32) Sailor Berry

2 oz. Sailor Jerry Rum
.5 oz. Blueberry Stoli
.5 oz. Simple Syrup
Handful of Blueberries
Allspice Dram

Muddle the blueberries and simple syrup in a Boston shaker, add all but the Allspice Dram and shake till chilled. Strain into an Old Fashioned glass rinsed with the Dram and filled with fresh ice. Garnish with 3-4 skewered blueberries.

Those of you who have been with us since the inception of our little experiment (hi Jen, Mom, and Emperor Pugpatine!) may recall that one of the earliest drinks we concocted followed the futile attempt to utilize blueberries to satisfy Ed's desire to have a drink called Sailor Berry (a desire I must admit I shared). It seems that almost a year later we didn't learn our lesson, cause here we are again.

We decided to give it another go, as the bar had some particularly nice blueberries that we thought would be more flavorful than the somewhat anemic fellows we had at our disposal last time around. Sadly, after Ed muddled up the berries with the simple syrup, we found that the problem was likely not to be going away anytime soon. I imagine that there are those who have better luck with blueberries, but (as of this writing) we are not those people.

While wondering if we should just abandon ship (see what I did there? Sailor? Abandon ship?) and avoid a repeat of failures past, Ed suggested we bolster the blueberry flavor with some Blueberry Stoli. I was a bit hesitant as Blueberry Stoli doesn't taste so much like blueberries as blueberry flavoring, but Ed eventually won me over with his wit and charm. We thought the finished cocktail was - Ok. The Allspice Dram was a nice background note, and holy shit is it a potent flavor. I had suggested we only use a rinse, and there was no doubt that any more would have been way too much. The fortification of the Blueberry Stoli wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but this would be a much better drink with a real homemade blueberry infusion. Or, uh, a ton more blueberries?

Comments always welcome or feel free to e-mail us at drinkaweek [at] gmail [dot] com.