Happy Friday before Snowpocalypse 2022. My original plan for a theme this week was to utilize my Allspice dram and come up with a tropical type of drink since it has been fuck ass cold up here in the Northeast and a bit of pandemic cabin fever has me longing for a beach and somewhere warm. Now, with the weather map looking like this

The island escapism sentiment I’ve been feeling lately is even more justified. I knew I wanted to use the allspice, and since I am bereft of rum, I settled on using rye as the base, with some added pineapple juice I had on hand. Thinking I needed more, I called in some reinforcements and a bartender friend and I came up with this basic recipe for an allspice sour:

2 oz. Rye
1 oz. Pineapple
.5 oz. lemon juice
barspoon allspice dram
egg white
lemon peel

Add everything to a shaker and dry shake. Add ice and shake again, then strain into rocks glass with ice. Top with a couple drops angostura bitters

Before I begin, I do need to mention that I fucked up and forgot I was using my 2 ounce/1 ounce jigger, instead of my 1 ounce/ half ounce, so I added double the lemon juice I should have. I ended up adding another splash of pineapple juice to the shaker to compensate, but the lemon is just too powerful and doesn’t just add the sour notes that make this drink work. It comes in a little too hard and makes too much noise in the flavor profile.

Anyway, on to the drink. The nose is citrusy and bright, thanks to the lemon and pineapple base. Slight hints of the angostura bitter aromas coming in, but it isn’t much, and might be because I was directly over one of the droplets I put on top.

The sip is clean, crisp, and ever so slightly sour. The pineapple flavor leads the way, with the sour lemon flavor underneath. The lemon slowly gives way to become the predominant flavor in the sip. The lemon maintains its flavor dominance all the way to the end, when you start to get slight hints of the allspice dram in there. The allspice notes really brings this together and provides an excellent finish. The lemon, pineapple and sour flavors need the dark and spicy notes the allspice brings and the fusion works very well in this application. The aforementioned flavor combination is what finished the drink off in style as well. I’m a little surprised the rye kind of got lost here.

So, I really like where this is going. It is a delicious sour  I definitely want to keep experimenting with this one, and make it with the proper proportions next time. While it wasn’t the island theme I was going for, it was certainly tasty and a great foundation to build on.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be looking to book an appointment with Mr. Plow for tomorrow.

(Banner image found here)