The change of season brings us new flavours to work with. Toffee apples, ripe pears, sweet figs, and all those warming baking spices… Many cosy flavour combinations to play with when creating your autumn cocktails at home.
Autumn Cocktails to Make at Home
Caramel Apple Mule
Salted caramel syrup and rich apple juice give a nice autumn twist to the classic Moscow Mule. Adjust the level of syrup to match your sweet tooth.
45ml Vodka (I used X MUSE)
25ml Apple Juice
15ml MONIN Salted Caramel Syrup
15 Fresh Lime Juice
Ginger Beer
Cinnamon Stick
Apple Slices
Shake all but ginger beer with ice. Strain over ice and top up with the ginger beer. Garnish with cinnamon and apple.
Smoky Old Fashioned
Smoked grappa gives a nice subtle smoky touch to this Old Fashioned twist. The grappa itself has a lovely mouthfeel – it’s soft and almost silky and comes with notes of bacon, tobacco, salt, red apple, gentle cinnamon spice and light smokiness.
The spirit is aged for 12 to 18 months in 225-litre French oak barriques. These oak casks have been toasted and smoked by burning oak flakes and Kentucky tobacco leaves. It is this step that brings that lovely smokiness to their award-winning smoked grappa. I truly recommend it for sipping neat or for cocktails like this one.
40ml Bepi Tosolini Smoked Grappa
20ml Rum (I used Come Hell or High Water Reserva)
Dash of Angostura Bitters
1 barspoon of Maple Syrup
Stir all ingredients with ice and strain into a tumbler over a large ice cube. Garnish with orange peel.
Calvados & Thyme Spritz
Calvados screams autumn to me – all those lovely apples and pears – so I tend to use it more during the cooler months. Plus, it pairs well with many festive spices. This cocktail tastes like an apple pie!
60ml Calvados (I used Berneroy Fine)
30ml Thyme & Cinnamon Syrup
Prosecco
Soda Water
Build directly over ice and garnish with extra thyme and some lemon.
Thyme & Cinnamon syrup
To make the flavoured syrup, simply add sugar, water and cinnamon stick to a saucepan. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add fresh thyme leaves. Take off the heat, cover with a lid and leave to sit for 30 minutes to an hour. Strain and store.
Cinnamon Daiquiri
Daiquiri is a great classic cocktail to use to showcase the flavours of any rum. You could make it simply with a classic sugar syrup or change the flavour of the syrup by adding more wintery spices to it.
60ml Cabal No. 1513 Aged Rum*
20ml Fresh Lime Juice
15ml Cinnamon Syrup
Simply shake all ingredients with ice and double strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with lime peel.
* Cabal No. 1513 is still available in some shops but I have a feeling they may have stopped production. Cabal is full of fruitcake and dark chocolate notes with baking spices and a touch of roast pineapple. You could replace it with rums such as Brugal 1888 or Doorly’s XO Barbados Rum as both offer balanced sweetness with winter spices.
Cinnamon syrup
To make the syrup, simply add demerara sugar, water and cinnamon sticks to a saucepan. Stir until the sugar has dissolved. Take off the heat, cover with a lid and leave to sit for 30 minutes to an hour. Strain and store in the fridge.
Coffee & Star Anise Negroni
The coffee infusion and the higher ABV of the rum are a match made in Negroni heaven. If you can’t get your hands on this specific rum, consider infusing your own.
25ml Coffee-Infused Ron Colon High-Proof Rum
25ml Star Anise-Infused Campari*
Orange Peel and Dark Chocolate garnish
Stir all ingredients with ice in the glass part of your shaker. Strain into an ice-filled tumbler and garnish with orange peel and a chunk of very dark chocolate.
*I used 5 star anise to 200ml of Campari. Store in the fridge overnight, ideally no longer than 8 hours. If you think your infusion is too strong, simply use less of it in the cocktail and add a touch (5ml or so) of uninfused Campari.
Polar Pear
Pear works well with various baking spices. I made a ginger and cinnamon syrup for this serve, but you could just as easily use one of the above homemade syrups as well.
50ml Pear Juice
20ml Spiced Syrup
5ml Fresh Lime Juice
Soda
Vanilla-flavoured Icing Sugar
Pear Slice
First, coat the rim of the glass with vanilla icing sugar. Shake all but the soda with ice and strain into an ice-filled glass. Top up with soda and garnish with a pear slice.
Spiced syrup
Simply add sugar, water, fresh ginger slices and cinnamon sticks to a saucepan. Stir gently until the sugar has dissolved. Take off the heat, cover with a lid and leave to sit for 30 minutes to an hour. Strain and store.
You could also use cardamom, star anise, cloves and/or black pepper in this recipe.
Spiced Pumpkin Sour
An autumnal drink list wouldn’t be complete without a spiced pumpkin cocktail recipe. Both whisky and cognac are perfect spirits for the colder weather so why not use them both! See more seasonal whisky cocktails with The Gauldrons here.
50ml Scotch Whisky (I used The Gauldrons Blended Malt)
20ml Spiced Pumpkin Syrup
15ml Fine Calvados
20ml Fresh Lemon Juice
1 dash of Angostura Bitters
Egg White
Cinnamon for the top
Measure all ingredients and dry shake, add ice and shake again. Strain over ice and garnish with some cinnamon.
Do you have a favourite fall cocktail recipe? What kind of autumn flavours are you going for this season?
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