One Bottle One Drink – Big City
I guess everybody who grows their own basil knows that at some point it will blossom. Even when I am trying to cut the blossoms to get more leaves, at some point I forget and then the blossoms explode. Well, what you can do is pick them and make a syrup out of them. So, I did and created a suitable drink.
For a basil blossom syrup, you basically just make a simple syrup and throw in the basil blossoms. As always, I used a 2:1 simple syrup as a base. For around 50 ml I used eight to nine long blossom parts. Just boil them with the syrup a strain through a fine mesh strainer. The resulting syrup still tastes a lot like basil, but with some additional funky blossom notes.
Grapefruit laced Gin Sour
For a drink, I chose a Gin Sour as the base. Yet, I still had too many grapefruits on hand. Therefore, I added a splash of pink grapefruit juice to the recipe. As a sweetener, I of course used the basil blossom syrup. On top of that, I went for a citrusy gin with the Gin Eva. Just to round everything off, I also used a little tarragon eau de vie in the recipe.
0,75 cl Freimeister Kollektiv Tarragon Eau de Vie
3 cl Lime Juice
3 cl Grapefruit Juice
2 cl Basil Blossom Syrup
Garnish: Dried Grapefruit Wheel;
Song: Billy Raffoul – Big City;
The “Big City” starts off with a regular Gin Sour taste. However, soon you also taste the grapefruit, which makes the drink smoother. On top of that, there is an additional basil note in the taste. The tarragon eau de vie just lingers in the back and supports the basil flavour. All in all, the drink is a great summer cocktail.