MINTY SPRING SIPS
Drink in the season with a mojito or julep
Thank goodness — Lent is over. For those who gave up alcohol for the past six weeks, it’s time to celebrate its end with a cocktail — preferably one containing mint.
Not only does mint pair well with lamb (a traditional Easter meal), its name and scent evoke the freshness of spring.
Calgary bartenders agree, and are mixing cocktails using the leafy herb as a star ingredient.
“Mint is fresh, it’s spring, it means there’s good times to come,” says Ox & Angela’s Amiel Soicher, who muddles a mean, short mojito using mint, grapes, cane sugar, passion fruit puree and spiced rum.
“The mojito was the first cocktail I was taught to make. It’s nice and refreshing. We make it strong.”
Indeed. There’s no club soda in El Mojito (see recipe, page D3), just rum over muddled fruit, sugar and mint. The grapes and passion fruit give the drink an added richness and the spiced rum (as opposed to light rum) further brings out its fruit notes.
Over at Charcut, bartender Rebecca Davis makes a mint julep with a twist: she adds some heavy dashes of peach bitters.
“The peach adds a re- ally nice component to it,” Davis says. “And I like that you can taste the bourbon. Because (the spirit) is so complex, you can mix so many flavours with it.”
Davis has even prepared the mint julep using black walnut bitters; but for spring, peach works really well.
I love how the peach hits my palate first, followed by the bourbon, with just a hint of mint. It, too, is a strong drink that mellows over time as the crushed ice melts and dilutes it — in a good way.
The Peach Julep (see recipe, page D3) is a good Easter cocktail, and Davis says it would pair well with a dark meat such as lamb.
“You could even make a bourbon-mint rub and massage your lamb with it,” she says, adding, “I do like to add booze to my food.”
For someone just cracking open a bottle of rum or bourbon after six weeks of alcohol abstinence, however, it’s probably best to start slowly with one of these minty spring sips.
El Mojito
3 organic brown sugar cane “lumps” (available at Community Natural Foods or The Cookbook Co.) 4 white grapes half a fresh lime, cut in 9 square pieces 1 oz puree of passion fruit (available at The Cookbook Co.) 6 mint leaves 2 oz spiced rum (Ox & Angela uses Sailor Jerry’s) In a rocks glass, muddle the sugar lumps, grapes, lime and passion fruit puree, making sure to crush the sugar. Add 6 mint leaves and gently muddle the mint into the mixture. Add the rum and then fill the glass 2/3 full with crushed ice.
Stir up all the ingredients, making sure to pull up most of the muddled fruit and leaves so they don’t clog your straw. Fill the rest of the glass with more crushed ice — a mountain to make it look pretty. Throw a sprig of mint on top, as well as a few white grapes, and finally, spear a straw through the ice to reach El Mojito.