Behind the Drink: The Loverly
One of the most consistent questions I get during cocktail classes is, “How did you come up with cocktail?” That’s a pretty loaded question because I don’t really know how to answer it. Its part inspiration and part “Willy Wonka, mad scientist.”
I am by no means the end all be all of cocktails, but I do think that maybe seeing my thought process can help other people with their own.
My Fair Lady
This show came through during the Summer of ‘22. I wanted the drinks to be light and elegant to represent something that you might sip during a garden party.
The Loverly
In summary, I wanted an elegant peach lemonade. Ginger goes with peach. It needed to be peach forward, supported by ginger, boosted by sugar and saline, balanced by lemon and bitters, and lifted by some bubbbles. This post will explain in full detail how I made that happen.
Core Concept
For the Loverly, I wanted to go with peach. I tried to think of a way to create a refreshing peach drink that wasn’t too sweet. Drawing on the inspiration of a garden party, a lemonade came to mind. I needed to round out the drink a bit more though so I looked at some classic parings I used as a chef. I knew, from this experience, that ginger and peach played together famously.
The end result, if executed properly would hit all aspects of flavor and texture in a drink. I would be sweet, fruity, spicy, bitter, lightly salted, and bubbly.
Building the Prototype
Having the core premise sorted out, I knew I was going for a ginger peach lemonade. Now I needed to sort out the color I wanted. I decided on a soft, peachy pink. This meant that I needed to prioritize ingredients that would serve both the flavor profile as well as the ideal look of the drink.
I opted for Pink Whitney pink lemonade vodka. Everyone has drank this at some point and most definitely have bad memories. That said, this worked perfectly to support the citrus flavor while also lending itself to the color of the drink. It wasn’t overly lemon flavored so it was easy to blend into the drink. Though there are several lemon vodka options out there, I believe that this was the best one for this job.
Next I needed to tackle the peach. I didn’t want to do a peach syrup. I make my own syrups, so I could have controlled the sweetness pretty well, but the color would have been a problem. I didn’t want to add anymore yellow to the drink given the lemon juice and the ginger ponche. The only obvious choice left was a peach liqueur. Dekuyper peach tree is one of the best options to a strong peach flavor. To really boost the flavor and make it feel authentic, I used Fee Brother’s Peach Bitters. This allowed me to also check some of the sweetness to keep the drink refreshing and palatable.
For the lemon, the obvious answer is lemon juice. However, I know that straight lemon juice would spike acidity disproportionately to the lemon flavor I wanted. Though regular lemon juice works just fine for at home applications, I opted to use lemon super juice. I will go into greater detail on what this is in another post. Just know, if you don’t already, it is a semi fake lemon juice made from citric acid, water, and the oil from the lemon peels. The presence of the oil makes the lemon taste pop so much more than just juice alone.
I looked into various ways to incorporate ginger into the drink but struggled to find a way to do it that didn’t alter its sweetness but also still had the spice of fresh ginger. I didn’t want to do ginger beer, though that could have worked just fine. I had a specific vision for this drink and I didn’t really want to just become another Mule.
I tried to look into ginger liqueurs but they were all either not truly representative of ginger flavor or way too expensive. I did some research to find out what it was that I was missing from a liqueur. Apparently, I was looking for something with a good amount of gingerol. Gingerol is a close cousin of capsaicin and is responsible for the distinctive burn of fresh ginger. With this in mind, I stumbled across Pajarote Ginger Ponche after reaching out to a liquor distributor friend of mine. It’s made with actual ginger in it, so it retains its fresh ginger flavor.
Lastly, for the sweetness I just used a simple 1:1 syrup. Having the syrup as a stand alone ingredient without any flavor added allows for adjustments on the sweetness without it affecting the entire rest of the cocktail. I did also already know that I wanted effervescence in the drink, so I had to consider that I would be using lemon-lime soda. This was going to impact the sugar content so I had to make the drink without sugar first with the soda.
Testing and Fine Tuning
My general structure that I go with to start is 2-3 oz of total alcohol. I do 1.5 of most base spirits and add liqueurs as needed to flavor. I knew that as a shaken cocktail, this would need to be a little more stout and flavorful to account for the water dilution as well as the topper that would be added.
To accomplish this, I knew that I needed to have the drink be little bit stout and heavy. After testing I landed on 1.5 oz of the vodka, .5 of the peach, and .75 of the ginger liqueur.
From there I began testing the rest of the ingredients to get the balance right. for most lemonades, you would do 2:1 sugar to lemon and water to dilute to a drink. I wanted to use the rest of the drink as dilution so I tried 1:1 and it worked out perfectly. I landed on 2 dashes of the bitters from the very beginning knowing that I didn’t want the peach to overtake and I just happened to guess right. Finally, I used just enough lemon-lime soda to lift the drink and It all came together.
The important part of this drink is to shake aggressively. It adds the needed water to dilute and balance the cocktail while also chilling the drink. This drink isn’t served over ice, so it is important to get it as cold as possible. It also will not dilute and change or evolve as it goes, so you really need to get it to its final state before it goes into the glass.