rum

All Saints’ | a holy day cocktail

/ Paul Burkhart / Leave a comment

Recipe

  • 2 oz Dark Rum
  • .75 oz St. Germain Elder Flower Liqueur
  • .5 oz Lemon Juice
  • .5 oz Falernum (or Ginger Syrup)
  • .25 oz All Spice Dram
  • Garnish: Lemon twist

Add all ingredients to a shaker. Add ice and shake. Double strain into a chilled coupe and garnish with a lemon twist.

* * * *

Today is All Saints’ Day (and the beginning of Kingdomtide). It is a beautiful Christian feast day that honors all of God’s people, known and unknown.

Every description I’ve seen of this holy day includes that little tag at the end–known or unknown–and I love it. There are those who belong to God in unknown ways we could not define nor specify. This day is a celebration of all the ways God draws people to himself.

And so to all of you saints–known and unknown–I raise a glass in toast of you. And in that glass is one of the best cocktails I’ve ever made.

It is complex and spicy, with a little funk. It is perfectly balanced with some brightness and sweet floral notes. As for symbolism, I just had two requirements when conceiving of this drink: it need All Spice Dram and Saint Germain (All… Saint… Get it?). I honestly didn’t think it’d work, but boy does it.

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“Halloween By Thy Name” | a cocktail for All Hallows’ Eve

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Recipe

  • 2 oz White Rum
  • 1 oz Lime Juice
  • .75 oz Ube Syrup
  • 1 Egg White (or Aquafaba)

Add all ingredients to a shaker. Dry shake vigorously for at least 45 seconds. Then add some ice and shake again for 15 seconds. Double strain into a chilled coupe and garnish with something creepy.

* * * *

Yes, it is Halloween. Growing up Evangelical, I was taught this was a sort of anti-Christian day. But historically, this couldn’t be further from the truth. “Halloween” is an abbreviation for “All Hallows’ Eve’ning“, as it is the day before the Christian Holy Day of “All Hallows” (more commonly known as “All Saints Day“).

But more than just being the day before a holy day, Halloween has been a truly Christian holiday in its own right for quite some time. So it deserves a holy day cocktail! (It’s also Reformation Day for Protestants, and yes–there’s a cocktail for that).

There are an infinite number of spooky cocktails out there, but I wanted to go a little more elevated. Unlike my other cocktails, there’s no special meaning to any of the ingredients. It’s just great tasting and purple–a delightfully Halloween-ish hue. It is tart, sweet, a little nutty, and velvety smooth. You will adore this drink. All treat, and no trick.

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The Ordinary Time Daiquiri

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Recipe

  • 2 oz Pineapple Rum
  • 1 oz Lime Juice
  • 1 oz Honey Sage Syrup
  • 1 bar spoon Mezcal
  • Garnish with Lime wheel and fresh cracked black pepper

Add all ingredients except garnishes to a shaker. Add ice and shake. Double strain into a chilled coupe. Add cracked black pepper on top and a lime wheel.

* * * *

We now find ourselves in the odd season called “Ordinary Time”. It’s the longest church season of the year and is full of small holy days, but does not have any real over-arching theme. Ordinary Time is a place to apply lessons form the other church seasons. It’s a chance to to infuse the sacred into our everyday “ordinary” life, and add our own spiritual twist on time that would otherwise be the same ol’ thing, day in and day out.

And I wanted to do the same thing in a drink. I wanted to take an “ordinary” drink that everyone knows–in this case, a daiquiri–and infuse some extra soul into it. Just as the church calendar encompasses a huge range of human experience and emotion, this drink tries to bring in a range flavors the create a lovely whole. And I think I did a really good job.

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Resurrection Punch | An Easter Cocktail

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Recipe

  • 2.5 oz Easter Honey Rum (or any Gold Rum)
  • 1 oz Lemon Juice
  • 1 oz Passion Fruit Syrup
  • .5 oz Cinnamon Syrup
  • .5 oz Apricot Liqueur
  • .5 oz Velvet Falernum
  • 1 dash Angostura Bitters
  • Top with Sparkling Water or Champagne

Scale this punch recipe as needed. Combine ingredients (minus the sparkling) without ice and let chill. When ready to drink, pour over large ice in a bowl or crushed ice in a collins glass. Top with bubbles. If you can’t chill it ahead of time, shake everything (minus sparkling) with just enough ice to chill and not dilute. Strain into glass with crushed ice and top with bubbles. Add a straw and garnish with a cherry.

