xIf you speak to anyone I know, they’ll tell you that I don’t drink whisky or bourbon. I’ve tried to so many times and there is just so few ways I genuinely enjoy it. I made my own old fashioned cocktails with Glen Moray and I found that my recipe for a cherry choc chip old fashioned really hit the spot. Cherries are my favourite fruit, so when Four Roses Bourbon asked if I could make some Valentines inspired cocktails, I knew exactly what I needed to do.
Four Roses has a love story of its own, making it the perfect spirit for Valentines Day. Founder Paul Jones Jr fell for a Southern beauty, who he asked to date. She responded by saying that, if her answer was yes, she would wear a corsage of four roses on her gown to an upcoming ball. The rest they say, is history, but Four Roses keeps the theme with their name, the cut glass rose design on the front of the bottle and the rosebud shape you can see on the rear of the bottle when it is held upside down.
Four Roses Small Batch is crafted from four select bourbons to create a lightly sweet yet still spicy bourbon whiskey with notes of oak and caramel to round it out to a smooth tasting spirit. I played on the ripened red berries on the palate by adding my favourite cherries to this Cherry Bourbon Smash cocktail and I am so pleased with it. Here is how you make it at home –
Ingredients – Makes 1
50 ml Four Roses Small Batch Bourbon
4-5 cherries. I used frozen that I let defrost
25ml sugar syrup
25ml freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 egg white
Method
Fill a coupe glass with ice to chill.
Put the cherries and sugar syrup into a cocktail shaker and muddle until the cherries are completely combined with the sugar syrup and their juice has been released.
Add the rest of the ingredients and hard shake to completely combine the egg white and for it to froth. I’d recommend 20-25 hard shakes but pop the top and check before you pour.
Discard the ice from your coupe glass and fine strain the contents of the cocktail shaker into your glass.
The result is a slightly smokey yet sweet cherry cocktail that I enjoyed several of when experimenting for this post. Big tip is, make sure you keep a hand on the top of the shaker so you don’t end up covered in cherry juice like I did!
