired with the dainty sweetness of bananas, avocados, agave nectar and honey…and tied all together by the herbal but earthy Cocoa Leaf Liqueur by AGWA, smoothness of Cointreau, and tangy sourness of some fresh fresh fresh squeezed lime. What a combo right? 

Mezcal is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from the maguey plant (a form of agave, Agave americana) native to Mexico. The word mezcal comes from Nahuatl mexcalli /meʃˈkalːi/ metl /met͡ɬ/ and ixcalli /iʃˈkalːi/ which means “oven-cooked agave”.

The maguey grows in many parts of Mexico, though most mezcal is made in Oaxaca.There is a saying attributed to Oaxaca regarding the drink: “Para todo mal, Mezcal, y para todo bien, también” (“For every ill, Mezcal, and for every good as well.”).

It is unclear whether distilled drinks were produced in Mexico before the Spanish Conquest.The Spaniards were introduced to native fermented drinks such as pulque, also made from the maguey plant. Soon the conquistadors began experimenting with the maguey plant to find a way to make a distillable fermented mash. The result was mezcal^.

Today, mezcal is still made from the heart of the maguey plant, called the “piña”, much the same way it was 200 years ago, in most places.In Mexico, mezcal is generally consumed straight and has a strong smoky flavor.Though mezcal is not as popular as tequila (a mezcal made specifically from the blue agave in select regions of the country), Mexico does export the product, mostly to Japan and the United States, and exports are growing in popularity, especially this year! I see it more and more every time I go to the bars. I love it. I don’t like it straight, I’d rather drink it sweetened up or in a big balanced cocktail, but I can appreciate it, nonetheless.

So here is the crazy recipe for this one, ya’ll:

ELEMENTS //

1 oz Scorpion Silver Mezcal

1 tbsp local honey

¼ avocado, no skin

1 oz Agave Nectar

¾ oz AGWA Cocoa Leaf Liqueur

½ oz Cointreau

1 ½ oz fresh squeezed lime juice

1 cup ice

BUILD //

Combine ALL ingredients above in a blender, puree until this drink looks like a smoothy. Drink to taste, if too smokey, add more citrus or honey to your liking.

GARNISH: In my photos, I used a thin slice of fresh banana covered in Angostura Bitters, and a light dusting of nutmeg and coffee dust; 3 fresh blueberries of the season, and a sprig of Cinnamon Basil from my urban garden. (yay! fresh herbs are the best)

ENJOY!

CHEERS,

Little Southern Bartender.

SONG PAIRING //  A NIGHT IN JAPAN - BUTTER & SALMON

SANDIA ROJA

Ah……It’s summer time again. Finally. This means a number of things to me: different big, bodacious juicy fruits to puree, cook, squeeze, and drink…long nights on my porch sippin’ on that something sweet, reveling in the Kentucky sunset…and long days trying to do the raddest shit, and somehow fitting work into the mix too. It’s crazy! But I have finally found some time here, so I bring you my latest pink, perfect concoction.

IF you don’t like watermelon, then quit reading right about now, because it is literally one of my favorite red things in the whole wide fucking world to shove into my face all season long. Nothing beats it, and pureeing it into the bottom of a glass to compliment a sweet cocktail was the best idea I’ve had in a while. 

I paired this succulent fruit with some fresh picked mint from my urban garden and some fresh squeezed lemon to give it a bit of that tangggggg. I crafted a blackberry banana syrup a week ago for another project, but I paired it here with the watermelon and Cruzan’s Pineapple White Rum, and it was like a super fruit pina colada & a bodacious mojito had a beautiful pink baby. Try this one at home, and you’ll be more addicted to this one than Kanye West is into frowning in public. Yas.

ELEMENTS

¼ cup pureed watermelon pulp

4 mint leaves

1 oz La Criox Raspberry Cranberry sparkling water

½ oz  fresh squeezed lemon

¾ oz Blackberry Banana Syrup

2 oz Cruzan Pineapple White Rum

BUILD

Take the smashed watermelon and put it into your glass prior to making your cocktail. combine all ingredients in shaker, shake with ice, and single strain into watermelon glass. Add big ice cubes, garnish with a big mint sprig for aromatics, and you’re in business, baby. Now go tan and stare into the sun while you get drunk on fruit! 

CHEERS,

Little Southern Bartender

SONG PAIRING // GERRY RAFFERTY - RIGHT DOWN THE LINE

(above^)

OLD ROSEBUD RISING 

Living in the good ol’ state of Kentucky and being so close to bourbon county has given me opportunity after opportunity to take a beautifully crafted spirit, made and perfected by many a craftsman, and complement it even more by showcasing it as the star in many of my craft concoctions, with joy and true American spirit. I was recently entered in a local contest here in Louisville to represent Against the Grain for Basil Hayden Bourbon’s best bourbon cocktail 2015. I gave it my best shot, and ended up winning people’s choice, 2nd place in the whole contest out of 17 bartenders in the city, $565 for having the biggest squad of supporters (thanks again homies!), and a Jim Beam Distillery tour for my staff at ATG! I tried to craft something that was unique, Derby themed, and inclusive of elements that couldn’t be duplicated too easily.

Basil Hayden is a lower proof bourbon that has high notes of honey and peppery spice, but subtle. I wanted to pull those sweeter notes out by pairing it with fruit flavors, earthy spices, and bright and tangy acidics. For the visuals of the drink, I used some beautiful German crystal that I found at a local Antique store, big fresh sprigs of mint, lemon peels that were soaked in HUM hibiscus liqueur for aromatics, Kilimanjaro spices dusted on top pf a completely clear ice sphere encasing kaffir lime leaves and actual lavender Derby rosebuds before blooming.

For the body of this bad boy, I wanted the pink color to be popping and bright, so my random ingredient was pickled beet lemon juice! At ATG, we have an array of house made pickled vegetables that pair with the big meats and barbecue heavy Southern style menu we offer. We pickle some fresh beets with apple cider vinegar, so I took some of that bright pink juice that looked like Alien blood, cut it with some fresh lemons, and paired it with the layered spicy TIKI bitters from Bitterman’s (one of my all time favorite companies). To tie all this together, I added St. Germaine Elderflower liqueur and hibiscus grenadine for subtle sweetness.

So without further ado, here’s what I came up with ya’ll: 

ELEMENTS //

OLD ROSEBUD RISING

1 ½ ounces BASIL HAYDEN

¾ ounces St. Germaine

¾ ounces pickled beet lemon juice

¾ ounces B. G. Reynolds hibiscus grenadine

3 dashes Bitterman’s TIKI Bitters

Garnish:

Triple distilled ice sphere encasing lavender rosebuds & kaffir lime leaves, a light dusting of Kilimanjaro spices (ginger, cloves, cinnamon, etc.), lemon spirals soaked in HUM liqueur for 2 days, and fresh mint sprigs.

METHOD //

Combine all in shaker, shake with ice. Single strain over ice ball into glass, add all garnishes listed above. 

CHEERS!

Again, thanks for all the support and positive vibes from everyone, even support that is as small as following and reading this blog. I couldn’t have as much inspiration without people surrounding me with kind words and motivating me to want to learn more and more every day to perfect my craft.

MORE COOL SHIT TO COME! Stay tuned

SONG PAIRING // SOLANGE - LOSING YOU