Bless This Mess

COCKTAIL INGREDIENTS:
- 60 ml Golden Gin
(Produced by Gintaro Sino Distillery)
- 30 ml Sea Buckthorn Syrup
- 20 ml Ginger Liqueur
- 30 ml Fresh Lemon Juice
- 2 Dashes Peychaud's Bitters

GARNISH:
- Candied Ginger
- Lemon Twist

INSTRUCTIONS:
• Combine all of the ingredients in a cocktail shaker.
• Add ice and shake until chilled.
• Double strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
• Garnish with a piece of candied ginger and a lemon twist.

It has been a long time since I tasted anything produced with sea buckthorns. It is an ingredient very familiar to me from my childhood, used in teas and jams. However, it just slipped into the background for the last 10 years or so, until I began wondering: Could it be a delicious ingredient for a cocktail? So, the end result of my research and attempts at incorporating sea buckthorns into a drink culminated with recipe for Bless This Mess.

At first, I based this cocktail around London Dry Gin, but something did not sit quite right and it lacked a bit of warmth. Then I picked up a bottle of Golden Gin with subtle notes of apple, which paired incredibly well with the complex taste of sea buckthorn syrup featuring sweet, sour somewhat citrusy notes. (However, sea buckthorn syrup is a difficult ingredient to source, it fell into my hands completely by accident, so the cocktail might vary if you decide to make your own.) With the solid foundation for the cocktail I started adding little tweaks such as ginger liqueur for the warming bite and some lemon juice to balance it all out. It was already quite tasty, but spontaneous last addition of Peychaud’s aromatic bitters crossed all the T’s and dotted all the I’s bringing everything together.

Bless This Mess is a warming comforting cocktail, created precisely for this cold and rainy time of the year. After just a couple of sips, you will feel as if you were sitting with a blanket over your shoulders in front of the roaring fireplace.