Riders of the Pepper Sage

A hot and spicy contest entry

So I'm gonna follow a theme for the next few posts related to my "country of choice", Iceland. "But Dave, how is a rye cocktail related to Iceland?", you may ask? Read on...

Back in January I was visiting my friend Eric in Iceland (who took this amazing photo BTW) and as usual we went out on a pub crawl in downtown Reykjavík on a quest for well made cocktails. The best place that we've found so far is a place called Týpsy Bar. The cocktails are all carefully crafted, creative and show a real understanding of haute couture mixology knowledge and skill. I won't go into the details in this post, but let's just say that when they make small cask aged Vesper martinis they know what they're doing.

It turns out that this particular bar has a contest that is sponsored by a specific brand with a different theme each year. Oddly enough, I had forgotten that I submitted a cocktail last year when it was sponsored by Grey Goose vodka and the theme was "French". As an artist, I'm constantly responding to open calls for photography that are theme-based so I always look for connections and themes relating to ingredients, origins, visuals, and especially nomenclature. A lot of thinking goes into my drinking.

Anyway, despite my incredibly sophisticated cocktail that I submitted last year, I didn't win. This year the sponsor was Bulleit and the theme was "America". As an American with a deep connection to Iceland (another story) I knew I could really bring something to it. I often start with a theme or concept when creating cocktails, so I brainstormed about what things were unique to America and free associated them with bourbon and rye. I went through a few ideas but I kept coming back to the image of a gunslinger in an old west saloon.

Then it dawned on me: Bulleit > bullet > smoke > Southwestern desert > desert sage > campfires.... all of these made sense to me and the flavors worked out in my head. It took awhile, and it got really complicated but eventually I made the actual drink simple, but with a lengthy prep. I decided to make a shrub. No, not that kind of shrub. A shrub is a kind of acidified simple syrup that blends sugar, vinegar and some kind of fruit or vegetable for the base and sometimes spices for additional flavor combinations. I've made a few before using different ingredients and strawberries are one of the best ones, but I wanted something more savory and Southwest themed so I used agave, red bell pepper, jalapeño and sage along with apple cider vinegar which tends to work best. The standard recipe calls for a 1:1:1 ratio of vinegar, sugar (agave) and fruit (red bell pepper) and I stuck to that. The shrub recipe is below the cocktail recipe and you can read more about shrubs on Liquor.com if you want more details.

And so I thought I had it locked in to win! A great fucking cocktail by a great American! Well, at least a great cocktail. I made it several different ways over a span of a few days with Eric over video chat and we tweaked and tweaked and got pretty wasted, which is not normally my style, but we were WORKING, dagnabbit! All of our iterations were good, but eventually I got the mezcal proportion right for a bit more smokiness. Of course I had to take it up a notch to make it look pretty with a smoking sage leaf. I took some okay pics, but Eric knocked it out of the park as he likes to say.

Now all it needed was a name! In many ways that's my favorite part, and sometimes it actually comes first and I build a cocktail around it. This one had such a complex bunch of ingredients that I had to go beyond obvious names like "smoking gun" or "cowbuy juice" and really get the idea across. We tried at least a dozen but they were either already used for other cocktails, or they just didn't ring true. After much meditation on sage, the name "Riders of the Purple Sage" just popped into my head. I knew it from a similarly named fantasy short story I read as a teen by Robert Asprin titled "Riders of the Purple Wage," inspired by Zane Grey's famours original western novel from 1912 (which I never read). Anyway, I replaced "purple" with "pepper" and holee shit what a great name!

Great name, great drink, great story, great photo... but I lost to something called the "Pink Pop". I never got to try it, and the winner (and I think all the runner-ups) were bartenders in Reykjavík. Eric and I concluded that it was really just a local industry insider thing and although it was open to everyone I'm pretty sure I never had a chance. Oh well, there's always next year.

Anyway, if you're up for a savory smoky challenging libation, giv'r a try:

Riders of the Pepper Sage

1 1/2 oz Bulleit Rye

1 oz Mezcal

1/2 oz red bell pepper shrub*

Fresh sage

Fresh red bell pepper

Fresh jalapeño

Pinch of salt

*Red bell pepper shrub recipe:

4 oz. agave syrup

4 oz. unfiltered apple cider vinegar

4 oz. diced fresh red bell pepper

1-2 slices of fresh jalapeño

5-10 fresh sage leaves (dried or crushed is okay)

Simmer all ingredients except sage over low heat for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, stir in sage leaves, cover and let cool. Refrigerate 24-48 hours. Strain into small jar and keep refrigerated.

Cocktail Instructions:

Muddle/grind fresh red bell pepper, one thin slice of jalapeño and pinch of salt with the shrub in a shaker. Add rye and mezcal and gently muddle/press 5-6 fresh sage leaves in shaker. Shake vigorously for at least 20 seconds. Strain and pour straight up into small drinking glass (no ice). Slap one large sage leaf and rim the glass and discard. Garnish with red bell pepper slice with attached dried sage leaf over rim of glass and light one end. Carefully extinguish the flame and let it smoke while serving. Avoid getting ashes into the drink!