WASHINGTON — Apple, cranberry, maple and other flavors of fall serve a purpose beyond being baked into pies, whipped into sides and simmered in sauces — they’re great in cocktails too.
Kayleigh Kulp, author of “Booze for Babes: The Smart Woman’s Guide to Drinking Spirits Right,” says using fresh, seasonal ingredients is the key to making a tasty and affordable cocktail at home.
If you’re looking to keep warm as the weather cools, Kulp has a few cocktail favorites — starting with a drink she calls “The Harvest.”
For the cocktail, Kulp adds a spiced simple syrup, made from ground cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and warm vanilla bean, to white rum and a little lemon juice.
“It’s basically all of those warm baking spices that we like to break out in the fall,” says Kulp of Hyattsville, Maryland. Then, she likes to put her haul from a popular fall activity to good use: she adds fresh-pressed apple juice, using apples from a local orchard, to the other ingredients.
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Maryland author Kayleigh Kulp uses fresh-pressed juices in her fall cocktails. (WTOP/Rachel Nania)
“It tastes especially wonderful because these apples were just plucked off the trees,” says Kulp, who shakes the ingredients with ice, strains the drink and garnishes the glass with an apple slice and a cinnamon stick.
Kulp has been mixing up cocktails for several years now, but she hasn’t always been savvy with spirits. In fact, she says prior to a trip she took to Kentucky’s bourbon country for a work assignment, the former business reporter gravitated toward less polished cocktails.
“I went there not knowing anything about booze at all and being a kind of Creamsicle/vodka-soda drinker, and I didn’t really have any expectations,” she says.
But on the trip, Kulp chatted with distillers, learned the process behind how bourbon is made and tasted several varieties. “I fell in love with it, and I realized that I had been missing this really wide world of the finer things.”
When she returned from the trip, Kulp started ordering whiskey neat at bars and restaurants. But she found that often, the waiter would set her husband’s beer in front of her and give her husband her whiskey.
“That kept happening pretty much everywhere I went, and I realized there’s a gap, I think culturally and socially, in the way that women drink,” Kulp says. So she decided to do something about it.
Kulp spent a few years learning everything she could about spirits — from the history of booze to how modern brands are marketed to women. The end result is her book — a guide she describes as “an unpretentious, non-pandering manual for teaching women to drink these so-called manly spirits.”
Now, Kulp skips over the artificially-flavored liquor bottles and favors fresh and simple cocktails — such as her maple old-fashioned — another one of her fall favorites.
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Classic glasses and fresh garnishes are the perfect finishing touches to a handcrafted cocktail. (WTOP/Rachel Nania)
Her spin on the traditional cocktail uses maple syrup, instead of simple syrup, to give the drink “a warming, richer sugar quality for the old-fashioned.”
Kulp also uses scotch in place of bourbon, and adds a dash of bitters. “Because the maple syrup is sweeter and much richer, we want to have something that’s a little more balanced, a little more mixable,” she says. The cocktail is garnished with a marinated cherry and a peach slice.
If you’re entertaining and want to impress guests, Kulp recommends making what she calls “Smoke and Mirrors.” “When you look at the ingredients, you think it’s going to taste really fruity, but it actually has some nice earth to it,” she says.
The cocktail calls for sloe gin, a red liqueur best known for its role in a classic sloe gin fizz.
“It’s actually a type if liqueur that’s made from a berry that’s harvested in the fall,” Kulp says.
The gin is combined with muddled cranberries, lemon juice, bourbon, orange liqueur and soda water, and it’s garnished with a sprig of mint.
“Even though you may think of it as a summer refreshing sloe gin fizz drink, it’s actually perfect for the fall and adds a little fruitiness.”
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Kulp’s goal is to continue to educate women on a sector of the beverage industry that’s largely dominated by men, but anyone can make and enjoy her fall cocktails at home.
The Harvest
- 1 1/2 ounce spiced simple syrup
- 2 1/2 ounces rum
- 1 1/2 ounce fresh pressed apple juice
- 1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
Shake all ingredients and strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with an apple slice and cinnamon stick.
For the spiced simple syrup: Mix about a 1/2 teaspoon each of ground cinnamon and nutmeg, 1/4 teaspoon of cloves, plus a whole vanilla bean with 1/2 cup each of sugar and water. Simmer until sugar is dissolved. Let cool and strain through cheesecloth.
Maple Old-Fashioned
- 1 “Filthy” cherry and a peach slice
- 1/4 ounce maple syrup
- 2 ounces blended scotch
- 1 dash Angostura bitters
Muddle the cherry, peach slice and maple syrup in a rocks glass. Add ice, scotch and bitters to the muddled fruit mixture and stir well. If you prefer and your peach is very ripe, you can strain after mixing over fresh ice.
Smoke & Mirrors
- 2 ounces smoky joven mezcal
- 1 ounce sloe gin
- 1 ounce fresh orange juice
- 1 dash chocolate bitters
- Orange twist
Shake all ingredients with ice and pour over fresh ice in a rocks glass. Twist the orange peel over the drink and rub the rim of the glass. Throw the peel in the drink when you’re done.
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