We enjoyed yet another holiday dinner this year, with wonderful drinks made by our Operations Manager, Lauren Barrett. Here they are, in order of the menu. Sorry, but we were so busy eating dinner, we forgot to take photos!
Welcome Cocktail:
1 oz Pearousia
½ oz Aperol
1 oz OJ
Combine ingredients in a flute and top with sparkling wine.
Gin-gle All The Way:
1 oz Watershed Gin
½ oz lemon
¼ oz rosemary simple
½ oz Domaine de Canton
Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a cocktail glass.
Chim Chim Cherry:
1 oz Roundstone Rye 80 Proof
⅓ oz lemon
⅓ oz grapefruit
¼ oz agave syrup
⅛ oz Luxardo
Brandied cherry
Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with cherry.
Come On Krampus:
1 oz Roundstone Rye Distillers Edition
¼ oz brown sugar syrup
½ oz Quarter Branch Apple Brandy
¾ oz OJ
2 bar spoons Pratt Standard grenadine
Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a cocktail glass.
Nipping At Your Nose:
1 oz Roundstone Rye 80 Proof
1 oz apple cider
1 oz 1757 amaretto (almond extract, vanilla bean, brown sugar, granulated sugar)
Black walnut whipped cream (heavy cream, black walnut bitters, powdered sugar)
Serve warm in a coffee cup; top with cream.
Recipes courtesty Lauren Barrett, and used with permission.
Here's a new account for you to follow: @theboozygay from Spring, Texas. Eddie Harris is the owner of the account, and also happens to be the son of the founders. When he's not full-time ambassador for Catoctin Creek in Texas, he enjoys walks on the beach, piña coladas, and making cocktails. This one is his latest. "This week's cocktail of the week says Merry Christmas in a very boozy way!"
1 oz Copper and Kings Brandy
1 oz Catoctin Creek Roundstone Rye
⅔ oz of cranberry syrup*
Dash of bitters
Stir and enjoy over a big rock in a rocks glass. Garnish with cranberries on a toothpick.
Cranberry syrup
½ cup light brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
1 cup water
1 bag of cranberries
1 tsp nutmeg
Combine all over low heat until mixed, at least one hour. Strain and remove the cranberries. Keep syrup in refrigerator for up to three months.
Recipe and photo courtesy @theboozygay and used with permission.
This cocktail is a modification of one that was in Whisky Advocate. The original recipe had a rather complicated pear/persimmon/clove brown simple syrup, which I'm sure is lovely, but I just finished canning a dozen cans of fresh persimmon jam, and so I wanted to use that instead. I've tweaked things around a bit while still honoring the original ingredients and proportions. And honestly, it came out great!!
This cocktail is the embodiment of November. You can serve it as a sling (cold, with an ice cube), or warm it gently and serve as a toddy.
3 oz Roundstone Rye 92 Proof
1 oz Nonino amaro
½ oz brown sugar syrup or molasses syrup
½ oz persimmon jam
2 oz pear juice
dash of vanilla extract
dash of woodland bitters
Vigorously shake all the ingredients in a shaker of ice. Double-strain and serve with a big rock in a rocks glass. Serves two.
Recipe and photo courtesy Scott Harris, variation on a recipe in Whisky Advocate.
This cocktail comes to us from Nathan Wilkinson, @jollybartender on Instagram. It is a wonderful celebration of Commonwealth featuring two of its best distilleries:
This cocktail shows off Catoctin Creek’s Distillers Edition Roundstone Rye with Mt. Defiance Sweet Vermouth—two great Virginia distilleries.
3 oz Catoctin Creek Roundstone Rye Distiller's Edition
½ oz Mt. Defiance Sweet Vermouth
½ oz Ramazzotti amaro
3 dashes Hella orange bitters
Lemon zest garnish
Combine all ingredients in a shaker of ice. Stir and strain into a coupe and garnish.
Cocktail and photo courtesy Nathan Wilkinson, and used with permission.
Blueberries are underappreciated in cocktails. Their flavor is unique, but one thing you can always count on from blueberries is a gorgeous natural color. In this recipe, to preserve that beautiful deep violet hue, we opted to use citric acid water instead of lemon juice. The flavor will be nearly the same, but the citric acid is clear, whereas the lemon would be cloudy and dull the color in the blueberries. You can get citric acid (as with most things) online in granulated form.
2 oz Roundstone Rye 80 Proof
1 oz citric water (6 tsp citric to 4½ cups of water, more or less to taste)
½ oz honey simple (1:1 honey with hot water)
½ oz blueberry simple syrup (steep blueberries in simple syrup for at least an hour, remove solids)
lemon wedge garnish
Combine the ingredients in a shaker of ice, shake, and strain into a Nick and Nora glass with ice. Garnish with lemon.
Recipe courtesy Denise Petty.
This one comes to us from Nightcap Cocktail Company, which you can find on Instagram at @nightcapcocktailco or on their web site.
The air is misty. You just woke up. Your flannel shirt is exuding the smell of last night’s campfire. You leave the log cabin that you built by hand, pick up your axe, and head out for a day’s work.
or... it’s five o’clock on a thursday and one sip of Catoctin Creek’s cask-proof edition rye has you literally dreaming. Spec below, so you can dream, too.
2 oz Catoctin Creek Cask Proof Roundstone Rye
¼ oz black birch syrup
2 dashes star-anise bitters
Stir over ice. Smoke glass with applewood, anise, and cinnamon. Strain into old fashioned glass with large block of clear ice. Garnish with torched orange wedge.
