Apple Breakfast Tea Cocktail - weekend recipe

There are many books on making Herbal cocktails, like the Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart or Clean Cocktails by Beth Nydick and Tara Roscioli.  Each of these has great ideas for turning your garden jewels into a wonderful relaxing beverage.  After reading these I started to experiment with tastes and flavors and cocktails and mocktails and came up with quite a number of them.

One of the great ways to get the taste of herbs into a cocktail is to make a tea.  Tea Cocktails take the flavor of tea and use it to enhance a combination with alcohol.

Here are some tips for making tea cocktails

1.      Always make your tea stronger than you think necessary for cocktails. Don’t use more time to achieve this; instead, use more tea. Many people make the mistake of steeping the tea for too long to try and get more flavor. The results? Bitter, sour tea. Use more dry tea but stick with the suggested steeping times. You’ll love the power behind a tea concentrate.

2.      Be aware of balance. A stronger tea like rooibos, a tisane versus true tea, has nutty notes that beg to be enhanced by a robust spirit like bourbon or rum. On the other hand, a more delicate tea like white tea requires a spirit that won’t overwhelm it, making vodka or light rum ideal.

Apple Breakfast Tea Cocktail

English breakfast tea

Thyme
Apple juice
Whiskey
Apple, sliced thin

Brew a fresh batch of tea with added sprigs of thyme.  Chill and add equal parts clear apple juice and tea.  Pour into a balloon glass and spike each one with a shot of your favorite whiskey.  Garnish with apple wheels and sprigs of thyme.

RECIPE THEME

Each month a theme is chosen and a number of recipes on that theme from my massive archive will be shared.  This year we have 12 new topics, different from the topics of last year.  To find the recipes of last year, check out this recipe link or search the blog with the topic Recipe2018. 

You can search the monthly theme by looking for the theme keyword in the search box and it will pull up the recipes on that theme as posted, so look at the bottom of the recipe in each posting for the KEYWORD in the () to search for each  month.  All recipes this year will be tagged Recipe2019 so you can find them all.

The themes are:

Jan 2019 – Chicken and Dumplings (CDumpsJan)

Feb 2019 - Pasta Dishes (PastaFeb)

March 2019 - Edible Flowers (FlowerMar)

April 2019 - Seafood Recipes (SeafoodApr)

May 2019 - Cajun And Creole (C&CMay)

June 2019 - Vegetarian Dishes (VegJun)

July 2019 - Zucchini Recipes (ZucJul)

August 2019 - National Mustard Day – mustard recipes (MustardAug)

September 2019 - Quiche (QuicheSep)

October 2019 - Crock Pot meals (CrockOct)

November 2019 - Pies (PieNov)

December 2019 - Mocktails (MockDec)