BY MAURA GRAMZINSKI
When we set out to make a cocktail featuring our award-winning Bourbon Cocktail Cherries and Dram’s Palo Santo bitters we knew it had to be special, healing, and very Colorado. Behold the Summertime in the Pines. This tall icy cocktail reminds us of a late spring, early summertime breeze through the trees when the snow is melting, the earth is revitalized, and everything is green and busting with new growth. We think you will love this one.
Ingredients:
• 1.25 oz Gin
• 2 tsp Cherry Syrup from our Bourbon Cocktail Cherries (found at RedCamper Picnic Supply & Mercantile, 1939 E. Kentucky in Wash Park)
• 1/8 tsp Pine Syrup from Dram (don’t have this..that’s ok, just use a piney gin)
• Fresh Mint leaves
• Soda Water – we used Topo Chico
• 3 dashes of Palo Santo bitters from Dram
• Crushed ice
(Makes 1 cocktail)
Put the gin, 1.5 tsp of cherry syrup, pine syrup, “clapped”* mint leaves and ice into a shaker and shake, shake, shake. Shake like you mean it.
Pour your shaken contents into a tall Tom Collins slender glass, add more crushed ice to fill to nearly the top if there is extra space. Now fill your glass to the top with soda water. Drizzle the last 1/2 tsp of cherry syrup over the ice and lastly shake 3 shakes of bitters over the top as well.
Garnish with a mint leaf and cocktail cherry on a toothpick. Serve with a paper or stainless steel straw if you have it. No straw, no problem. That’s it..now just sit back and breath deeply. It’s all going to be ok.
*Put the leaves into the cupped palm of your hand and clap once … that’s how the professionals do it.
Enjoy from a sunny porch swing. On a picnic blanket. On a dock. In a canoe. Just be present. Document. Share. Connect. And make up a great story while you are at it.