Southern USA-Inspired Cocktails

Southern USA is home to some of the finest liqueurs, whiskeys, and bourbons in the world! What better way to spend this extra time inside than by honing your mixology skills and bringing the USA to your home recreating some Southern USA-inspired cocktails? Here are three delicious recipes to try at home:

The Kentucky Derby’s Iconic Mint Julep

Each year on one of the USA’s biggest and highly anticipated race days, almost 120,000 glasses of Mint Juleps are served in celebration of the Kentucky Derby. A combination of bourbon, fresh mint, sugar and crushed ice –this drink has become an iconic symbol of the event.

Ingredients:

• 90mL Old Forester Mint Julep – or bourbon
• 22mL Simple syrup
• 8-10 Mint leaves
• 3 Mint sprigs, for garnish

Method:
1.  Pack mint julep cup with crushed ice
2.  In a mixing glass, combine bourbon, syrup, and mint leaves
3.  Lightly bruise mint leaves with a muddler, strain contents into julep cup
4.  Garnish with 3 generous sprigs of mintRecipe via Old Forester Bourbon Whiskey.

New Orleans’s Grasshopper

Hailing from NOLA’s lively French Quarter, this drink—said to taste like an alcoholic mint chocolate milkshake—is the perfect after-dinner treat. According to Meehan’s Bartender Manual, Philibert Guichet created and began serving this cream-based cocktail at the Cajun restaurant, Tujague’s, before Prohibition in 1919.

Ingredients:
• 60 grams White crème de cacao
• 30 gramsDark crème de cacao
• 30 grams Green crème de menthe
• 15 grams White crème de menthe
• 7.5 grams Grandy
• 142 grams Heavy cream

Method:
1.  Mix all the ingredients in a mixing tin and shake dry without ice.
2.  Pour and serve!
Recipe from PunchDrink.Com and image from Esquire.com Tennessee’s “Apple Jack”

Jack Daniel’s ‘Apple Jack’ cocktail
Tennessee whiskey is world-famous and, speaking of Tennessee whiskey, how could Jack Daniel’s not come to mind?! Known as a year-round favourite – you can’t go wrong with this cocktail.

Ingredients:
• 50mL Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7
• Fresh apple juice

Method:
1. Fill ¾ of a highball glass with ice
2. Pour Old No. 7 over ice
3. Top it off with apple juice
4. Add an apple slice to garnish

For more Jack Daniel inspired cocktails recipes, please visit: https://www.jackdaniels.com/en-au/recipes