Drinks

Two Drinks Coming

Makes 1 drink

Homemade SoCo and lime cordial elevate a cherished Southern libation

March 27, 2018

Photo: Julie Soefer

Like many of the world’s great inventions, this cocktail evolved from an oversight, writes craft-cocktail expert Alba Huerta in her new guide, Julep, which shares a name with her lauded Houston bar. For our Friends and Family Night, we invited guests to come in and help us practice being in the space for the first time, to discover what needed tweaking before opening night. This included printing the menu—ideally after a careful proofread. But we missed that part, so that night’s menu listed “Two drinks coming” instead of the two cocktails that were still under construction. The typo must have been eye-catching because we kept having to explain that it wasn’t a real drink and, no, we couldn’t make it. After that night, I felt obliged to invent the Two Drinks Coming.

Together, the house SoCo and the lime cordial made a delicious cocktail. Now all we had to do was figure out how to keep the cocktail true to its name and fit two drinks into a single glass. So we borrowed from Tiki culture and used a spent lime shell as a shot glass.

Ingredients

- 1 ounce plus ½ ounce House “SoCo” Bourbon, divided (recipe below)
- 1 ounce Lime Cordial (recipe below)
- ¼ ounce freshly squeezed lime juice, lime shells reserved
- ½ lime shell, for garnish
Lime Cordial
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup water
- 5 ounces dried limes
House “SoCo” Bourbon
- 1 liter 100-proof bonded bourbon
- ½ cup dried cherries
- ½ cup dried apricots
- ½ cup dried orange wheels, cut in half before measuring
- 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise in half
- 1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick

Preparation

Fill the glass with crushed ice. Pour the “SoCo,” cordial, and lime juice into a cocktail shaker. Fill the shaker with ice cubes. Cover and shake vigorously 20 times. Strain into a rocks glass and place a straw in the glass. To garnish, pour ½ ounce “SoCo” into a juiced lime shell and place it on top, nesting it in the ice to steady it.

For the lime cordial:

Combine the sugar, water, and limes in a small saucepan, breaking up the limes slightly as you add them to the pan. Stir to combine. Place over medium heat and bring to a gentle boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat and simmer until the sugar is completely dissolved and the syrup is slightly thickened, about 5 minutes.

Remove from the heat and strain the hot cordial through a fine-mesh strainer or a mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth into a clean container.

Use immediately or transfer to a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid. Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.

For the House “SoCo” Bourbon:

Combine the bourbon, cherries, apricots, orange slices, vanilla bean, and cinnamon stick in a 2-quart glass measuring cup or other container. (Reserve the empty bourbon bottle if you’d like to store the “SoCo” bourbon in it.)

Cover and let stand for 12 hours. Remove the cinnamon stick.

Re-cover the container and let stand for 12 to 24 hours.

Line a mesh strainer with cheesecloth and strain the infused bourbon through it into a clean container. Discard the fruit and vanilla bean. Transfer the “SoCo” bourbon to the reserved bottle or another container with a tight-fitting lid. Store in a cool place for up to 1 month. We always use it up in just a few days; beyond 1 month the flavor will begin to fade.

**NOTE: I prefer to use dry ingredients to infuse liquor with other flavors because they have no moisture. This is especially true when it comes to fruit. The liquid in fresh fruit can make an infusion susceptible to quick spoilage. Dried fruit gives you all the flavor you want without any of the water that can shorten the shelf life of the final product. You can find dried orange slices in stores and online. When making this infusion, we remove the cinnamon stick after 12 hours so that the spice doesn’t overwhelm all the other flavors in the mixture.