Sharkbaits Cocktail of the Week: Outsourcing

Hey and welcome to Friday! This week I’m outsourcing the cocktail of the week to a local Italian place Mrs. Sharkbait and I went to last night as part of our date night. It was a bourbon based drink called “Red Sweater” It’s definitely holiday themed given the name and the ingredients (I’ll get to those in a minute), but we’re holiday adjacent enough still so I figured I’d go for it and see how it was:

Red Sweater

Bourbon

Home made ginger elixir

Cranberry

Lemon

Candied Ginger for garnish

The home made ginger elixir sounded intriguing as I think the flavors would work very well all together. The addition of the cranberries is what sold me on this being holiday specific. It’s also giving me some ideas to use my cranberries I have sitting in my fridge from the holidays…

Anyway on to the drink itself. It sure looks great. The cranberries give it a nice hue that could be easily dressed up (pardon the pun) to make it look even more festive. The nose here is non-existent. Even with the candied ginger as a garnish, there isn’t anything giving away any kind of aroma.

The first sip is very tart. More than I was expecting to be honest. I’m curios as to the proportions of lemon and cranberry in here. But subsidies fairly quickly. Also the tartness is more intense in the front of the palate, not a sour “back you at the back of the throat” kind of intense. The bourbon absolutely gets lost in the flavors going with this. However the up front tartness from the cranberry and lemon keeps you from downing this too quickly. The finish is a diminished sour/bitter flavors, with some lingering effects on the palate. The latter really makes it a one and done kind of drink. Overall this was good, and I’d be interested in trying to replicate it on my own, and maybe add a little more of a twist to make it mine.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)