4 Fall Cocktails That Don’t Suck

Fall cocktails don't have to mean dumping apple cider and pumpkin spice into everything. What if I told you there's a way to make fall cocktails that don't suck? So today I've got four cocktails that actually taste like fall using flavors like apple, maple, almond, cinnamon, and allspice, and nothing here requires some unique one-off syrup that you have to make days ahead of time. And there's a little bit of something here for everyone as well. We're making an apple And for you tropical drink lovers so sad that summer is officially over, we're making a unique modern tropical cocktail that you've probably never had. Four completely different drinks and all perfect for fall. So let's start with an easy one, an apple old-fashioned. Super basic here, just subbing out half of the whiskey for an apple brandy. And you can use bourbon here as well, but I'm going to use a rye for a little bit more of those spice notes. I'm going to start with two dashes of Angostura bitters, quarter ounce of Demerara syrup. You might want to adjust this up or down for your preference. One ounce of an apple brandy or apple jack, and then one ounce of rye whiskey, or you could use bourbon. I'm going to strain this over one large ice cube and then garnish with an apple slice. So there you go. A very simple, very basic apple old-fashioned. Cheers. The apple component of this is relatively subtle. Apple brandy or apple jack, they don't just taste like, you know, pure apple, but you get a lot of the flavors that you associate with bourbons and rye whiskey. So it helps complement those flavors as well. For me, the sweetness is right on using just a quarter of an ounce, but you can use more if you want. And then the finish is nice because you get a little bit of heat and like a spicy heat coming from the rye whiskey, the apple brandy, also just because those are higher proof. Both of those are 50% ABV. I also like that these hold up over time. So one large ice cube, if it melts, that's totally fine because we're using higher proof spirits here so they can handle a little bit more dilution. If you're taking your time, sipping on an apple old-fashioned. The toasted almond emerged in the United States, maybe in the 1970s, as an amaretto and creamy after dinner cocktail. And those were the types of drinks that were just growing in popularity. Now, traditionally, it's made with an amaretto, a coffee liqueur, and cream. Later versions added vodka and became known as the roasted toasted almond. But we don't really want vodka in this one, or at least I don't. So instead, I'm going to use some rum that has some of those warm spice, oaky, vanilla notes as well. I will start with ¾ oz of heavy cream, ¾ oz of a coffee liqueur, ¾ oz of an amaretto, and then 1 oz of an aged rum. For this one, I'm using the Santa Teresa 1796. I'll strain it into the glass over one large ice cube and then garnish with some nutmeg. Cheers! Many of us associate these drinks with drinks that suck. You might like it, but they kind of do suck on their own. But then people started adding a spirit to them. So in this case, vodka. The problem with vodka is it doesn't really help enhance the flavor here at all. It's just ABV. It's just going to taste like alcohol. So using something else, a rum, a bourbon, a whiskey. You could put Irish whiskey in here, but something that you like to make it more balanced. So it's just not sweet, and it's not over the top, and it's not too creamy. It doesn't have too much of the amaretto flavor. Everything kind of balances out when you add a spirit to it that can complement those flavors. And the liqueurs you use here too can change that as well. If you use Kahlua here, you're going to have a little bit more intense of a coffee flavor, and it's going to be a little bit sweeter because Kahlua is basically one of the sweetest liqueurs on the market. It's like 40-something. It's approaching simple syrup sweetness. So using something that's drier will dry your drink. If you're using Mr. Black in here, then that would be a lot drier than the Luxardo one I use. It would be quite a bit drier than Kahlua, but that's all preference. If you find this not sweet enough, you can always add a simple syrup. You could add a cinnamon syrup. You could add demerara syrup. Whatever you want to kind of amplify those fall flavors. Vanilla would be great here too. So the Rum Toasted Roasted Almond. I don't know if that's a right sequence of words. It's good. If you're looking for a simple, balanced, after-dinner creamy drink, then this works. All right, our next drink is one that I'm very excited to make. It's something I have not tried yet. And the drink comes from Lost Lake in Chicago. It's created by Paul McGee. It's not an official fall drink, but it contains allspice, cinnamon, and then a reposado tequila. So it looks like all of the flavors I'm thinking about in fall, but also just a good all-around anytime tropical drink. But it does have, like I said, some of those warm spice flavors as well. So let's make The Stranger in Paradise. I'm going to start with two dashes of Angostura Bitters. I'm using my drink mixer for this, but you can shake this one. Two dashes of absinthe. A quarter teaspoon of allspice dram. The official recipe calls for just three dashes. Three quarter ounces of lime juice. Half an ounce of pineapple juice. Half an ounce of a cinnamon syrup. Half an ounce of velvet flarinum. One ounce of a reposado tequila. And one ounce of a rum agrigo. I'll garnish with a slice of pineapple. Some pineapple fronds. Fan garnish. And then finally, some cinnamon that is burning. This is such a key to so many drinks. Just the smell of this, the aroma of this, just puts you in that fall mood. It makes you feel like you're in a tropical tiki bar. All right, let's try this one. I'm expecting it to be a little bit crazy. We'll see. I've only had a sip, but this