Sunday, March 22, 2009

Epic Julep Variation FAIL


I was pretty pumped to get some Mathilde raspberry liqueur. If you taste it on its own, it's like drinking a raspberry, no joke. The problem is, it doesn't mix very well. I think the key is to give the drink a hint, just an idea of the liqueur. If you want to give something actual raspberry flavor, well, look elsewhere. Unfortunately, I learned this lesson after attempting to make a raspberry flavored mint julep.

-1/2 oz raspberry liqueur
-2.5 oz Jim Beam (mmmm)
-loads of mint
-Fee's Whiskey Bitters

Now, in my head, this came out AWESOME. In reality, it came out a bit acrid. I ended up adding a bit more Beam and it balanced out. Sadly, I don't think this recipe is usable as it is. It needs some serious changes, but I don't know what. Any suggestions?

5 comments:

Kyle said...

I think that using some fresh raspberries (although out of season) may work better and you could treat it like you would a smash. Maybe a little sweeter bourbon like Makers wound mix a touch easier in that case. Just a thought and certainly not a verified one.
Cheers

Noelle said...

Kyle - Yeah, your suggestion is a much better alternative. I recently found a recipe that used blackberries. Really delicious. Now that it's berry season, we really gotta experiment more. Your idea is a great one!

Anonymous said...

add a teaspoon of sugar to your recipe and try that

Josh said...

With the Mathilde? Interesting, I'll give it a go!

Noelle said...

Interesting, Anonymous! It's an idea that makes sense, since the classic mint julep recipe calls for sugar. The original hope was that the Mathilde would be sweet enough on its own, but maybe that wasn't the case. We actually recently made some blackberry syrup out of fresh fruit--so maybe we could try using that instead of Mathilde.

On a separate note, we've found Mathilde successful in only two drinks so far--in mexican hot chocolate and as a variant in an old fashion. :-)

Thank you for the idea!