Drinks for the memories: Try this sweet mandarin orange cosmo for March Mandarin March Cosmo
As spring begins to — well, spring — fresh ingredients are going to be available in grocery stores, making mixing drinks at home extra exciting.
This season, you’re going to find mandarins joining the oranges, tangerines, and clementines in the produce aisles. That’s why I decided to do a spin on a Cosmopolitan, a classic cocktail brought back to life by legendary author and bartender, Dale Degroff, in the 90s and pummeled into pop culture by a certain group of fictional female friends that took New York City by storm soon after.
Traditionally, a Cosmo is made with vodka, orange liqueur, lime juice, and cranberry juice. It’s bright, tart, and easy to drink a lot of. To make my reinterpretation of a Cosmo, you will need vodka, a few mandarins (one to candy and one or two to juice depending on the size), sugar, water, cranberry juice, and lime juice. First, we’re going to candy a mandarin so we can use the wheels for garnish and then use the syrup produced from the process in the cocktail (waste not).
Now you have something to sip while you watch the spring flowers burst to life. 1 mandarin orange 1 cup water
1 cup sugar
Using a mandolin or knife, slice your mandarin into thin wheels about ¼ inch thick.
In a saucepan, add water and sugar over low heat. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Add mandarin wheels to the simple syrup, allow to sit for about one hour, flipping them, until they are translucent. Remove mandarin wheels and leave them to sit on a wire rack overnight.
Store the mandarin syrup in a sealed container in the refrigerator for up to a week. 1 ½ ounces vodka ¾ ounce fresh squeezed mandarin juice
¾ ounce mandarin syrup ½ ounce cranberry juice ¼ ounce lime
Add all ingredeints to a shaker with ice, In a rocks glass, add one large cube or ice sphere. Wedge one of your candied mandarins between the ice and the side of your glass, so the ice keeps it against the glass for display.
Strain your cocktail over the ice.