Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: Sick In The Head

Happy Friday, as well as Remembrance/Veterans/Armistice day.

I’ve finally caught was was going around. Not COVID thankfully, but whatever head cold/cough that has been bothering Mrs. Sharkbait and Sharkette the last two weeks finally sunk it’s teeth in me. It’s a less than ideal situation to be in when it hurts to swallow and you’re stuffed up, but it could certainly be worse since we’re not out of the pandemic just yet.

Since I’ve been feeling under the weather, I’ve been drinking hot toddys like its my job. Which is excellent, until you run out of brandy or whiskey. which leads me to this week’s cocktail. I wanted to expand on the tea/honey/lemon base that forms a hot toddy and see what else works. That’s where the Honeybee “G & Tea” comes in.

Now, outside of the aforementioned hot toddys, I’m not a tea drinker.

I’m not as rough on tea as Mr. Lasso up there, but it was never my thing. However, I’m willing to give another tea based drink a shot, especially since as good as toddys are, I think I need a break from them. I figure the medicinal qualities of lemon honey and tea will carry through to other tea based drinks right?

Honeybee Gin & Tea:

1 cup hot water

1 tsp. honey

1 Earl Grey tea bag

1 oz. Gin

Ice

1 strip lemon peel for garnish

Combine hot water and honey in a mug; stir to dissolve the honey. Add tea bag and steep for up to 5 minutes. Remove tea bag; refrigerate the tea mixture until chilled. To make cocktail, combine the tea mixture with gin and ice in a cocktail shaker or mason jar; cover and shake. Transfer to a glass and garnish with lemon peel, if desired.

Before we begin, shoutout to Batson River distilling in Kennebunk Maine. I picked up their basic gin when Mrs. Sharkbait and I were there a few weeks ago.

Not much in terms of aroma (at least in my current semi-stuffed up state) but I do get distinct tea aromas. It reminds me of iced tea a little bit. Of which, I suppose this is.

The taste of this is fairly straightforward. I get all tea, with a little bit of sweetness from the honey, and not much gin surprisingly. I thought the gin would power through the tea and be much more of a presence here, but that is definitely not the case at all. I ended up doubling the gin ratio since I used an oversize mug to steep the tea, and realized I would need more gin to compensate. If I use the oversize mug again, I might even add another half ounce of gin on top of the added ounce already.

I’d also add a little more honey too, as well as some lemon juice. The honey I can kind of get with a hint of sweetness underneath the tea, but the lemon is all but missing here. I even squeezed the garnish too.

This was good, and a nice shift from the hot toddys. Did it help me feel better from my cold? Debatable. I think the heat of the hot toddy is a major factor in the soothing/healing properties it has. Either way, I liked the changeup of flavors with the new tea and the small batch gin. I’ll be trying this again once I kick this cold, so until then, I’ll be sticking with the tried and true hot toddy.