• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Ruhlman
  • About
  • My Books
  • My Kitchen Essentials
  • Press
  • CV
  • Contact
menu icon
go to homepage
search icon
Homepage link
  • About
  • My Books
  • My Kitchen Essentials
  • Press
  • CV
  • Contact
×

Friday Cocktail Hour: Swizzle Me This

Published: Jul 25, 2014 · Modified: Feb 3, 2021 by Michael Ruhlman · 10 Comments

 

swizzle

Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman

In hot and humid NYC last week, we were invited downstairs to our neighbors Tobin (of Hella Bitters) and Jourdan for a cocktail. "I'm mixing swizzles," he emailed.

A perfect summer cocktail if ever there were one. Born centuries ago in the Caribbean, the swizzle is nothing more than booze, sugar, bitters, and soda, with plenty of crushed ice. Ideally you spin the crushed ice with an actual five-prong swizzle stick, made from a native plant, to help the sugar dissolve. (You can buy them at our go-to cocktail supply store, Cocktail Kingdom.)

Tobin, a cocktail pro, used both Scotch and gin (in separate drinks; I requested gin, Donna had the scotch version below) along with a fiery Pasilla De Oaxaca bitters. But he noted that any spirit will work, and certainly rum would have been the spirit of choice in the Caribbean. Both cocktails are given below.

However you cool off—and how NYC has cooled off; the weather gods have given us a city-wide swizzle!—at the end of this fine week in July, hope yours is a happy Friday!

 

Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman

 

If you liked this post on the Swizzle, check out these other links:

  • My past cocktail posts with rum: Dark and Stormy, Man About Town, and Key Lime Daiquiri.
  • Portside Distillery, located in Cleveland, makes their own light rum, dark rum, vanilla maple rum, and hops-infused rum.
  • Visit Tampa on August 16 to celebrate the Summer of Rum Festival.
  • One of the best rum bars around is Smuggler's Cove in San Francisco.

© 2014 Michael Ruhlman. Photo © 2014 Donna Turner Ruhlman. All rights reserved.

BASIC SWIZZLE

Print Recipe
Course Cocktail

Ingredients
  

  • Juice of 1 lime (about ¾ ounce)
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 3 or 4 dashes aromatic bitters
  • 2 ounces rum (or spirit of your choice)
  • 2 ounces soda water (or as much as you wish)

Instructions
 

  • In a highball glass combine the lime juice, sugar, and bitters. Add crushed ice about three-quarters of the way up the glass. Add the rum and club soda.
  • Swizzle well. No garnish required.

SWIZZLE ME THIS, BATMAN

Print Recipe
Course Cocktail

Ingredients
  

  • ¾ ounce pineapple syrup*
  • Juice of 1 lime (about ¾ ounce)
  • 2 ounces Scotch (we used JW Gold Label Reserve—stay away from anything too peaty like Laphroaig)
  • 3 sprays (or a dash) pineapple-infused Drambuie**
  • 2 ounces club soda
  • 5 drops smoked saline***
  • 3 or 4 dashes Hella Bitters
  • Pineapple leaf, for garnish

Instructions
 

  • In a highball glass combine the pineapple syrup and lime juice. Add crushed ice about three-quarters of the way up the glass. Add the Scotch, Drambuie, club soda, smoked saline, and bitters. Stir the cocktail well, preferably with a swizzle stick.
  • Garnish with a long pineapple leaf, pointy side up. Careful not to poke your eye out.

Notes

*Making this syrup is easy, but it takes a couple hours. Get pure juice—nothing from concentrate. Measure out a quantity of sugar equal to half the pineapple juice you're going to use and reserve. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, bring the pineapple juice to a simmer, using a wooden spoon to skim the surface of the foam that rises. When reduced by half, stir in the sugar until dissolved and turn off the heat.
** In a glass jar combine slices of ripe pineapple with about 10 ounces Drambuie. Cover and let sit for several hours or overnight. Strain the liquid through a fine-mesh sieve. You can add by the dash or get fancy and use an atomizer to spritz the inside of the glass.
***You'll need to get smoked salt at a local specialty shop or online. A couple ounces of salt will be plenty. In a bowl, add hot water to the salt, an ounce at a time, until the salt is completely dissolved. The ratio should be approximately 4:1 water to salt.
« Grill Your Burgers!
Friday Cocktail Hour: The Gin & Tonic »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Melanie

    July 25, 2014 at 11:58 am

    I'm excited to try these, as a dear friend recently gave me a true swizzle mixer-stick-thingy!

