Hot Mango Muddle Cocktail

We were just in the market and I told my wife, “I need a fresh peach.”

My wife is pleasant and understanding but can at times be overwhelmed by my requests, my senseless requests. “Brian, it is January. There are no fresh peaches.”

“Okay, a nectarine,” I accepted fate.

She signed and pushed the care in front of me. “I’ll get you a mango,” she said.

“I need jalapenos,” I added.

“I’ll get you one,” she offered.

“No, a lot. I need a lot.”

She stopped the cart, looked at me, turned away, and continued down the aisle. She was shaking her head.

Later that night, it was a different story. “This is brilliant,” she observed. “Can you make more?”

“We need another mango,” I said. We’d only bought one because this was an experiment. Now that the experiment works, we will have mangos on hand. All the time.

I recently posted a review of the cocktail book Gone with Gin by Tim Federle. Tim wrote Tequila Mockingbird. If you love puns, if you love alcohol, you need Tim’s books.

The namesake cocktail Gone with the Gin in Gone with the Gin calls for muddling peaches with jalapenos, then adding simple syrup, gin, and Compari. Plus lemon juice. I could not wait to make this puppy and all I needed was that fresh peach.

But in January, in New York State, a fresh peach is a tough find.

So, I kinda followed the recipe in Gone with the Gin but made some changes and created this wonderful cocktail. Which I drank before I took a picture which is why you see just mangos and jalapenos in the photo above. I will be making it again and I can get a shot of the final product. It’s thick and golden. Invitingly golden.

And it’s good.And it's hot. In Tim’s recipe, he muddles two jalapenos with half a peach. I muddled two jalapenos with a whole mango. It was still quite biting to the tongue. I suggest you go easy on the jalapeno, maybe just one. And, for God’s sake, do take out the seeds.

Instead of Campari, which I just can’t ever like, I employed Aperol. Both liqueurs are now made by the same company in Italy. I think Aperol is decisively better. Some people say it is sweet but it really is just less bitter than the Campari.

I have listed the rosemary as optional here. I did not use it, but I will next time. I think Tim has outdone himself here in arranging this cocktail orgy of flavors and I just could not do the rosemary thing with everything else already there. It might be an orgy but I do have my limits.

Oh, was it gauche to say “orgy.” I meant no disrespect. I just needed a strong word for a strong drink.

Remember, easy on the jalapeno.

Yield: 1 cocktail

Ingredients:

2 whole jalapenos, halved and seeded
1 ripe mango, peeled and sliced
2 rosemary sprigs, divided, optional
¾ ounce simple syrup
1 ½ ounces gin [Hedricks]
½ ounce Aperol
Juice of 1 lemon
Club soda, if you desire

Preparation:

Muddle the jalapenos, mango and 1 rosemary sprig, if using that rosemary, along with the simple syrup. This will take time and patience. That jalapeno has oil to render and it does not come out easily.

Add the gin, Aperol, and lemon juice. Shake your muddling container to mix. If necessary pour into a separate cocktail shaker filled with ice. Or fill up your muddling container with ice.

Shake vigorously, then strain into a glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with second rosemary sprig.

If you desire, you can add some club soda to temper the flames.

Hot Mango Muddle Cocktail