Blood Orange Gin Sparkler
The citrus gin cocktail you want to be drinking. It's bright and beautiful - perfect for winter holidays and New Years Eve.
For a good part of the year I have rosemary floating about the kitchen. It's typically crowded in a wide-mouth jar, standing stick-straight, quietly waiting to be called upon. Sometimes it sits on the windowsill here, other times it migrates to the island, or, on rare occasions, the dinner table. I tend to buy a bunch, then work my way through it little by little (you've likely seen it in the background of photos on previous posts). Said another way - rosemary is often in my line of sight, and I'm always looking for ways to use it. This cocktail caught my attention a couple weeks back, and I've been making my own citrus-spiked riff on it in the days since.
So...my initial idea was that I'd do a winter citrus version using freshly-squeezed pink grapefruit juice, gin, and tonic water or sparkling water. I thought the evergreen notes in the gin would blend nicely with the tart pucker of grapefruit, and I'd take the edge off with a hint of rosemary syrup.
Not meant to be.
I walked into a box of beautiful Moro blood oranges at the store, and here we are. The blood orange juice worked beautifully, it added a lovely burst of color, and generally lent itself agreeably to what ended up being a long, bright, winter-time quencher. One that goes down a bit too easily, in fact. As I mention down below, if blood oranges are hard for you to come by, this drink is great with navel oranges as well. I mean it when I say, I hope you like this one as much as I do.
I kept thinking the gin / citrus combo would make for a striking DIY cocktail set-up at a holiday party, or New Year's brunch /gathering. Particularly if you offered a selection of juice mixers. I'm imagining small glass pitchers of blood orange juice, pink grapefruit juice, orange juice, oro blanco grapefruit juice, and or sweet lime juice? It would be a beautiful spectrum. Let me know if you give it a go.
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Blood Orange Gin Sparkler
You can keep the rosemary simple syrup in the refrigerator for a week or so. You can do this ahead of time. Also, if blood oranges are hard for you to come by - navel oranges are also delicious.
- 2 cups / 480 ml water
- 1 cup / 6.5 oz / 185 g sugar
- 4 tablespoons (~2 sprigs-worth) fresh rosemary leaves
- 1 bay leaf (optional)
- blood oranges
- gin
- ice cubes
- tonic water (or sparkling water)
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Combine the water, sugar, rosemary, and bay in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a simmer for 3-5 minutes, or long enough for the sugar to dissolve, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and let infuse for 10 minutes. Strain into a jar to cool completely.
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In the meantime, juice and strain your oranges, you'll need 3 tablespoons / 1.5 ounces of juice for each drink.
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To make each drink you're going to combine equal parts gin, juice, and tonic water with a bit of syrup and ice. So, its 3 tablespoons / 1 1/2 oz gin, 3 tablespoons / 1 1/2 oz freshly squeezed blood orange juice, and 1-2 teaspoons of the rosemary syrup in each tall glass (I used kolsch glasses here). Stir to combine, fill each glass 2/3 full with ice and top off with 3 tablespoons / 1 1/2 oz tonic water. Stir again and you're set.
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Comments
Where did you find your flute glasses? They're gorgeous!
Rosemary + Blood Orange = yes, please. Heidi: we must get together for the New Year. I hope you had a wonderful. restful holiday at home. xox
Made these this weekend for the holiday and they were absolutely fantastic! The rosemary/bay leaf simple syrup was amazing and added the perfect layer to the blood orange and gin. Can't wait to make them again. Thinking about trying it with meyer lemons for an adult lemonade sparkler.
Yum! I *cannot* wait to try this....
What gin do you recommend? and what's the one featured in the picture? Thanks!
Look greats!!! We rarely get blood oranges :) but next time i get some i'm gonna give this drink a shot hehe seems really refreshing and I LOVE the long shot classes hehe
Sounds delicious, will have to try it. I've been a big fan of Negroni's this holiday. Equal parts gin, campari and sweet vermouth... anna x
I couldn't find blood oranges so I made this with navel oranges and key limes...it was delicious! Thanks for the recipe!
This sounds great! If only I drank gin... :(
Heidi - I'm a new bride-to-be trying to set up my first real kitchen, and you're one of my greatest inspirations. I've scoured the pictures in each of your posts for hints as to what tools you have in your kitchen. I love how you share your favorite items every few months -- would you mind sharing your favorite kitchen tools, too? Where did you get your beautiful old wood cutting board or your gorgeous assortment of bowls? Thanks for the inspiration!
Heaven in a glass!
omg! looks delicious! i love blood orange anything & wow!!! :D great photos too!
I also noticed the Rosemary Gin Fizz recipe a couple weeks ago and fired it up last night to poor reviews. Think our club soda was old. I regrouped and improvised my own concoction - 2 parts gin, 1 part lemon juice, 1 part St. Germain, 1 part rosemary simple syrup. We called it "Pulse Points" because is smells good enough to dab on your wrists. Delicious. Now I have another wonderful recipe to use with the rest of my rosemary simple syrup. Thank you!
In the vein of the blood orange sparkler, I had an inspiration yesterday and finally got round to trying it today. I took the following (give or take, to your liking): juice from 1 1/2 meyer lemons ~2 teaspoons pomegranate molasses ~1 tablespoon agave nectar mix together and add about 4-5 teaspoons to [some] fizzy water. Of course, adding a splash of the alcohol of your choice (vodka? gin?) probably wouldn't hurt either. It's very refreshing!
We made these delicious cocktails last night! We couldn't find blood oranges so used cara cara navel oranges...perfect! We also made up your Carrot Almond Salad. Thank you for the recipes!
This looks absolutely delicious. I'm wild about anything rosemary, gin (esp. locals like No. 209 and Anchor's Junipero!), and blood orange, so... perfect! I've enjoyed rosemary G&Ts from Jerry Traunfeld's Herbal Cooking; I'd imagine this drink has similarly bitter-sweet-pine flavors. And what a lovely blush color. My heart goes out to your neighbors, as well!
These cocktails look beautiful. I will try them out when I get home. I just invested in a bottle of Hendrix gin and am excited to play with it. I hope your neighbours are all right. I'm down in Santa Ana right now and we felt those winds the other day as well.
Nice to see you're using St. George Spirits gin!! My husband brought me Monkey 47 Schwartzwald Dry Gin from Germany. Will be trying it out in this recipe. Cheers!
Heidi, I have clicked over to this recipe about a dozen times since you've posted it. We're out in the Midwest for the holidays, but I can't wait to get home and get my hands on some blood oranges. Happy holidays!
This would be good for a summer dessert -- a granita or sorbet. Also, a dry version might be useful -- more interaction between herbs and citrus.