Nightcaps: Blue Tuesday

So, according to "The Dictonary" (a large collection of words nobody uses anymore) a nightcap is an alcoholic beverage imbibed before bed - usually of the harder booze-variety. Here at Boozeblogger it just means whatever we're drinking tonight. This evening a certain bottle of gin called Beefeater 24 was looking at me that special way. So I decided to take it for a spin...

Beefeater 24 is an offshoot of the classic Beefeater gin which aims for the super-premium and craft cocktail markets. A look at the cocktails on their website confirms that they're angling for the kind of top-shelf drinks that can only be made in a very well-stocked bar. A lot of them are made with a base of Beefeater 24 steeped with different teas which I find intriguing. Sadly I don't have any of those teas on hand, nor do I have any fresh coriander, rhubarb bitters, or homemade orange and ginger marmalade for the other cocktails. So I had to see what else I had on hand...

Perfect Puree of Napa Valley produces some very cool products that attempt to blur the line between freshness and convenience. What they offer is specially made blends of the freshest ingredients formulated to be the perfect companion to your cocktails. What it offered me tonight is the ability to add some real depth to a new cocktail without the effort of juicing six different fruits. The particular blend I used (Yuzu Luxe Sour) contains meyer lemon juice, key lime, tangerine, karrif lime leaf, lemon grass, and Yuzu Juice (Yuzu is like a smaller, Japanese grapefruit).

For tonight's nightcap, I wanted to highlight the Beefeater 24 without having to make a special trip to the store for this one drink. The Yuze Luxe Sour was a great companion to the gin which can sometimes feel overpowering in cocktails. To garnish I used some not-so-fresh-but-still-wild blueberries which went surprisingly well with the drink. Since the fruit juice is already cloudy all you really need to do is throw these ingredients into your shaker for awhile and pour. Here's the recipe:

The Blue Tuesday:

2 oz Yuze Luxe Sour from Perfect Puree

1 1/2 oz Beefeater 24

Garnish with 5-6 blueberries

If you have the stuff and make this...or if it sounds good...or if you just want to write nasty words on my blog...please, feel free to leave a comment or two.