Recipe courtesy Nightcap Cocktail Company; photo by Hilary Hyland and used with permission.
Summer is upon us, and so too are summer flavors: berries, berries and peaches! Enjoy these on a hot, humid afternoon.
Black ‘ramble
1½ oz Watershed Gin
½ oz Blackberry syrup
½ oz Lemon juice
Top with ginger beer
Garnish with lemon slice
Island Hopp’n
1½ oz Roundstone Rye 92 Proof Distiller's Edition ¼ oz Strawberry syrup
¼ oz Pineapple gomme syrup
2 dashes Cherry bitters
3 dashes Typhoon (tiki) bitters
Express and garnish with lemon peel
Peachy Fiend
1 oz Rroundstone Rye 80 Proof
½ oz Peach syrup
½ oz Sour water (citric acid water .25tsp to 1.5oz)
¼ oz Aperol
Top with float of Angostura bitters
Garnish with fresh mint leaf
We frequently will dive into the Tiki genre with our whiskey. Some may regard rum as the sole heir to Tiki cocktails, but quoting Matt Perkins, the beverage manager at Magnolias at the Mill, "If you argue about whether or not it's Tiki, you're entirely missing the point of Tiki."
This cocktail comes to us from @adventuresofriad on Instagram, and we're very impressed with this cool summertime refresher:
The #cocktail group I’m in feels like that this summer should be dedicated to #mezcal tiki cocktails, and I whole-heartedly agree! Here’s a #riff on one of my #favorite tiki cocktails the #Saturn
The Saturn is initially made with gin, falernum, orgeat, passion, and lemon and it’s blended as well!
My take is a little more #fun than that! I’m calling it the Uranus because there’s a lot going on in Uranus! 😘 it features some of my #favorite ingredients in a fantastic #amalgamation of #love in a glass!
¾ oz El Silencio Mezcal
¾ oz Catoctin Creek Roundstone Rye
½ oz lemon juice
½ oz passion fruit juice
¼ Luxardo maraschino liqueuer
2 barspoons creme de violette
Split base of mezcal and rye whisky with passion fruit purée, fresh squeezed lime juice Luxardo maraschino and creme de violette strained over crushed ice in a glass rimmed with tajin and garnish simply with mint (but go crazy because the bigger the garnish the better ).
Cocktail and photo courtesy of @adventuresofriad and used with permission.
This month, we had a fabulous inaugural "Dinner on the Rooftop" in collaboration with the Wine Kitchen and Loudoun Mobile Hope. Among the treats for the night were two amazing cocktails that the team at Catoctin Creek created. These are fantastic summer cocktails, especially if made into a punch (just multiply everything by 25 for punch).
Hope on the Rooftop
1 oz strawberry-infused Watershed Gin
¼ oz strawberry-rhubarb syrup
¼ oz sour water (¼ tsp citric acid + 1½ oz water), or substitute lemon juice as an alternative
Soda to top
Rhubarb bitters
Black locust blossoms to garnish
Macerate the strawberries in the gin for at least two days. Strain and remove the fruit. To make the syrup, macerate chunks of strawberry and rhubarb in equal parts sugar and water. Heat over medium heat until well dissolved. Then strain the fruit from the syrup. In a shaker, add the sour water, gin and syrup and combine well. Pour into a rocks glass full of ice and top with soda and garnish.
Lay Me "Doun"
1 oz Roundstone Rye 80 Proof
¼ oz Rose Garden Tea (available from Dominion Tea) made into a simple syrup
Lavender bitters
Lemon peel garnish
Combine the ingredients into a rocks glass with ice and garnish.
Cocktail recipes courtesy Denise Petty.
These were the highlighted cocktails of March and April in the tasting room.
Peachy Fiend
1 oz Roundstone Rye 80 Proof
1 oz peach syrup
1 oz lemon juice
⅛ oz Short Hill Mountain Peach Brandy
top with Angostura bitters
The Right Tree
1 oz Roundstone Rye 92 Proof Distiller's Edition
¼ oz birch bark syrup
Frontier bitters
orange peel for garnish
Watershed Mule
1 oz Watershed Gin
1 oz ginger syrup
1 oz lime juice
top with ginger beer
Sup Doc?
1 oz Watershed Gin
1 oz organic carrot juice
1 oz TRUE Tonic
Top with soda water and mint sprig
Purcell-Libre
1 oz Roundstone Rye 80 Proof
¼ oz TRUE Kola syrup
¼ oz lime juice
top with soda water
garnish with lime wedge
Recipes courtesy Denise Petty.
This cocktail was one of our featured cocktails at one of our recent dinner events.
1 oz Pearousia Pear Brandy
1 oz golden coconut milk*
1 tsp maple syrup
⅛ oz Fresh lime juice
½ oz Simple syrup
Shake VERY well, serve over ice, garnish with toasted coconut and edible flower
Golden Coconut Milk:
1 cup canned coconut milk
1 teaspoon extra virgin coconut oil
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1 pinch ground black pepper
Recipe courtesy of Lauren Barrett.
This cocktail was one of our featured cocktails at one of our recent dinner events.
1 oz Roundstone Rye 80 Proof
¼ oz Aperol
½ oz Pineapple/mint gomme syrup
½ oz Fresh lemon juice
Shake, serve up in a Nick & Nora, garnish with skewered gummy shark and Drinking Buddy
Recipe courtesy of Lauren Barrett.
