Honey and Hot Sauce
September 14, 2012
Tim Philips of Australia created this simple and delcious drink for the Diageo Happy Hour at Tales of the Cocktail this year.
It is tequila, manuka honey syrup, lime juice, and a few dashes of Tabasco. The key is getting the delcious, earthy manuka honey.
my secret to working with expensive varietal honeys is to make a preserved syrup that is 1:1 honey to vodka instead of honey to water. the 20% alcohol content will keep the syrup just above bacterial spoilage tolerances so you can use it at your leisure and do not even have to refrigerate it.
an extraordinary honey that even smells like Tabasco is the strawberry tree honeys of corsica and sardinia.
many of the honeys that restaurants use have aromas like frail & too old white wines because they have been on the shelf too long. the sugars do not die, but the aromas degrade and become very card-boardy and graham crackery.
i wish there was more emphasis and exploration of honey in bars.
a great drink recipe. cheers! -stephen
Posted by: Stephen | September 15, 2012 at 08:25 AM
Thanks - Great advice, I had no idea that the flavors degraded and I hadn't heard of this trick before.
Posted by: Camper English | September 16, 2012 at 08:47 PM
Whenever I want to only have a few drinks over a long night, I like to put bourbon on ice and add some Tabasco. It's not bad but very hard to drink more than a sip of for me.
I do this in awkward situations where I would be more inclined to drink quickly for something to do.
I can't imagine using it another drink but this actually sounds really good to me.
Posted by: Dusty | September 28, 2012 at 11:30 AM