Happy long holiday weekend! Monday is indigenous People’s Day in the US. Re-named because Columbus was a giant piece of shit

As well as Canadian Thanksgiving. So happy Thanksgiving to our friends up north. For this week, now that I’m back to 100% health wise,  I wanted to get into the autumn season. Having picked up some apple cider the other day I wanted to try my hand a creating my own fall cocktail. After some trial and error, this is what I settled on:

2 oz. Rye whiskey

2 oz. Apple cider

.25 oz. Allspice dram

.25 oz. Ginger liqueur

Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a rocks glass with one large ice cube

The nose here is very mild. I mostly get the cider aromas, and even then that isn’t very strong.

The apple cider flavor starts out very strong up front, but the sweetness of the cider is definitely muted, as opposed to regular unadulterated cider, which immediately makes this a bit easier to drink.

Midway through the sip, the bitterness from the allspice dram comes in. The semi-sweet/bitter combination works very well here. Which is good because that becomes the predominant flavor all the way through the end, with little to no changes after that.

The ginger liqueur almost gets completely lost here. I added it to counter the allspice dram hence the equal proportion. Plus, ginger & apple is a good combination and I figured it couldn’t hurt to add it here.

I’m surprised to see the rye get covered up as well. I figured the rye flavor would be more of a thing, but like the ginger liqueur, no dice. I suppose whiskey isn’t the best spirit to use in a cider based cocktail. I wonder if using rum, brandy or cognac and see if that makes a discernable flavor difference.

This isn’t bad for an attempted DIY cocktail. It’s definitely better than the first attempt (of which I finished because I’m not one to waste booze). I added way too much allspice (one ounce). For this version, a quarter of an ounce seems to be the sweet spot. As mentioned above, I think I want to try with a different base spirit to see how it will work out. Though, on the other hand, there is some simplistic beauty in a brandy and cider on a cold fall day, so maybe I shouldn’t mess with perfection and just infuse some cider again the next time I want something different.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)