might be a new favorite. You get some quintessential tropical flavors that I love to taste. So pineapple and cinnamon together. You get a strange finish on it because you get the the aged sort of oaky and cooked agave flavor from the reposado tequila. But then the finish, not up front, but the finish is the rum agrigo. So you get that fresh grassy flavor on the end. So that's kind of a very unique evolution of flavors that starts with something you're familiar with, but usually you're then expecting something fruity or something that's like really like an aged rum. But we don't we don't have any of that here. No molasses based rum here. But all of that, man, it just it's so it makes sense that it I think makes sense that it works because these flavors all kind of match up. It's just something you don't see very often Seriously, the longer I sit with this, the more I love it has a right acidity, just a little bit of that like sharpness up front. But then the sweetness rounds it up. Spirits in here just work so great. And it's excellent. This is one of my this is probably one of the top five cocktails that I've made here this year. Maybe one of the top five ever. I'll have to come back and make it a few more times. And now I feel bad that it's sort of buried in this video because probably deserves its own video. So if you've not had this one from Lost Lake and everything, pretty much if you can find a recipe out there from Lost Lake, it's going to be great. But if you haven't had this one, then make sure that you have this one. I'm starting to feel bad that I'm just moving on from this cocktail. It's that good. Like I'm sad to move on. And it just had it does have those fall flavors. But I don't care when you're watching this video, you have to make that one. Now many of the traditional cocktails for fall can be made more seasonal by just swapping out the sweetener. So for a whiskey sour, for instance, we can swap out the simple syrup for maple syrup. And if we add a little bit Angostura bitters, then we have more of those warm spice notes. Yet we can still have what should be and what is a pretty basic standard whiskey sour. So to make a maple whiskey sour, start with two dashes of Angostura bitters, three-quarter ounces of lime juice, half an ounce of maple syrup, two ounces of bourbon, and half an ounce of egg whites. For the garnish here, some drops of Angostura. Just take a pick and run it through them. Get some little hearts. You got yourself a cool looking whiskey sour. Cheers. It's simple and delicious. The subtlety here is the difference from your traditional whiskey sour using like simple syrup. The maple, even though we only use maple, it's not that noticeable. It doesn't like hit you in the face like a maple syrup cocktail, but you get plenty of the bourbon flavor, the right amount of acidity. If you like more acid in your drinks, you can bump that up to a full ounce of lemon juice. The lemon and the bourbon and the maple just works together to make what feels like a traditional whiskey sour, yet has those fall flavors. All right, it's undoubtedly going to come up like, why don't you dry shake? That's when you shake everything without the ice first for a sour like this, for an egg white cocktail. Why don't you reverse dry shake? Why don't you take the coil off of one of your strainers and throw it in there? And the reason is not because not doing that is better. First of all, not doing that is easier, but it depends on what you want to get out of your drink. If you want that huge half inch, inch layer of foam on the top, then yeah, you should dry shake it first. So without ice, everything including the egg white, and then put in a large ice cube and a couple of small ice cubes, and then shake it. That's going to give you that frothy foamy head. That's fine. That can be great. Sometimes I don't want that. Sometimes I want just the texture of that egg white throughout the drink. And it doesn't have to be, you don't have to accomplish that through the dry shake or reverse dry shake. So if you don't care about getting a huge foamy head on the top, then just don't do that. Don't dry shake, don't reverse dry shake. And yes, this drink does have raw egg whites in it, which is just something that has happened forever in cocktails. I mean, cocktails, so many cocktails, you just put whole eggs in them. And the egg white cocktails, they've existed for a long time. But like, if you have an aversion to that, like if you would never eat raw cookie dough or never have a cocktail with a raw egg, then you can use, there's other like foaming agents out there. You could also pick up the cartons of egg whites. They don't work as well as this, but those are pasteurized. So they're cooked. So they're safer, I guess. Or if you truly don't care about that texture and the foam, then just skip the egg whites entirely. And you could still have yourself a delicious maple whiskey sour. So there you go, folks, four fall cocktails. And what's great about these and what I love every year is like finding fall cocktails that aren't fall cocktails. You don't have to go to a blog that, you know, requires you to put Starbucks pumpkin spice in your drinks. These are flavors. These are combinations of flavors that exist already in cocktails in cooking. You don't have to buy the, you know, pumpkin spice based thing, just picking up the flavors that are in pumpkin spice, like cinnamon, like nutmeg, like clove, these all spice like flavors. If you find those, you can put those into cocktails or just find cocktails that exist already that have those that are good and not just gimmicky seasonal things. So these aren't really even seasonal. These are just good. So if you enjoyed this video, please give it a like below consider subscribing to this channel. And if you want to support this channel more, check out my Patreon page. Otherwise we'll see you on the next one.