Dry January – Whippoorwill
As promised, here comes my first non-alcoholic cocktail in 2022. I thought I would start with cocktails using tea. Every time I am creating a non-alcoholic cocktail, I am trying to replace the alcohol with another flavour-full ingredient. Besides coffee, tea also works very well here. In this case, I went for something tropical. If you really need to, you could call it a virgin Hurricane…
Tea instead of booze
I am a big fan of white tea. While, green and black tea are also fine, there is just something special about those little silver leaves. However, at the same time (pure) white tea is also quite expensive, so I am using the silver needle one carefully. Nevertheless, I also wanted to use it in a cocktail. So, I paired the slightly fruity notes of the Yin Zhen with passion fruit syrup and fruit jam. As a by-product, I also added oranges and peaches to the drink. Balance everything with a bit of lime and orange juice and you got yourself a quite tropic non-ABV drink. In the end, I thought a little splash of soda water also could not hurt.
2,25 cl Lime Juice
3 cl Orange Juice
2 Bsp. Passionfruit & Peach Purée
1,5 cl d’Arbo Passionfruit & Orange Syrup
Shake – strain – chilled Highball glass over ice cubes – top off with Soda Water;
Garnish: Lime Twist;
Song: Darlingside – Whippoorwill;
Fruity and refreshing
The tricky thing with using tea as the main flavour component in a cocktail is the balance. Obviously, you have to use more than you would as a base spirit. Yet, you do not want to dilute the drink too much. After all, you are basically adding water to your cocktail. However, if you get it right, the “Whippoorwill” offers a beautiful combination of exotic fruit flavours with the tartness and umami notes of the white tea. Even my wife, who usually does not like green or white tea, did enjoy this non-alcoholic cocktail. Furthermore, the jam adds a nice mouthfeel to the drink.