View other Holy Day cocktails.

* * * *

It’s Easter! And to remind us that this is a season and not just a day, I’m giving you your Easter cocktail a few days in. Easter is the height of joy and celebration in the Christian Calendar, where Christians are invited–nay, expected–to be as extra as possible, with laughter, singing, hope, and yes, good food and drink.

To that end, I give you this tiki rum punch for this glorious season. And it is a delight. You can have it solo or with friends. It is sweet, floral, fruity, vibrant, bubbly, and bright.

For the base, I use a heavy pour of our Easter Honey Rum. I also knew I wanted to use Passion Fruit Syrup to remind us how Easter is literally the “fruit” of Jesus’ “passion”.

Cinnamon, Falernum, and the Angostura give the drink character and backbone; they are spicy and dark ingredients made sweet and bright here. This makes me think of the fires of hell, now quenched and by Jesus’ overpowering light and life.

Apricot is also a more biblical choice than you may think. Many scholars agree that Eden’s Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was based on an Apricot tree, not an Apple tree. So this drink tries to capture how death came through one tree, but life through another.

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Palm Sunday Cocktail

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Recipe

  • 2 oz Light Rum
  • 1 oz Lime Juice
  • .75 oz Toasted Coconut Syrup
  • .75 tsp Pandan Extract
  • 2 dashes Grapefruit Bitters
  • 2 dashes Rhubarb Bitters
  • .25 oz Jamaican Rum float (optional)

Add all ingredients (except the Jamaican rum) to a shaker. Add ice and shake. Free pour all contents into a glass and top with the remaining rum. Add a straw and garnish with pineapple or palm fronds.

View other Holy Day cocktails.

* * * *

It’s Holy Week, the most important and consequential seven days in all of human history, when Jesus suffered, died, and was raised. Each of these days carries significance, so I’m crafting a cocktail for each one.

But it all begins on Palm Sunday: a strange day full of hope, expectation, worship, and joy (and quite a bit of human misunderstanding). Lent is a season of brooding and fasting, but because Sundays are still feast days (and because of palms, of course) we’re doing a tiki drink!

On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem in a way that symbolized to the Jewish people that he was their long-awaited king coming to rescue them from their exile.

The people come out and lay their coats and palm leaves on the road, ushering Jesus with fevered excitement and joy. However, while they thought he was coming as a violent, political, conquering king, he instead intended to save them from an even deeper spiritual exile.

I tried to capture these contrasts in this drink. It is a riff on a daiquiri, and is bright, refreshing, and tart, with multiple fruit bitters for complexity. However through the middle of it are these deep, heavier notes of toasted coconut and pandan. It’s a fantastic drink.

Blessed is he who drinks in the name of the Lord. Cheers!

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Baptism Birthday (a Holy Day cocktail)

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Recipe

  • 1.5oz Gin
  • 1.5oz Light Rum
  • .25 Anisette Liquer
  • .5 barspoon Absinthe
  • 3 dashes Rhubarb Bitters
  • Express a lime peel over the top

Stir all ingredients in mixing glass and strain into a martini glass or coupe. Express the oils of a lime peel over the top. No garnish.

* * * *

For a several years now, I have celebrated my annual “baptism birthday” to reflect on my baptism, my membership in the family of God, and the seal of assurance God has on me.

It’s beautiful and meaningful, and it deserved a cocktail. And, seeing as yesterday was the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, this seems like a good time to share it with you.

My goal was to make a drink like baptism–it looks like it’s just water but there’s a lot more going on.

Boy, did I succeed.

The drink is a lovely balance of floral and nutty with some herbal spice to it. These flavors really meld well together to create a complex bouquet of flavors that’s really striking (why don’t more drinks mix gin and rum!?).

This drink is a favorite of mine for its meaning, aesthetic, and taste, and I hope it can become that way to you. As you drink it, remember your own baptism and the promise of God to mark you and keep you as his child.

Ingredients

I used a juicy, citrus-forward, and very flavorful gin rather than a dry gin. For the rum, I used Maggie’s Farm White Rum, which is fantastic and has more character than most light rums, but whatever you have should work fine. Absinthe is an acquired taste, but it’s used in such small quantities and there are enough competing strong flavors that Absinthe-haters should not fear. It’s a lovely accent on the drink.

