Highgarden
Recipe:
- 35ml Buffalo Trace bourbon
- 25ml Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban 14Y (or other elegant portwood malts)
- 25ml fresh lemon juice
- 12.5ml rose syrup
- 10ml falernum
- 10ml redwine-orange syrup
- 2 dashes orange bitters
- 1 dash creole style bitters (Peychaud’s, etc.)
Shake everything on ice until sufficiently chilled, strain into a prechilled coupe, garnish with edible rose petals.
The inspiration for this drink comes from the "Auntie Rose" in the book "Bourbon Bartender" by Jane Danger & Alla Lapushchik. It immediately caught my eye because of the unusual combination of bourbon and falernum (which I love when its good quality or selfmade). Unfortunately, as I anticipated, the drink was way, waaaay too sweet in its original ratio and generally a bit flat, consisting only of bourbon (Four Roses, especially sweet), falernum, 22.5ml of rose syrup (!) and some lemon juice.
Still, my interest was piqued. With a completely different ratio and a bit more fruit from the sherry cask single malt and also the red wine orange syrup (not a "classic" syrup, as very tart still), I found a combination that I liked a lot.
The drink is hard to describe, it keeps a characteristic great rose note, but complemented by other elegant herbal and fruity notes. The orange bitters add freshness and form a good duo with the orange notes in the syrup, the creole style bitters (TBT Own Decanter Bitters in this case, you can use Peychaud’s too) always add good depth to whisky drinks, they also fit well with the finish here. Overall, it would be considered a fruity-sweet-elegant drink, but one that still maintains a certain balance.
As is unfortunately always the case with my beloved ingredient falernum, a generalized ratio/recipe is difficult here. This is because falernum can be VERY different and 95% of it (especially in the US) is unfortunately the John D. Velvet. A pure flat syrup with a hint of lemongrass and candied lime peel/ginger in it but 95% of it tasting like simple syrup with some orgeat in it. The ratio I use in this recipe is adjusted to this very sweet product, as it is the most widely used with certainly >90% market share. If you make a nice falernum yourself, with proper lime acidity and some spiciness or use e.g. the ingenious Heinrich von Have Amber Falernum, 3 Islands Falernum or similar (especially in Germany you have great product selection on the web) stuff, you can increase the falernum proportion up to 20ml, because proper acidity comes with it.
