Tea based cocktails are in vogue in the artisan cocktail world right now. The factors that cause certain ingredients, styles, or methodologies to leap to the forefront of cool in a subjective art form are complicated, but my extensive research into the rise of this phenomenon has revealed that it can be traced to shut up, that’s why. Irrespective of the original provenance of the idea, the ability of tea to elevate a cocktail is almost as dramatic as its ability to plug the crumpet hole of a whining Englishman (#theAshes).

This post was meant to go up yesterday morning, when pointing out that I enjoy a strong cup of black tea on a lazy Sunday morning would have made for a thematically consistent introduction to the recipe. Instead, I’ll content myself with insulting the English and noting that standing over one’s tea while it brews is a time honoured method of winding down the office clock on a Monday afternoon. (If I was to design a cocktail for a Monday afternoon it’d be based around intravenous vodka, so let’s pretend it’s Sunday morning.)

Having skipped the background research and buggered up the theme, let’s move on to the drink itself. In my opinion, the bitter tannins of black tea combine particularly well with an aged rum or a whiskey, so we’ve used the basic structure of an old fashioned as a base. The old fashioned is a marvellously simple drink; just a base spirit, a sugar syrup, and a bittering agent mixed over ice. In effect, it’s a sort of post-mix herbal liqueur.

I’ve used Jim Beam rye whiskey as the base. Before you say anything, to make their standard white label Jim Beam’s distillers have clearly bored down into the caverns of Hades and drawn water straight from the River Styx. In the pantheon of American inventions, it shares a shelf with Fred Phelps and the Cadillacs of the 1980s. Their rye, however, is pretty damn good for the price.

To introduce the tea slowly, and change the character of the drink as it’s consumed, we’ve frozen the tea into a large ice cube. After several different teas were bandied about we settled on earl grey (we’re using a Fortnum and Mason loose leaf) for its citrus notes. To further enhance the bitter citrus character, and the breakfast credentials, our sweetener is syrup made from dissolved marmalade. As always with syrups, I advise that you use the measurements as a guide only and experiment to find your preferred sweetness.

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Breakfast Old Fashioned

60mL Jim Beam Rye
~20ml of Marmalade Syrup – see method for ingredients
2 dashes Fey Brother’s Original Bitters
1 large earl grey tea ice cube

The ice cubes will need to be prepared ahead of time; make a medium strength earl grey tea (ideally with a decent quality loose leaf tea), leave to cool to room temperature, and divide into an extra large ice cube tray.

Put 1 heaped tablespoon of marmalade into a small, heat resistant vessel (a ceramic mug or lipped borosilicate measuring cup) and dissolve it by pouring over 2 tablespoons of boiling water, making a simple syrup. The pectin in the marmalade can be quite resistant to dissolving, so you may find yourself needing to stir it for a while, and/or give it a brief spin in the microwave.

Once dissolved, pass the liquid through a strainer to remove the fine bits of peel you find in most decent marmalades. It is possible to leave the peel in, as it is quite tasty, but leaves the drink with a slightly odd mix of textures. Different marmalades have different sugar contents, so taste as you go to get it right. It is worth noting that you will find it easier to get the balance of marmalade to water in the syrup exactly right if you make a larger batch (the recipe makes about enough for two to three drinks).

Mix the rye, bitters and marmalade syrup over ice and pour into large, stemless tumbler. Add the earl grey ice cube and a twist of orange or grapefruit peel (fresh or dried) and swirl to combine.
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