The only somewhat obscure ingredients are the bitters and liqueur. I supposed you could use orange bitters in place of rhubarb, but only if they are a very strong sweet orange flavor. The Fee Brothers Rhubarb Bitters taste almost like sweet tarts, with a unique strong burst of flavor (it’s especially delicious added to plain seltzer). So if you can get your hands on those, they’re worth your time.

Lastly, when most people think of Anise in cocktails, they think absinthe, but the liqueur is a very different beast. Absinthe begins with anise, but adds a lot of bittering agents. Anisette adds sugar, coriander, and other ingredients that make a very sweet, nutty flavor. So much so that you might be able to substitute Amaretto into this drink.

“It’s Still Christmas” (a Holy Day Cocktail)

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Recipe

Drink Base

  • .5oz Brandy
  • .5oz Jamaican Rum
  • .5oz Dry Curacao
  • .25oz Allspice Dram
  • 1 dash Angostura Bitters
  • .5oz Demerara Syrup

Drink Topping

  • 2oz Strong Earl Grey Tea
  • 2oz Steamed Oat Milk
  • 2 dashes Rose Water (optional)
  • Garnish with Grated Cinnamon and Nutmeg

Served hot. Add the spirits, bitters, and demerara syrup to a mug and stir together. Brew the Earl Grey Tea extra hot and extra strong and add 2oz of it to the mug with the spirits. In a separate container, add 2 dashes of Rose Water to the oat milk and steam it. Pour over the drink in the mug and garnish with freshly ground cinnamon and nutmeg.

* * * *

I was not raised with the Christian Church Calendar, so imagine my joy when I found out that, historically speaking, Christmas is not just a single day, but a 12-day Christian festival!

And so, to remind us all that Christmas is still going on, I bring you this cocktail–a beautiful hot drink to help us through these darkest days of the year. It is a merger of The Embassy cocktail and the fantastic “S’No Problem” by my favorite cocktail YouTuber, Anders Erickson.

The main flavor note is warm spice, with some dark funk and molasses. The first few sips catch the floral notes of rose, bergamot, and orange. But as the flavors mix, it settles into an almost chamomile flavor that calms and soothes.

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“O Emmanuel” | Incarnation O’Fashioned

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For each of the ancient “O Antiphon” prayers in this week preceding Christmas, I will be offering prayers and a variation on an Old Fashioned.

Today’s O Antiphon: “O Emmanuel”

We arrive at our final O Antiphon. Emmanuel means “God who is with us”. It is the most stunning title of them all, and represents the biggest surprise in the history of God’s healing work in the world. God did not just save us from afar, or by declaration, or by force. Instead he he came to be with us; and not just then, but also now and for eternity. That is the essence of our salvation in Christ: union with him.

Today’s Prayer & Scripture

O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, Hope of the nations, and Savior of all people: come to save us, O Lord our God.

The main text is Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel.” For further reflection, read Matthew 1:18-25, when this text and title are applied to Jesus. You can also read the original, full lyrics to O Come, O Come, Emmanuel to see all of these O Antiphons put in beautiful poetic form.

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The Black Advent (a Holy Day Cocktail)

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Recipe

  • 1oz Black Rum
  • 1oz Brandy
  • 1oz Averna
  • 2 dashes Chocolate Bitters
  • 2 dashes Citrus Bitters
  • 1/4tsp Fernet Branca

Stir with ice, and strain neat into a rocks glass. Garnish with two cherries and add some of the juice into glass as well.

* * * *

I have been crafting cocktails for Holy Days and seasons for a little bit now, inspired by Michael P. Foley’s amazing Drinking with the Saints, and I’m going to start posting them on the blog.

We begin the Church Calendar with this drink, “The Black Advent”. You would think that celebrating the same seasons every year could get old and dry, but I find each year brings out specific themes and emphases.

This year, it has felt like the pastors and theologians have really emphasized the darkness aspect of Advent–the need to really sit in contemplation, grief, and longing before we get to the joy of Christmas.

For that reason, this year’s Advent cocktail is one for the darkness. It’s a stirred drink served neat (no ice), so that you can sip it’s silky texture for a long while. This isn’t a super boozy drink. It is smooth, dark, and a little sweet.You could easily turn down the sweetness and still have a great drink. It has notes of chocolate, orange peel, and mint.

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