Kick Off Your Super Bowl Watch Party With These Two Winning Team Signature Cocktails
I love creating delicious cocktails that have a story. My book, The Art of the Garnish is brimming with drink lore, garden-to-glass ingredients and recipes inspired by the flora and botanicals. After all, every spirit comes from a plant.🌵 And just like that, for this year’s big game, I couldn’t resist the pull of each of the hometown team’s renowned, most-famous drinks: Coffee for Seattle and Tea for Boston/New England! It was a fun baseline to build drinks from. For both cocktails, I used a different spirit that, in itself, is a blend of spirits and spices. I find I’m liking this potent ingredient style more and more.
For the Tea drink, I used Pimms #1, the classic English gin-based liqueur (25% ABV) with a dark red color, made by infusing gin with a secret mixture of herbal botanicals, caramelized orange, and warm spices.
I figured this would complement the tea, and it’s a fun, subtle nod to the Brits and their bloody tax on the tea as part of the story.
For the Coffee drink, I used Licor 43, Cuarenta y Tres, that is a bright yellow Spanish liqueur produced in Cartagena, Spain, made from a secret, closely guarded recipe of 43 natural ingredients. Its primary flavor profile is driven by Mediterranean citrus, sweet vanilla, and various aromatic botanicals, herbs, and spices. They claim there’s 43 spices in the spirit! Also, the Spanish heritage of Cuarenta y Tres can be a kind of nod to the half-time star, Benito Antonio ~ Bad Bunny!
Here, I figured the vanilla top notes would be so cozy and delish with the fresh-made coffee. A kind of sophisticated naturally flavored coffee-mate.
12th Man Teav(L) & Tea Dynasty
I played around with a few different ingredients before I hit upon these two recipes.
They are both winners ~ so no matter who you’re rooting for you’ll be sipping in style with a delicious cocktail ~ and a story. Which is always the best way to mark a Happy Hour. Super Bowl Watch Parties are that rare occasion when we can come together, in a feel-good way, whether you gather to watch the Sport, the Half-Time Show, or the Ads. We can just take a “Time Out” and have some fun.
12th Man Coffee Cocktail
The drink has a lovely “nose’ from its vanilla and cinnamon ingredients. It’s light with a nice kick of spices from the Cuarenta y Tres,
fresh cinnamon simple syrup, Appleton Rum, which is “produced in Jamaica’s Nassau Valley using a "cane-to-cup" process, meaning it is made from estate-grown sugarcane. The key ingredients are sugarcane molasses, water, and yeast, which are distilled using a blend of traditional copper pot stills and column stills. It is aged in oak barrels and is known for using natural, limestone-filtered water.
All the flavors offer a balanced, rich vanilla taste and mouth feel. I topped the drink with cream soda to give it some sparkle and lift.
The garnish? Floating coffee beans 😏 of course, (á la your Sambuca sipping).
And for all the world, the beans look like a mini-football. After a few of these drinks, you’ll be convinced!
Plus, I hooked a vanilla bean pod on the glass. Gilding the lily…
This is a warm, pretty cocktail that I guarantee you’ll enjoy on repeat, long after the last flag has been thrown.
And the coffee will keep your 12th Man adrenalin powered up 😆
Recipe:
Ingredients
1 jigger Appleton Rum
¼ to ½ cup fresh brewed coffee
1 jigger Cuarenta y Tres
1 jigger cinnamon syrup (or to taste) You make simple syrup by heating equal amounts of sugar and water and the spice or flavor
2 drops Coffee Bitters. I used homemade coffee bitters made by my sister, Sharon) you can use Fee Brothers or your favorite.
Drop of Chocolate Bitters
Methode:
Pour all ingredients in cocktail shaker with ice
Pour into frosty martini or coupe glass
Top with cream soda. I like Stewart’s best
Garnish:
Vanilla Bean Pod draped on glass rim; Coffee Beans to float on top. You can readily see they look like little footballs! 🏈
Boston/New England
Tea Dynasty
This drink is an homage to the region’s distinct attitude and pays homage to its dynastics: from culture to politics and certainly to the Patriots’ NFL dynasty and the historic Tea Party in Boston Harbor.
This cocktail is refreshing, light and is citrus based 🍋
The Pimms lends its citrus and spice flavors in an orchestrated balance.
You can make fresh tea or use Fisher Island’s premixed super-good Lemonade Iced Tea or Owl’s Brew Citrus Sweet English Breakfast Tea, Lemon, Lime. The citrus theme is amplified with Italicus Bergamont. This bottle alone leaves me weepy just because it’s so beautiful.
The Pimms, as noted, is cradled with botanicals and spices. So is the Liquid Gold Ancient Trade bitters I used, from Modern Bar Cart (these lads also produce the best cocktail podcast. I was featured on it pre-Art of the Garnish release 🍸). The Ancient Trade bitters are a tasty blend of Turmeric Root, Ginger Root, Holy Basil, Saffron, Spices, Gentian. The gentian adds that earthy, floral flavor you know from Aperol or Suze ~I Love this spirit! ~ or even Angostura.
(Secretly, I can tell myself that between the gentian and the turmeric and the cinnamon and citrus, one can think of this as a power, health drink! Tee hee)😅
And the San Pellegrino Limonata topper is a kind of airy citrus kiss. Close your eyes and you’ll be yachting from the Boston Harbor up the New England coast.
Tea Dynasty Recipe
Ingredients:
2 jiggers Pimms #1
1 jigger Bergamont
3 jiggers Tea mix
2-3 drops Ancient Trade bitters
Methode:
Pour all ingredients into a glass mixer with ice. Stir and pour into a frosted martini or coupe glass
Top with Limonata soda
Garnish:
Twisted lemon peel
Seattle Seahawks 12th Man
I hope you enjoy your Super Bowl celebrations no matter who’s holding the trophy at game’s end, or that your favorite ad didn’t score with your guests, and that Bad Bunny has you high dancing salsa or merengue the entire second half.
Cheers to Game Day sipping in Style!
(If you’d like to explore more garden-to-glass drink recipes and stories and don’t already own my cocktail book and would like a copy, here is the link: Art of the Garnish ~ or wherever you get your books. Do let me know if you’d like a signature/autograph sticker. Just email me and I’ll post to you straight away. Thank you very much.)
