Sharkbait’s Cocktail Of The Week: The Fog

Apologies up front for the length of this week’s post. I’ve been battling a head cold for the last few days, and senses of smell and taste have been negatively affected over the course of that span. Thankfully it is confirmed NAWT COVID, so that keeps my active streak alive!

Whenever I’m feeling congested/have a cold, I almost always make a Hot Toddy, and that is no exception here. Unfortunately, that won’t work in this space, as I’ve already written about the Hot Toddy in the past. Not wanting to repeat myself, I’m somewhat in a bind here. I can’t give any kind of proper, in depth review since I’m hamstrung sensory wise. I do have something in the hopper, but it isn’t as polished as I would like it to be. Mainly because I had this drink while we were out at a local restaurant and I didn’t want to be that guy furiously jotting tasting notes down on my phone while out to dinner.

With that being said, I’m left with little choice than to bring it out, so here is the Peaches For Me:

Four Roses Bourbon

Peach Liquor

Lilet

Lemon Juice

Simple Syrup

Caramelized Peach for garnish

Sadly, I have no idea what the proportions are for the ingredients. Though at least I know what went in this drink. Rest assured, This will be experimented with come next spring and summer for sure. So the nose is fairly neutral. I get a lot of fruit notes from the peach. I imagine I’d get more if they didn’t sadly run out of the peach garnish.

Bourbon flavor leads the way upon the first taste. It isn’t too strong, but you can tell its a whiskey drink. Those that don’t like bourbon may still be turned off here. Fairly soon after the first sip, the flavor gives way to a lemon-y, peachy sweet and sour combination.

That mixture of flavors stays pretty consistent throughout the rest of the sip. There is just enough peach flavoring to keep things in balance, with perhaps a slight edge to the base peach flavor taking over, but not dominating. I’m glad that this drink doesn’t hit you over the head with peach flavors. Too much of that would ruin this.

The Lilet does get kind of lost here. Though it has such a light flavor on it’s own I think it might be acting as a counter to the peach and peach liquor, as well as a little bit of extra sweetener to balance the harsher citric acid from the lemon and attenuate the bourbon notes.

Again, apologies for (what I consider at least) to be a post not up to my usual standards. Though it is kind of nice to highlight the hard work of a local bar here, as well as give me inspiration to try and re-create this at home.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)