The Cognac Highball Cocktail

Sep 29, 2017

Our first taste of the impending Holiday rush overtook my Mr. Boston’s blog series. I expected this might happen but, I didn’t anticipate missing so many days in a row 🙁

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Today, Ryan successfully loaded 11 pallets of DIY Ginger Beer Making Kits onto a truck bound for Brooklyn, NY. After we make another three pallets for shipment on Tuesday, we will have officially sent 1,019 Ginger Beer making kits into the world.

Ryan’s amazing parents Fran and Rod made the 5 hour drive up from Indio over a week ago to help us hand-make our labor intensive product line in time for today’s deadline. The job required all four of us, each working tirelessly for 8 days straight – to sum it up, we are now dead tired!

Thankfully tonight’s Mr. Boston’s recipe is rather straight forward. While it isn’t the most glamorous recipe of the lot, there is a thirst quenching appeal about a basic Cognac Highball that has me mildly excited to give it ago.

Just like it’s predecessors the Bourbon and Brandy Highball, tonight’s Cognac based refresher is garnished with a lemon peel and served as a built drink over ice.

Naturally, our giant ice spheres had yet to be refilled and I forgot to pop a can of Canada Dry Ginger Ale into the fridge earlier in the day. With little options, I decided to make a pot of tortilla soup and jot some of my thoughts down while those key elements spent some quality time in the Frigidaire.

We picked up a new bottle of Cognac on our last visit to Total Wine months back. The bottle of choice ended up being Deux Freres Cognac V.S.O.P.

I don’t know why but our first impression of the Deux Freres was mixed. It was a very mellow tasting Cognac which left us wondering whether or not it would work in a cocktail. Tonight’s fair is the first time we had the opportunity to put it to the test and the result is astounding.

The Brandy Highball made its appearance way back in June. I admit that I needed to re-read my take on that round to refresh my aging memory. At the time, I found that the Brandy version was too sweet and that the lemon peel did little to add to the experience.

Perhaps the lemon I used back then contained less citrus oil. Maybe its a matter of the Cognac lacking the overt sweetness that the Brandy added to the drink. Whatever it was, tonight’s drink a vast improvement. Ryan fancied it so much that he ended up fixing himself a round so we could each enjoy our own cocktails. As a bonus the extra Ginger Ale didn’t go to waste – a win, win!

The lemon peel added a lot of flavor tonight and I love it! A very nice way to end a crazy busy week and get back into the swing of this blogging gig. I think I’ll retire to enjoy the reminder as we watch some violent movie Ryan picked on Netflix. Until tomorrow – Cheers!!!