The First Word

We hope everyone is staying healthy and sane during this strange time. We are doing our best over here, but you’ll notice I’m absent from today’s video because, you know, the kids are home!

So today, Chris is finishing off beer cocktail month on his own with a simple variation of The Last Word. Replacing the maraschino liqueur with an IPA syrup, this beer cocktail offers lots of big flavor. Need a fun cocktail project right now? Click here to jump to the recipe.

How to Make The First Word

Have a Little Fun with Beer Syrup

Before sharing this drink with all of you, Chris concentrated down a double IPA and made it into a syrup, which is something he talked about this month with bartender Chris Krause. It’s a pretty simple process:

• Heat the beer on the stove at a low boil. (Don’t let it get too hot, or it will turn quickly!)
• Reduce by about ⅓ for approximately 30 minutes. This takes out a lot of the water and brings out the beer flavor.
• Chris added ½ a cup of sugar, but taste it both hot and cold to decide how much to add.

The Last Word – made with Beer Syrup

Mixing gin, green Chartreuse, fresh lime juice, and the beer syrup, this adaptation of The Last Word packs a lot of flavor! The double IPA Chris is using also has notes of juniper and sage, so those parallel flavors play beautifully off the gin.

Substituting in the beer syrup makes it a little bit of a guessing game, so Chris actually added a little more gin in the final product after tasting the cocktail. As suggested by one of our beer experts, Nicole Barker, normally you wouldn’t add ice to a beer cocktail because of the dilution. But because this drink is so liquor-forward and Chris removed a lot of the water of the beer when making his concentrated syrup, he uses ice for this one (a little dilution isn’t a bad thing in this case!). The color is also a little different from a traditional Last Word, and again that’s due to the beer syrup.

Let us know how this works out for you; if you haven’t already, make sure to come join our community at the Craft Cocktail Club. It’s a great place to get ideas, support each other, and talk resources right now. We’re super grateful to this strong and caring group of people, and we’d love for you to join us. 

JAPANESE JIGGER

This jigger has one job and it does it well. Measure your ingredients perfectly every time, then toss it in the dishwasher. It’s durable and built to keep up, even when you’re deep in the weeds!