Had an overripe pear to use up and was craving a cocktail, so decided to surf the interwebs to see if anything caught my fancy -- and, of course, something we had the ingredients to make. Enter the
Sparkling Bourbon Pear Cocktail from Serious Eats, which we adjusted down from party size, and modified slightly.
Starting with one
pear, we sliced it up, put it in a 9" cake pan, and roasted it at 375 degrees for 18 minutes.
In a
blender, we squeezed one lime (didn't have lemon), and sprinkled in about 1/8 teaspoon of ground cloves.
The pear is supposed to be left to cool to room temp after baking, but we didn't have the patience for that and popped it in the fridge for 5-10 minutes. Then we added it to the blender, along with 1 ice cube, and pureed the mixture.
Once we saw how much pear puree that yielded, we added half as much maple syrup,
and twice the amount of
Corner Creek bourbon whiskey. Blend again.
Pour that puree into two glasses (it's thick!) and then add champagne to taste. Give it a gentle stir to incorporate, but don't be so rigorous that you destroy the bubbles from the champagne.
We used a
Riesling Brut from Weingut Geschwister Kowerich (Mosel, Germany). It was cozy and delicious! I can definitely see doing a big batch in the fall for Thanksgiving or Christmas. It was perfect for our rainy, windy, Oregon weekend.
