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.
This cocktail was one of our featured cocktails at one of our recent dinner events.
1 oz Watershed Gin
½ oz Citric acid water (1½ oz of fresh lemon juice = ¼ tsp of citric acid dissolved into 1½ oz of water)
½ oz Yuzu simple (½ yuzu juice, ½ simple syrup)
Shake, serve over ice, garnish with salt air (4 oz water, 2 oz fresh lime, 1½ tsp Sucro, 1½ tsp kosher salt, mix in a bowl with an immersion blender until foamy), atomize Tiki bitters on air.
Recipe courtesy of Lauren Barrett.
This cocktail was one of our featured cocktails at one of our recent dinner events.
1 oz Roundstone Rye Distiller's Edition
¾ oz Homemade pineapple juice
¾ oz Fresh lemon juice
¾ oz Orgeat*
Several dashes of Angostura bitters
Combine ingredients in a shaker of ice and strain into a collins glass full of ice. Float several dashes of Angostura bitters on top. Garnish with a spicy pepper lollipop (shown).
Orgeat:
2 cups raw almonds, sliced or chopped
1½ cups sugar
1¼ cup water
1 tsp orange flower water
1 oz vodka
Toast almonds, pulverize, cook sugar and water until sugar dissolves, add almonds, simmer, let sit for 3 hours, strain through cheese cloth, add orange flower water and vodka.
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
1 oz Chamomile syrup (3 tablespoons of chamomile flowers, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water)
1 oz Lemon Juice
⅛ oz St. Germain Elderflower liqueur
Combine all ingredients in a shaker of ice, shake and strain into a rocks glass with fresh ice. Garnish with lavender bitters and a lemon peel.
Recipe courtesy of Denise Petty.
I often get asked at the distillery if our products are gluten free. The answer to that is an emphatic "YES! They are gluten free!" People are often surprised by this, because rye grain (and hence rye bread, rye beer, etc.) is LOADED with gluten. However, the gluten protein molecules are heavy, and do not ascend the column during distillation. The resultant rye spirit is gluten free. We've tested it, and it exceeds all FDA tests to be gluten free.
Why do I mention all this? Well, people who have a gluten intolerance often tell me that they've eliminated beer from their lives, because when they drink it, they get symptoms like reflux and indigestion. But sometimes, when it's hot outside, you just want a beer! Something refreshing and fizzy! Enter the highball: All the freshness, none of the gluten!
A highball, for those new to this, is essentially spirit+soda. There are many variants, including the traditional scotch and soda, the rum and coke, gin and tonic... the list goes on.
This delicious highball comes to us from Crude Bitters (@crudebitters) and adds a touch of amaro and bitters, which really adds some sophistication to the simple highball.
1½ oz Catoctin Creek Roundstone Rye
½ oz Pasubio Vino Amaro
Orange-fig bitters from Crude Bitters
Soda or seltzer
Fill a glass with ice. Add the rye and amaro. Top with cold seltzer. Add 8-10 drops of orange-fig bitters.
Recipe courtesy Crude Bitters.
