jungle jim

1/2 oz Passion Fruit Syrup
1/2 oz Chai Tea Syrup
1/2 oz Honey Syrup
3/4 oz Lemon Juice
3/4 oz Lime Juice

Shake with ice, strain into a Collins glass with 3 oz soda water, and fill with ice. Garnish with a mint sprig and an orange peel snake.
A few weeks ago at Loyal Nine, I received a drink ticket for a mocktail and I scanned the room to figure out which seat it was. Often it is a lady or a teenager, but this time it was a 4-5 year old guest sitting with his parents at the chef's counter. One of the servers had already communicated that this kid was awesome, so I knew I had to make this special. I will post the first drink I made for him (which is one of my mocktail standards these days) later, but I needed something for his followup drink to out-do the first one. I based the flavor combination off of Don's Special Daiquiri which pairs honey and passion fruit syrups with lime juice. Instead of its rum, I opted for a bit of chai tea syrup and soda water, and I split the citrus into equal parts lime and lemon. For a garnish, I went tropical with a citrus peel snake that I mastered from making Cobra and other Tiki drinks at home. The cool part was that the snake sprang out a bit when the ice was jostled with the straw!

new orleans coffee fizz

2 oz Espresso (approximately a double shot)
1 1/2 oz Cream (Half & Half)
3/4 oz Lemon Juice
3/4 oz Vanilla Syrup
1/2 oz Cinnamon Syrup
1 Egg White

Shake once without ice and once with ice. Strain into a Collins glass with 2 oz soda water. Rinse shaker tin's ice with more soda water and strain until Collins glass is full. Garnish with 3 coffee beans and add a straw. Optional: twist a lemon peel over the top.

One of the formats I keep returning to is the New Orleans-style Fizz, a Fizz made with dairy and egg. Often the egg aspect is egg white (New Orleans Silver Fizz), but New Orleans Golden (yolk) and Royal (whole egg) exist. The idea of mixing coffee and cream in a drink had popped into my head a few times before I actuated this concept. The host I gave the beta test product to at work quite enjoyed it, so a few days later on the sleep-deprived morning of my clopen (closed the bar the night before, opened the next day in the morning), I decided to make one for myself for medicinal reasons.
Once prepared, the Coffee Fizz shared dark roast aromas; later when the glass was partially empty, the vessel's bare walls donated a cinnamon note that crept in quite pleasantly on the nose. A creamy, carbonated dark roast sip was almost chocolatey in flavor. Moreover, the dark sip was brightened by the lemon; in fact, this caused me in my third iteration to garnish with lemon oil from a twist as is often done with regular espresso. Finally, the swallow was mostly coffee roast with hints of vanilla and lemon peel on the finish; perhaps there were subtle cinnamon notes here, but this was a bit more understated than expected.

cola libre

1 1/2 oz Lime Juice
3/4 oz Cinnamon Syrup (*)
1 Egg White

Shake egg white with lime juice. Add cinnamon syrup and ice, and shake again. Strain into a Collins glass with 3-4 oz cola. Add more cola to shaker tin, lightly swirl to rinse ice cubes, and strain again; repeat until glass is full. Garnish with a lime wheel studded with 5 cloves, and add a straw.
(*) Vanilla syrup, nonalcoholic falernum, or other spiced syrup would work well here too.

Earlier in the week, I tinkered with a mocktail version of my Kingston Fizz. Since I find cola to be too sweet for my palate, I took the route of the classic Cuba Libre and added lime juice to the mix. Besides the Kingston Fizz's spice elements, the egg white aspect that I repeated here aided to smooth over the drink and helped cut back on the sensation of sweetness as well. I originally did this on a smaller lime and cinnamon syrup amount and later upped it to the above recipe to make for a more flavorful and balanced libation.
The cinnamon syrup and lime donated greatly to the drink's aroma. A creamy lime and caramel sip gave way to lime and cola spice on the swallow with a cinnamon finish. Indeed, the extra lime juice here helps to cut back on the soda's sugar attack and made the drink seem less like cola itself. Besides the one that I made for myself and photographed above, I made one for Cristin, one of the servers; she commented that the flavor profile reminded her a lot of Key Lime Pie.

pineapple ramos

3 oz Pineapple Juice
2 oz Heavy Cream
3/4 oz Lemon Juice
1/2 oz Simple Syrup
1/4 oz Vanilla Syrup
1 Egg White

Shake once without ice and once with ice. Strain into a Collins glass with 2-3 oz soda water. Garnish with a pineapple wedge and add a straw.
Today before 2pm at work, it was a rather slow day and I had drank a lot of coffee. Too much coffee. To keep busy besides cleaning and prep work, I decided to make a mocktail for Kelsey, our host today upstairs at Russell House Tavern. I do not have specific tasting notes for this drink since I was presenting it (instead of making it for myself). However, it follows my general recipe for a Ramos Gin Fizz at work with a few modifications. My standard Ramos Gin Fizz has 2 oz of gin and here I substituted 3 oz of pineapple juice; moreover, I upped the heavy cream from 1 1/2 oz to 2 oz here. While many times the classic is made with just simple syrup, I have seen and made recipes that include vanilla extract (such as the link above); therefore, I split the sweetener two parts simple syrup to one part vanilla syrup. I also left out the 4 drops of orange blossom water I often add in the gin version. Instead of an orange twist garnish, I selected a pineapple wedge that I had prepped for my Mytoi Gardens menu item. Kelsey had no complaints and declared that the balance was right as was the level of vanilla notes in the mix. The presentation also garnered a good deal of oohs and ahs.