Verbena Vesper
Lemon verbena is one of my favorite plants growing in my garden. If you’re not familiar with it, I seriously recommend seeking it out. The South American native shrub has such a lovely, bright, lemon-y fragrance that is similar to lemongrass or lemon balm. Our plant is growing like crazy this year so I needed to prune it back— leaving me with a lot of leaves to play with.
I wanted to let the potent aromas/flavors to come through unadulterated, so I did an infusion in vodka (using the lovely vodka gifted to me by @cultivatedcocktailsdistillery as the base). DM me for the details, but the short version is 20g leaves to 200g vodka using iSi whipper. The vodka is SO flavorful and delicious, so I started with something simple-ish to let it shine (thanks @sally.sandwich for the recommendation!). I split the gin base with a little aquavit and along with a little touch of the chartreuse, it brings a wonderful new dimension to the drink. It reads like a vesper, but it is especially herbal, bright, and citrusy (and it goes down far too easily for its booziness).
Recipe
1oz London dry gin
0.5oz Aquavit, unaged (@nordenaquavit , gifted)
0.75 lemon verbena-infused vodka
0.5 Cocchi Americano (@cocchi1891)
Barspoon green chartreuse
Stir all ingredients with ice until properly chilled, strain into chilled coupe, express lemon oils and garnish with lemon peel and fresh lemon verbena. Cheers!!
