Mike's Mix: Bonded Whiskey And The Gold Rush
Each week, Mike Augustyniak finds a new cocktail from a local mixologist. This week, he heads to a Rochester favorite for one smooth drink.
The Gold Rush
- 2 oz Jim Beam Bonded bourbon
- ½ oz honey simple syrup*
- ¾ oz fresh lemon juice
- 3 dashes Bittercube Cherry Bark Vanilla Bitters
* To make honey simple syrup: combine equal parts water and clover honey over heat until completely dissolved. Cool and use, or store.
Instructions
Combine all ingredients in a shaker tin over ice. Shake until cold, and then strain into a chilled Nick & Nora or coupe glass.
Taste Test
National Bourbon Heritage Month is September, but America's "native spirit" is worthy of celebration all-year long. The rest of the world knows it, too. According to the "Bour-Bon Vivant" of Jim Beam, Adam Harris, "the whole world is very thirsty for what we're doing here in the country," and that's driving a global whiskey renaissance.
Jim Beam Bonded is part of the nation's seminal bourbon portfolio and is a result of the 1897 Bottled in Bond Act, as Adam explained:
"Before bottling was such a modern convenience at a distillery people would pull up and buy their own whiskey via vessel or a jug from home.
If you wanted to sell that, or you'd split it up, you might be able to cut it with some harmful alcohol. We didn't like people drinking harmful alcohol that had our name on it … and so what we did is in 1897 we got the government involved.
Every time we made a batch of whiskey they'd oversee the production of it … and then when we went to bottle they oversaw the bottling and it got a stamp which guaranteed that you were drinking the whiskey -- the authentic whiskey -- as we had made it."
Jim Beam Bonded is in use in this recipe, which is a riff on the classic Bee's Knees cocktail. In this recipe -- created by Aynsley Jones, bartender and owner of The Doggery in Rochester -- bourbon takes the place of gin. The result is a dainty cocktail that is smooth and easy to drink, that Aynsley says is a myth-buster.
"Everybody thinks bourbon cocktails are stirred, or big, and heavy, and rich, but this is something that [is] maybe an introductory bourbon cocktail," Aynsley said.
The Doggery can be found on historic 3rd Street in downtown Rochester.
