Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: Well, Well, Well, How the Turntables

Happy Friday! Hopefully this week hasn’t dragged on too long for you. I’m in the last weeks of parental leave and I already am dreading going back to the hundreds of unread emails and other white collar work horrors await me upon my return.

Ignoring that nonsense, I’ve had a productive week. Mrs. Sharkbait and I upgraded our living room furniture, and in doing so, we now have the space to finally set out my parent’s old turntable from what I can guess is the late 1970s if my googling of the model number is accurate. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get this thing set up with a pair of passive speakers and a subwoofer and it all came together beautifully. Albeit after waiting on Amazon to deliver certain components and having to do some cable repair work on the turntable itself. With it working I’ve been breaking out a ton of my parent’s old vinyl as well as adding some new stuff like the Christmas cover double album the wife and I picked up in our travels the other day. I mean If I’ve got a kick ass hifi, I might as well have some seasonally appropriate music to go along with it. Also Sharkbait 2.0 apparently loves him some Rumours by Fleetwood Mac. He was losing his shit the other day when I put him down to put that album on and his mood changed almost instantly. It’s now the go to move for when he’s inconsolable and it works just about every time.

What does this have to do with cocktails? Not much actually but the new album did inspire me to  go looking for more seasonal drinks to use up my stash of fresh cranberries. I found the Cranberry Rye Holiday cocktail in my search. It intrigued me with it’s use of cranberry and whiskey. Normally you’d see vodka or gin here so I’m excited to see where this goes. Plus, I can use up some more of the fresh cranberries I have on hand!

Cranberry Rye Holiday Cocktail

1.5 oz. rye whiskey (I used 2 ounces)
.75 oz. fresh lemon juice
1.5 oz. cranberry juice
1 tsp. maple syrup
2-3 dashes Angostura bitters
splash of seltzer optional
fresh cranberries and/or orange wedge to garnish

In a cocktail shaker filled with ice add the rye whiskey, lemon juice, cranberry juice, maple syrup, and a dash of bitters. Shake vigorously. Strain into a rocks glass filled with ice. Top with seltzer. Garnish with fresh cranberries and/or an orange wedge.

Light on the nose, hints of cranberry, orange and a bit of the rye as well. Overall very mild considering the strong cast of characters that went into this.

The taste is excellent, albeit a bit sour. It starts out with mostly the cranberry juice flavors, but not as intense as straight cranberry. The rye definitely helps hold it back. So much so that it quickly overtakes the cranberry juice for the prime flavor. However, much like the rye holds back the cranberry “bite” the latter does the same for the rye. You get muted rye and whiskey flavors, but not that expected zing that you would expect from the whiskey. Also, as noted above, I went up a half ounce on the rye to cranberry ratio for a couple reasons. One being that I like rye and wanted to taste more of it here. Two, I thought that equal parts cranberry to rye would be too much, and skew the flavor profile too far to the sour side. Based on this experiment, I’m glad I added that extra half an ounce. Though to be fair, The optional soda water could have watered the cranberry down enough so it wouldn’t be as intense as the rye, but I doubt it would have made a significant impact. Speaking of the optional soda, I left it out. Not because I think it would be a detriment per se, I just wanted to try it sans extra water. The carbonation would be a good move here if you felt like adding it. The syrup does get lost here. I think the sour cranberry overpowers it completely. I think it could be a touch sweeter, just to add a bit of balance. The sourness also does linger a little bit on the palate afterwards.

This is very good, and very festive looking, The fresh cranberries and orange are a nice touch, and you could even add a sprig of rosemary to really lean into the holiday aspect. As I said above, I’m glad I added extra rye, and will keep on doing that. I’ll also adjust the syrup going forward too. A little more can go a long way here I think. Enjoy the weekend and happy holidays to you all!

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)