Greetings, Wonketeers, and Happy Thanksgiving! I’m Hooper, your bartender, and it’s quite a week. Blackout Night, dinner with the extended family … it’s exhausting. Let’s sling together some odds and ends from the liquor cabinet and make a nice whiskey sour with some holiday ingredients. Time for a Flying Turkey. Here’s the recipe:
2 oz Buffalo Trace Bourbon
1 oz Ocean Spray Cranberry Cocktail
1 oz cinnamon syrup
1 oz fresh lemon juice
½ oz pineapple juice
2-3 dashes orange bitters
Shake all ingredients and serve in a double old-fashioned glass over ice. Garnish with a lemon wedge and cinnamon stick.
1 cup white sugar
1 cup water
1 2” cinnamon stick
Heat all ingredients over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Bottle and store in the fridge. Will keep 4-5 weeks.
Okay, okay, the odds and ends of my liquor cabinet are a bit fancy. Don’t sweat the small stuff. This recipe is a sour, just like the Cosmonaut we made a few weeks ago. Citrus + sugar + booze = tasty drink, remember? We’ve added some cranberry, pineapple, and cinnamon, but the core of a basic whiskey sour is still there. The bitters smooth over some rough edges in the flavor profile and tamp down the sweetness. If I was making this professionally, I’d sharpen up my ratios and play with some other ingredients. But for the kitchen table the day after Thanksgiving, it’s just fine.
When I started planning the cocktail, I had envisioned a cranberry margarita. But then my friend at the liquor store hooked me up with some Buffalo Trace, which is as rare as hen’s teeth here in Ohio. I couldn’t pass that up. The distillery that makes Buffalo Trace produces Pappy Van Winkle — a holy grail among bourbon fans. Bourbon hunters are desperate to snatch up anything from the Buffalo Trace distillery, even this very nice but not impressive core product from their line. I paid about $20, which is what it’s actually worth. Resellers will cheerfully double the price for a bottle of Buffalo Trace online. It’s completely out of hand. (I once offered to sell the cardboard box a case of Buffalo Trace came in to a customer for $5. He seriously considered it.)
The trickiest part of this drink was the pineapple juice. The cranberry and lemon needed something stable to keep the flavors harmonious. Pineapple juice will do that easily, but if you add too much it will take over a drink. A light hand with the pineapple is ideal.
I had considered using leftover cranberry sauce instead of Ocean Spray in the drink. Regrettably, what thrives on the turkey day table doesn’t translate well to the cocktail shaker. Strained cranberry sauce reads as dark and earthy, and doesn’t cooperate with the other ingredients well. Stick with the classic Ocean Spray juice cocktail. It’s a terrific mixer, and keeping a few small bottles in the fridge will save you in case there’s a need for emergency Cosmos.
I should also note, with mild embarrassment, that this cocktail is very similar to last year’s Thanksgiving cocktail, The Cold Turkey. I used some fancy-pants rum and bigger juice proportions in 2022, but the base of the drink is similar. Easy to do when you’re using cranberry as your core flavor profile, I suppose. Enjoy the leftovers … and remind me to make a pecan pie martini next year.
Let’s talk ingredients:
Buffalo Trace Bourbon: Any decent American whiskey will do just fine here. I’d give some thought to using a rye whiskey like Rittenhouse Rye to add more spice notes. But the lingering oak and caramel finish from a true bourbon play out wonderfully. Despite the drink’s name, I do not recommend using Wild Turkey in this cocktail. It would be cute, but ultimately you’d regret it.
Ocean Spray Cranberry Cocktail: I’ve looked into using pure organic cranberry juice for cocktails. Unfortunately, it’s ugly expensive and unbearably tart. Stick to the classics. You won’t regret it.
Cinnamon syrup: Store the cinnamon stick with the syrup in your fridge. The cinnamon flavor will get more intense over time. This syrup finds its way into all kinds of cocktails when I keep it in stock, especially rum concoctions.
Lemon juice: Always use fresh. Lemons are a more intense flavor than limes, so I use them sparingly in most of my drinks. But when winter rolls in, the limes available in Ohio become small and dry. Bourbon and lemon don’t overwhelm each other in a glass, so I find myself making more whiskey sour variants when cold weather sets in.
Pineapple juice: Unlike lemon, you should avoid fresh pineapple juice for cocktails. It’s acidic to the point of being caustic. I use the little cans from Dole.
Orange bitters: The sugar in this glass is a bit much; the bitters tamp down the sweetness and let other flavors shine.
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