21) Eagle Pear

1.5 oz. Eagle Rare 10 Bourbon
.5 oz. Absolute Pear Vodka
.5 oz. Lemon Juice
1/4 oz. Cointreau
1/4 oz. Simple Syrup

Add all ingredients in a shaker full of cracked ice. Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass.

Oh Vodka, why must you be so pervasive? Do you enjoy taking up all that precious shelf space on so many back bars? I know you're not going away anytime soon, so we shall use you. Bend you to our will and give you purpose!

Ok - So, normally we if we wanted to impart some pear flavor to a drink we'd just muddle some pears, but where's the challenge in that?

In the first go around Ed and I omitted the Cointreau and simple syrup. Our initial estimate was that the Eagle Rare needed to fairly outweigh the Vodka as it is a fairly sweet concoction and could easily overwhelm the Bourbon. The outcome was ok with the pear flavor working in the background to compliment Eagle Rare's vanilla and caramel notes nicely. The acidity from the lemon juice helped to lift the drink a bit, but there was something just a bit off that neither Ed nor I could pin down.

One of Ed's favorite pieces of advice that Ed got from Gary Regan when he attended his Cocktails in the Country seminar was that if one is feeling that a drink is missing something that one can't put their finger on, give it bit of Cointreau. This advice certainly was well placed in this drink as the Cointreau hit the spot and helped to really elevate and merge the flavors better.

While, as mentioned above, I would be more inclined to muddle pears rather than use an infused Vodka I have to admit that the Vodka did add a positive sort of dilution to the overall drink. I'm certainly going to try this again with a home pear infused Vodka and imagine it will be improved a fair bit for it.