Consider the Bramble

An ideal Summer cocktail

Today I’m adding a little bonus cocktail recipe to the rotation, free to all subscribers. If you’re new here, I’d love for you to join the fun for $5 a month. You can click below, and if you’re already a subscriber, please send along to anyone that might appreciate the amateur hour that is happening over here in this corner of the internet.

---

My mother has perfected the early evening cocktail; she treats it like one of the great pleasures of life, and I guess it is, right?

She allows herself only ONE and therefore it must be a good one. Each afternoon she takes a moment to lay out the booze, mixers, glassware and tools. It’s as if the anticipation for the drink is too much to handle, and the only way she won’t explode is by preparing her ingredients to look at, a sort of reminder of what’s to come at days end.

After years of working in the restaurant business, I’ve introduced her to a number of cocktails that now rank among her favorites. Perhaps the most common in the house is a Bourbon cocktail (this is Kentucky, after all) call The Gold Rush. The drink is a combination of bourbon, honey syrup and lemon juice; it is greater than the sum of its parts and you can watch her make it here.

My mom’s drink station. I love the preparedness.

But this time of year the drink on heaviest rotation is the Bramble. Although the drink was created in England in the 1980’s, to me it’s an ideal summer drink for the American South. Perhaps it is the fat, juicy blackberries popping up daily in my parents’ backyard. Or maybe it’s the crushed ice the recipe calls for - something I equate with the South because of the Mint Julep.

You can of course crush your own ice, but I find the icy shards are never quite right, melting too quickly and diluting the drink to unacceptable levels. Any time I’m near a Sonic Drive-In, I just pop over and buy a bag of their pellet ice, same as my mother does. She keeps the bags in the freezer, ready to employ when the Bramble comes calling. The crushed ice is essential to the drink - it acts as a raft atop which you can lay your juiciest blackberries for a garnish, and it adds an undeniably refreshing angle to any drink that uses it.

“Ice so good it has its own fan club”

My gin of choice for this drink is the Lemon Drizzle Gin from Sipsmith, one of the finer gin makers in England. The gin is built from their peerless London Dry Gin, but they add a surfeit of lemon peel, giving the liquor a bright, zesty quality that makes it ideal for summer sipping. Their London Dry style is widely available, and any shop that stocks it could surely bring in the Lemon Drizzle upon request.

---

The Bramble

• 2 ounces Gin

• ..75 ounces Simple Syrup (equal parts sugar and water)

• .75 ounces freshly squeezed lemon juice

• 4 blackberries

Muddle the blackberries in the bottom of the shaker, and shake the ingredients over ice before straining into a double rocks glass. After straining into your glass, add crushed ice to fill to the top, and garnish with two of the juiciest blackberries you can find.

---

One more little useful cocktail tip

The Bramble and the Gold Rush both make use of something called “The Golden Ratio.” Traditionally this rule dictates that you can create a great cocktail from 2 parts liquor with 1 part sweet and 1 part sour. So in plainer terms that would look like this:

• 1.5 ounces Liquor

• .75 ounce Sweetener

• .75 ounce Sour

(You might note that I am using 2 ounces for the Bramble, and that is simply personal preference for a punchier note of booze.)

Once you commit this little rule to mind, a world of cocktails open up to you:

• 1.5 ounces Rum, .75 ounces Simple Syrup, .75 ounces Lime = Daiquiri

• 1.5 oz. Tequila, .75 oz Agave Syrup (equal parts Agave and Water), .75 oz. Lime = Margarita

• 1.5 ounces Vodka, .75 oz Simple Syrup, .75 ounces Lemon = Lemon Drop

• 1.5 ounces Bourbon, .75 oz Simple Syrup, .75 ounces Lemon = Whiskey Sour

• 1.5 ounces Gin, .75 ounces Simple Syrup, .75 ounces Lime = Gimlet