welcome friends welcome back to cocktails after dark where we are exploring our way
through cocktail recipes now today we're gonna do a mezcal cocktail and I'm pretty late
to the mezcal party I always avoided mezcal it was it was one of those
beverages that everyone always said to me
but if you like a smoky I love scotch you're gonna like mezcal and I don't
like islay scotches I don't like the really PD smokebomb scotch I know
that's sacrilege Julie loves them but it's not for me so I always kind of
avoided mezcal kind of like I can't be bothered really can't be bothered and
then about six months ago I sat down with a guy in Toronto who owns a bar
that is just about mezcal pretty much only mezcal he's got mezcal that
he's brought in from all over Mexico and we sat down and we drank through
maybe 12 different kinds and I realized mezcal is not one thing it is a wide
range of different tastes flavors some is really smoky and some isn't very
smoky at all so here's the weirdness because of where we live in the way that
alcohol is sold here Ontario there are very few mezcal available to me at the
liquor store which is kind of hampered my discovery of mezcal a little bit but
on the day that this video goes live on YouTube Julie and I will be back in
Mexico and on this trip to Mexico I'm hoping to pick up some mezcal can do
some really good cocktails down the line but I am able to get this one here and
it's um it's not bad it's kind of a mid smoky right so it's not a total smoke
bomb but the smoke flavor is still there smoke is very much on the finish the the
alcohol itself is quite smooth it's it's um
it's kind of nice for sipping if you were interested in sipping and if there
is such a thing as a sipping mezcal this might be it so today we're gonna do a
cocktail called the smoky maple and it uses tequila patron citronge which is
quite nice and miss cow it's a couple other things in it too but first off is
Cazadores reposado tequila any sort of nice lightly flavored smooth
tequila I think would be good to sort of offset what's going on with the miss cow
next up is is this patron citronge lime I got to tell you when a friend gave this
to me I thought oh I'm gonna hate this what am I ever gonna do with it you know
what I kind of like it I've had it in a couple of cocktails now and I think it
is quite nice even just to sip on its own with maybe a little bit of ice next
in is the mezcal and if you've noticed we're getting smaller amounts and so
there's not much mezcal we're really just sort of looking at this for that
smoky flavor a couple other things that are gonna happen in the background too
next of course is the maple you can't have a smoky maple cocktail without some
maple syrup so I'm going to use this really dark Grade B maple syrup it packs
quite a punch I'm gonna pour this in cuz I don't wanna get it everywhere huh
we'll just try it let's see there we go it has quite the flavor it's a very
strong flavor yeah I mean it's almost got a smoky flavor on its own I'm really
looking forward to this so in goes the maple syrup and some freshly squozen
lime juice and the last ingredient is this is a saline solution so just like
you would make a one-to-one solution of sugar for simple syrup I've done the
same with salt and water and I'm just gonna add it by the dropper you don't
want to add too much maybe to droppers full and the idea with the salt is that
some it's just like having a salt rim on the glass except we're controlling how
much salt in the drink so give this a shake get
rid of the vise in this glass and we double string look at that color
okay here we go the smokey maple the color is crazy I really like the color
so on the nose I'm getting just a hint of smoke
not too much Wow okay the maple the maple is right in there maple is one of
those flavors that gets lost when you put it in other things a lot of the time
you put maple syrup like pure maple syrup on pancakes or a waffle and you
get that maple flavor but when you mix maple into other things that often just
sort of disintegrates in it and you lose it completely and this one you don't the
maple is there and it's not cloying ly sweet it is maple maple maple maple with
just a hint of smoke over the top
yeah okay I really like that this citronge lime stuff came through again I can't
really fake it I like what it brings to this cocktail it's not overly sweet but
it's there I also like the salt I think salt I look at a lot of cocktail
recipes and coming from from the kitchen rather than from a bartending type thing
covering the kitchen salt is very important salt is one of those things
that really helps bring out all of the other flavors and I see a lot of
cocktails where they rim the glass with salt either half of the rim or the whole
rim and a lot of bartenders will say they only do half so that you can choose
what they want the salt or not I think putting a salt solution into the
cocktail really sort of enhances all of the other flavors and this is something
that I learned from a really good bartender and I think I'm gonna put it
into practice more often this some so for mezcal u even though this doesn't
use a whole lot of mezcal I think this is really nice
now of course as we've learned from other cocktail videos that I've done you
switch out the tequila and the miss kau and you could have a completely
different cocktail it could be a real smoke bomb if you wanted it to be a
smoke bomb you could get a mezcal that is a total smoke bomb you could get a
very mild flavored mezcal and get rid of the tequila altogether and just just use
more mezcal with this Patron citronge sorry and I don't know why I want to say
it in French because it's probably not in French at all so the smoky maple this
is a really good cocktail and I think this is a really good cocktail for
someone like me who is just starting to explore mezcal so it's not over-the-top
smoke bomb smoke show mezcal just a little hint that brings everything else
up thanks for stopping by see you again soon
you