genever

1 oz Roku gin
½ oz Boomsma Oude Genever
½ oz Italicus
¼ oz Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao
½ oz lemon juice
1 barspoon honey syrup

Combine all in a shaker with cracked ice, shake to chill, strain, and serve up.

I picked up a bottle of Italicus, an Italian bergamot aperitif, a couple weeks back via @trycuriada along with a few other goodies that I haven’t been able to find locally, and while I’ve been playing with the other bottles I hadn’t figured out what I wanted to do with this yet.

With the temperatures heating up this weekend here in Georgia, I decided I wanted something crisp and refreshing, and this experiment is delivering.

The Genever is playing with the Italicus in a wonderful way, and the curacao is unobtrusively lending a supporting citrus sweetness that means we’re not going overly tart from the lemon. I only had an ounce left of Roku and decided it would be a great choice to use that last dram here as I didn’t want to overwhelm the bergamot and other botanicals in the Italicus with a heavier gin. The end result is fairly herbaceous, but wonderfully refreshing drink in which you can distinctly taste each ingredient that combine into a unified whole.
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1 oz Boomsma oude genever
1 oz plum brandy
1 barspoon apricot preserves
Juice from 1 wedge of lemon
3 drops of The Bitter Housewife’s aromatic bitters

Combine all but the bitters and dry shake until the preserves have dissolved. Shake with ice and strain. The above proportions will make two diminutive servings, or one for the large folk.

What started as a meme that a friend posted on Facebook turned into intricate family tree for a village full of D&D halflings and tonight a few of us will be getting together virtually to play a game as some of them for a fun break after having completed a campaign that started shortly after quarantine did. I’ll be playing the inestimable Juniper Brandybiscuit: halfling brewer, drink mixer, and Artificer for whom this drink is named.

I had to use brandy, but went for a fruit brandy to help heighten the jammy taste I was going for, so opted for my favorite plum pálinka. Equal parts of an aged genever gave me the juniper notes I was looking for while still staying on the malty, sweet side of things. The lemon brightens things up and means that the dollop of preserves don’t take things quite over the line into over-sweetness. These particular bitters are more subdued than some of my other old fashioned aromatic bitters, which means the spice sits nicely in the background instead of overwhelming.

The result is a jammy sweet, somehow buttery tasting small drink that is absolutely what I was hoping to
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https://instagr.am/p/CI8yY2EJfyw/