Raise Your Awareness

ADVANCED MIXOLOGY RAISE YOUR AWARENESS Flower Frenzy Add a nutritional boost to your cocktails by mixing and garnishing with edible flowers. Blooms like roses, hibiscus and lavender are attractive and add antioxidants to your latest creations. Just a Rose

Rose petals are renowned for their use in many cocktails and rosewater brings a distinctive floral character to a drink. Just a drop will do it, too much will be overpowering. Make your own rose petal infusions by adding fresh or dried organic, pesticide free petals to a base spirit. Place a handful of petals in a wide-mouthed jar. Fill the jar with your spirit of choice and 1/4 cup of sugar. Store in a cool dark place for about a month. A slice of lemon will bring bright color to the darkened petals. Serve with ice or soda.

HendRick’S Gin

Actually made with rose petals,

Hendrick’s is a natural partner for rosewater and rose petal garnishes. It’s a manly way for a guy to stop and smell the roses. Mix solo with just tonic water or in a martini sans vermouth. Garnish with a cucumber and some rose petals and savor the beautiful flavor bouquet or try Wild Hibiscus Flower Company’s wild hibiscus flowers preserved in rose syrup for an extra kick. ROSe GiMLeT

Created by Canard Chef

INGREDIENTS

1 1/4 oz. Hendrick’s Gin 1 oz. Simple Syrup 1 oz. Fresh limejuice 3 Drops of Rose Water

PREPARATION

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with edible rose petals. Can substitute 1 oz. of Rose’s Limejuice for simple syrup and lime juice.

ROSA ReGALe

“Love at First Sip” bottles a semi-dry, red sparkling wine crafted at the La Rosa Vineyard in Italy. The wine is 100% Brachetto grapes with a delicate bouquet of rose petals and raspberry and strawberry flavors. This is the chocolate lovers wine.

Stress Relieving Lavender Ideal for many culinary uses, lavender has its own flavor along with a citrus bite. Give your cocktails an herbal twist by adding lavender simple syrup to a vodka like absolut Citron and garnish with a sprig of lavender.

laveNder SImple Syrup

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup granulated sugar 1/2 cup of water 1 1/2 tsp. dried lavender buds

PREPARATION

Combine sugar, water and lavender in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring well until sugar is dissolved. Reduce to simmer for one to two minutes. Remove from heat and let steep then cool for about 10 minutes. Strain and discard lavender. hpNotIq

A club favorite for years, is bringing floral infused spirits to the mainstream from behind the violet ropes with Harmonie. A blend of infused berries, violets and lavender, its latest use is in recipes calling for violet liquor.

Also popular floral flavors in cocktails. Try the St. Germain Cocktail; think Paris circa 1947.

muSt try

Corzo tequila’s Rose Petal Infusion by adding fresh pineapple spears, orange zest, some dry rose petals and dry hibiscus flowers to a bottle of Corzo Silver that is one quarter full. Infuse for at least 24 hours. Makes a great display. hIbISCuS aNd elderFlower

INGREDIENTS

2 Parts Chandon Brut Classic Champagne 1 1/2 Part St. Germain 2 Parts Sparkling Water

PREPARATION

Stir ingredients in a tall ice-filled Collins glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Chambord Flavored vodka

Delivers the floral aromatics of the hibiscus flower along with the distinctive black raspberry flavor of the original liqueur. Plus Chambord’s Pink Your Drink program has already generated close to $200,000 in donations for Breast Cancer awareness. Pour the pink over ice cream for a tasty treat!

Tips For Using Edible Flowers

*If you are not growing your own flowers, try to find a farmers market or organic greenhouse nearby that sells fresh and dried edible flowers. *Never eat flowers of any kind from your florist. Cut flowers are sprayed with poisonous pesticides since they are not intended for food. Always stick to the flowers you know are edible. If you are unsure, don’t eat it. *The flower’s color can affect the taste. For instance darker color roses are more robust and lighter ones add a subdued elegance.

THE ZOMBIE

by Rob V. Burr Mixologist, RumXP Judge

Donn Beach and Victor J. Bergeron of Trader Vic’s were rivals for many years. Each claim to have created the Mai Tai, which translates to “good” in Tahitian. The rum, Curacao liqueur and limejuice tiki drink was the popular drink in the film Blue Hawaii starring Elvis Presley.

IngredIents 1 oz. light rum 1 oz. gold rum 1 oz. Demerara 151 rum 1 oz. passion fruit syrup 1 oz. lemon juice 1 oz. limejuice 1 oz. pineapple juice Dash of Angostura bitters PreParatIon • Shake all ingredients (except rum) with ice and strain into a Collins glass. • Float the 151 proof rum on top.

It was 1934. Prohibition was over and the country rejoiced with a renewed vigor and interest in legal libations. One of the greatest innovators in spirits hospitality at this time was Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gannt, popularly known as Donn Beach. With ingenious foresight, he opened Don The Beachcomber Bar and Restaurant, the world’s first Tiki Palace, starting the tropically decorated bar craze that same year.

As a former bootlegger, Donn faced a challenge. How do you get an eager population of American whiskey drinkers, martini lovers and old-fashioned cocktail enthusiasts to consume wild, fruity potions filled with rum from exotic destinations? The answer was revealed serendipitously.

One fateful day at Don The Beachcomber in Los Angeles, the great tiki cocktail master mixed a potent rum drink for a regular customer heading on a short business trip. As the story goes, it was so delicious that the man eagerly enjoyed three of these mystery cocktails before heading to the airport. When he sauntered into the bar several days later, he asked Donn: “What was in that drink?” He said he felt like a complete zombie for the last three days. And thus the legend of The Zombie cocktail was born.

With more than seven ounces of rum and liqueurs mixed with delicious fruit juices, it became the most controversial, the most talked-about and eventually the most popular cocktail of the day. His business boomed as customers flocked to try his dangerous, infamous concoction. Donn instituted a strict limit of two Zombie cocktails per customer. Many considered this a bold challenge. Word spread wildly about Donn’s “tropical paradise” and his demon drink and the tiki bar vacation without leaving home fad was an overnight sensation.

To keep the competition at bay, Donn never revealed the exact recipe of his original Zombie cocktail. He mixed his own syrups and unique special ingredients so that even his own bartenders could not reproduce the drink exactly. Thus, many iterations of the Zombie were created over the years. Donn never quite finished perfecting the drink, always endeavoring to improve on his original and make it easy for novices to master. Then in 1956 during a magazine interview, Donn revealed a modified version of his monstrous tipple, now referred to as the 1956 Zombie by tikiphiles. Although a bit simpler to make, the new version was true to the original concept - fruity and delicious and as potent and powerful as ever.

To this day, no two bartenders make The Zombie exactly the same way. I’ve made it my life’s work to test them all and that’s why I love it.