Recipe: Peachy Iced Tea
Despite us launching this Peachy Whisky (Experience N.11) in December amidst a dreich Scottish winter It didn’t take long for Peachy to find it’s way into an iced tea. Perplexed? Read on and discover the joys of Peachy iced tea!
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Our journey starts with a super brief WTF moment regarding mixing whisky and tea. It sounds cavalier - but a quick journey around the world reveals whisky being mixed with a raft of mixers that our western palates might consider ‘odd’ at first sip. But as we travelled, we quickly learnt to be open minded to new combinations and flavours and encourage you to be too. From Coconut water in columbia, to cola (everywhere?) to green tea in China, ginger ale in Australia and trends emerging closer to home like Tonic off the back of the recent gin craze…. Wherever you go on planet earth you’ll find whisky being consumed in a variety of ways and we encourage you to try them all.
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THE GENERAL CASE FOR WHISKY + TEA
Tea sounds like one of the more esoteric mixer choices, but it works for the following reasons… 1. Mild flavour, does not overpower delicate notes of whisky. 2. Contains Tannins - a profile that works with many flavours within the whisky spectrum nicely. 3. Variety - hundreds of different types of tea to explore with a range of flavours from Floral to sharp and punchy, even smoky! You will find nirvana eventually. And usually, tea is a healthy, low cal option. Finally, and this is not ALWAYS a good thing - but most teas have a caffine content which is sometimes a good thing around highball time if you require a little more pep in your step.
You’ll commonly find whisky mixed with tea in China, where slightly sweetened green tea is THE go to mixer with whiskies. The soft, vegetal notes of tea elevating most whiskies but right up to the baller expressions of fine single malts you’ll see careful pairings with a raft of fine teas going down nicely.
HOW IT STARTED: PEACHY + TEA
When we made this blend, Peach was one of the flavour notes. Fresh peach, tinned peach. The blend came out tasting optimistic, ripe with possibility, but also had a lingering tannin note from the cask it was finished in. Nothing fancy here - just peach iced tea on top of peachy whisky.
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PEACHY ICED TEA
Ingredients:
50ml Experience N.11 // PEACHY
100ml Lipton Peach Iced Tea
75ml Sparkling water
Method: Build all over ice in a highball glass. Churn and serve. Lemon wedge garnish optional.
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This was quick and easy- and mighty refreshing! But we winced a little at using shop bought iced tea that since the sugar tax had been stuffed with who knows what to preserve the taste whilst reducing the sugar content.
Since we had the tin open - every highball we made that week took a splash of peach syrup. This is no cocktail hack - just a statement of fact. The syrup from tinned peaches is wonderful stuff. In a plain old whisky highball it adds a lovely softness. Just a couple of spoonfuls is enough to add a subtle depth of flavour and elevate a standard highball into something a little more rounded.
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PEACHY HIGHBALL
Ingredients:
50ml Experience N.11 // PEACHY
10ml Syrup from tinned peach
150ml Sparkling water
Method: Build all over ice in a highball glass. Churn and serve. Tinned Peach Garnish.
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Enjoying both these drinks is one thing - but as usual - we couldn’t rest without feeling that we’d had an effort at perfecting the combinations we were riffing on. So what emerged after the week of ‘unseasonable refreshment research’ was a supreme recipe for the Peachy Iced Tea. It’s a little more effort, but the results are worth it (we think).
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UNSEASONABLY PEACHY
Ingredients:
50ml Experience N.11 // PEACHY
15ml Syrup from tinned peach
75ml Homemade Rooibos Cold Tea*
75ml Sparkling water (Vichy Catalan)
Method: Build all over ice in a highball glass. Churn and serve. No Garnish. (we ate all the peaches)
*Roibois tea made by infusing 2 organic rooibos tea bags in 250ml hoty water and allowing to cool before decanting into a bottle and keeping in the fridge until cocktail time. Rooibos tea can handle this savage treatment more than normal teas but the result is caffine free and has a lovely sutble floral note that adds a different dimension ot the black or green teas used in normal iced teas. The colour!
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A note on tinned peaches. We don’t see fresh peaches on the shelves in Scotland for the whole year, and whilst the normal cocktail move is to use fresh and prepare home made syups the comvience of peach and the syrup they come in wins for us every time. It’s by far the most sustainable way for us to work with this flavour and the existance of the tinned peach means we can comfortably enjoy this drink all year round - hence the name - unseasonable iced tea. Because iced tea isn’t just for summer, especially when mixed with Whisky.