Pumpkin Flip

The Aviary's series of cocktail books tend to be a bit more aspirational than practical for me at this point in my life; they are a good jumping-off point for interesting recipe ideas and techniques, but I don't have the equipment or ingredients to make many of them. (I'm in a phase where I want to make things that are mostly three-or-four ingredient riffs.)

Their holiday cocktail book is a little more practical, though, and contained a 'pumpkin royal fizz' that only required two fairly esoteric bottles: the Rhum Clement Creole Shrubb Liqueur D'Orange 1 and the Ancho Reyes Verde. I wanted to get the latter anyway, so I shopped online for the former.

This drink is really a two-parter: a 'pumpkin stock base' which combines pumpkin puree, maple syrup, the aforementioned liqueurs, plus spices and bourbon, and then the royal fizz (the base, a whole egg, heavy cream, and soda). The idea is you make the base as a batch and then build the fizzes as needed.

We were, frankly, not super impressed with the fizz. It wasn't bad, but it felt a little like a drink for people who didn't want a drink: somehow both rich and thin and certainly quaffable, but not particularly rewarding for all the effort.

We loved the base, though, and tinkered with it a bit to end up with a drink that we both really enjoyed.

We ended up turning it into a pumpkin flip:

  • 3 oz pumpkin stock base (as defined by the Aviary)
  • 1 oz bourbon
  • 1 whole egg
  • 1/2 oz almond milk 2

This was delicious. An exquisite mouthfeel with a nice, rich, pumpkin flavor whose body is bolstered by the extra slug of bourbon. A good substitute for egg-nog, for those who are less nog-inclined for whatever reason.

Footnotes

  1. In retrospect, this could have been easily subbed with a dry curacao.

  2. Haley is not a dairy-friendly individual; I'd probably sub in a barspoon of heavy cream here.

12/13/2022
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