This week I am sharing an alternative to the cocktail recommendation made in the blog post last week with my take on Earl Grey Syrup. What I have done for this week is creating a lighter alternative to my Earl Grey Sour. It is a take on the classic Tom Collins, which is a Gin Sour with soda water over ice. A classic cocktail that will be featured here in the future. Since I want to leave the story of the Collins for the actual tom Collins I will share my interpretation of the classification of sours, Collins and fizzes.
The basic cocktail in all these cases is the Sour, you should look at the Whiskey Sour for more information, without the egg white. This cocktail can be changed in a few different ways, with or without egg white, different syrups, like the Goldrush or the Earl Grey Sour, or by having different base spirits, whiskey, gin, etc. As we have seen there is a lot of things you can do here, even the choice of three syrups two base spirits and the choice of egg white will give 12 different combinations. Now, if we decide to add about 2 oz (6 cl) of soda water to the cocktail, then we have a Collins. For the Collins I would not recommend the egg white. But by doing this, our previous repertoire of 12 cocktails now increased to 18. All cocktails still essentially the same, the Basic Whiskey sour. If we swap out the ice in the Collins for another 2 oz (6 cl) of soda water, we will have a fizz. The fizz, not only possible to get a good result with or without the egg white, an entire egg can be added, and the cocktail will still be good. That would double the number of cocktails that can be made from these basic ingredients and we are now up to 36 distinct cocktails.
I, though perhaps not on the blog, tend to tell people that once you learn the simple concept of the sour, then you will know a tremendous number of cocktails that can be made. By figuring out which spirits go with lemon or lime, and which that goes with tea, you will learn to create better cocktails on your own. I give my recommendations through my posts, but for someone getting into the hobby there is much fun ahead figuring all these things out. I hope by this that for someone interested in starting this as a hobby, my thought process that I share in some posts, like this one, can help in the understanding of cocktails. Lastly, I will plug a book that I find fantastic with regards to creating and experimenting with cocktails, the book I want to share is Death & Co by Kaplan, Fauchald and Day, especially the pages 112 to 120. If there is one cocktail book that is all you would ever need, this is the one.
Going back to the topic of this week’s cocktail it is a Collins version of the Earl Grey Sour, as previously stated. For me, since this is definitely much lighter and refreshing than the sour, I feel like it lacks the richness that makes the Earl Grey Sour such a great cocktail. For me there is a clash of flavour and texture, the Collins is a much more summery cocktail than the rich sour. But for me the flavour of tea works better in the autumn and winter, thus there is a clash of seasons in this cocktail for me. Though if you feel like this would not be an issue I would highly recommend trying this cocktail as an alternative to the sour.
My Recipe
- 2 oz (6 cl) Gin
- 1 oz (3 cl) Earl Grey Syrup
- 1 oz (3 cl) Lemon Juice
- 2 oz (6 cl) Soda Water
Add the gin, syrup and lemon juice to a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a Collins glass with ice. Top with soda water and serve with a straw.