    Reply
  2. Natalie Luffer

    July 25, 2014 at 12:23 pm

    you are turning me into a lush...this reads enticing

    Reply
  3. Angel Reyes

    July 25, 2014 at 12:40 pm

    Wow. I've never had this before. Time to get the mixing started!

    Reply
  4. Lori Rybka

    July 25, 2014 at 3:22 pm

    still stuck on my sidecars!!!

    Reply
  5. Allen

    July 25, 2014 at 3:28 pm

    Smoked saline?
    Great neighbors to have. I'm curious what results a 5% brine would produce with homemade smoked salt.

    Pineapple Drambuie, talk about East meets West.
    That's some cool neighbors

    Reply
  6. Mac Frazier

    July 25, 2014 at 3:28 pm

    On the smoked salt: it is amazingly easy to make your own if you ever have reason to smoke anything else. (I do a lot of backyard barbecue, so I'm always looking for things to throw in the smoker when the meat's out but there's still a little fire burning.)

    Just lay out a layer of salt (I usually use a coarse salt) in a pan or on some aluminum foil and put in the smoker. An hour is enough to impart some smokiness, but you can go longer if you want more intensity. I wouldn't suggest doing it alongside any protein, as the salt can pick up some funky flavors that way.

    Reply
    • joellaco

      August 09, 2014 at 10:56 am

      Wow Mac thanks for the how to smoke your own salt, it gets pricey and it is soooo very good.

      Reply
  7. Allen

    July 25, 2014 at 7:15 pm

    Thinking of using smoked salt brine for a brisket, making pastrami.
    Anyone tried this?

    Reply
  8. blog comments

    July 29, 2014 at 3:05 pm

    Hi there, of course this paragraph is truly fastidious and I have learned
    lot of things from it on the topic of blogging.
    thanks.

    Reply
  9. paulius nasvytis

    July 29, 2014 at 4:10 pm

    Re- fresh, pure pineapple juice - it can be hard to find, buy Trader Joe carries it.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




Primary Sidebar

Hi, I'm Michael Ruhlman, an award-winning author and cook who writes about chefs, food and cooking, among other things.

More about me →

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram

See my books!

Ratio App for iPhone

After I wrote my book Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, a colleague and I built a ratio calculator for iPhones that allows you to cook without recipes. For doughs, batters, custards, sauces, stocks and more, simply plug in the amount of one ingredient and the amounts of the other ingredients are instantly calculated. It's also a handy reference for dozens of our most common preparations. ($4.99 in the app store.)

Collaborate

I’ve collaborated on a dozen books, including cookbooks and a memoir. If you'd like to collaborate on a project, please contact my agent, Gail Hochman, [email protected], at Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc.

For speaking engagements contact, Kip Ludwig, [email protected].

Hi, I'm Michael Ruhlman, an award-winning author and cook who writes about chefs, food and cooking, among other things.

More about me →

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram

See my books!

Ratio App for iPhone

After I wrote my book Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, a colleague and I built a ratio calculator for iPhones that allows you to cook without recipes. For doughs, batters, custards, sauces, stocks and more, simply plug in the amount of one ingredient and the amounts of the other ingredients are instantly calculated. It's also a handy reference for dozens of our most common preparations. ($4.99 in the app store.)

Collaborate

I’ve collaborated on a dozen books, including cookbooks and a memoir. If you'd like to collaborate on a project, please contact my agent, Gail Hochman, [email protected], at Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc.

For speaking engagements contact, Kip Ludwig, [email protected].

Footer

↑ back to top

About

  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclaimer
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Accessibility Policy

Newsletter

  • Sign Up for my bimonthly newsletter.

Contact

  • Contact
  • FAQ

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Copyright © 2020 Brunch Pro on the Brunch Pro Theme