Dranks! - Vodka Rose Sour

The Mother’s Day drink objective: Make it girly and fun, with a tart twist and a little pinch of…something. One of the things that people worry about with drinks like this is that they’ll be overly floral and end up tasting like a bar of soap. Floral flavors don’t have to be that way! Treat them with respect and balance, and soon enough you’ll have an amazing drink.

There are some components to this drink so you may have to plan ahead, or make substitutions. We’ll talk about that at the end of the recipe. What you need to start is:

Rose syrup

• 3/4 cup sugar

• 3/4 cup water

• 1/4 cup food-grade rose petals*

Put all ingredients into a pot. Bring syrup to a boil, then drop the heat and let everything simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from heat, let cool, and strain. It will last about two weeks in your refrigerator.

For the cocktail

• 2 ounces vodka

• 1/2 ounce elderflower liqueur

• 2-3 mint leaves for shaking, plus a full sprig for garnish

• 1 teaspoon rose syrup

• 2-ish ounces rose lemonade**

• seltzer if necessary

• splash of limoncello

• 2-3 drops of black pepper tincture∞

• a few teeny, adorable, and totally twee rosebuds, for garnish (optional)

• Rocks glass - or Collins glass, if you want to add a bit more seltzer

1. Put vodka, elderflower liqueur, mint leaves, and rose syrup in a cocktail shaker with a strainer cap in the lid. Add plenty of ice. Shake hard, until the frost climbs the outside of the shaker.
2. Fill a rocks glass with more ice. Pour the contents of the shaker into the glass.
3. Top with rose lemonade, and seltzer if necessary to fill the drink to the top.
4. Add a splash of limoncello and the drops of black pepper tincture. Stir once, and garnish with the mint sprig, rosebuds, or a lemon twist. Enjoy!

Rose syrup, in all its vibrant pink glory.

Now, to the particulars.

*Full disclosure; I work for this company, but this is not a paid plug. I like their products and work with them all the time at home. If you can’t find rose petals or don’t have the time to order them online, try steeping syrup with hibiscus or lemongrass tea available at your local supermarket.

**Rose lemonade sounds terribly fancy and difficult to source but you can get it at the national chain big box retailer that has a giant red bullseye as a logo. I’m not getting paid for this by them either, so I’ll leave it to you to figure out who I mean. If you absolutely can’t find/don’t want rose lemonade, use a fruity raspberry lemonade, or lavender lemonade. Look for something that isn’t sugar-shock sweet, since there’s simple syrup and sweet limoncello at the end, too, and you don’t want to create a sugar bomb.

∞Oooh, this black pepper tincture. It’s very simple to make, though it does need to sit for two days. I use it in just about every cocktail I make now, since it adds a bit of punch to…everything. It’s like a drinkable exclamation point. And once you’ve made it, it lasts forever.

If you need a substitute, use basic Angostura bitters, or get a bottle of spicy bitters. You don’t need something that will light you up, though, so don’t get blisteringly hot habanero bitters or anything smoked. You just want something with a gentle burn that will cut through the sweet and floral flavors of the cocktail.

To make it, mix 2 ounces Bourbon Barrel Smoked Pepper (again, I work here) with 4 ounces clear, clean-tasting alcohol (vodka or Everclear). Let sit for two days, shaking the mixture occasionally. Strain into a clean container. If you think the tincture appears a little green, particularly when you first add it to a cocktail, don’t worry. Black pepper contains essential oils that often look sort of greenish.