Pairing Cigars & Alcohol – Pumpkin Spice Cocktails
Cigars and alcohol. Two luxury products that go hand in hand, and sometimes even meet on business level. Aging tobacco in whisky, rum, or cognac barrels is a practice several brands do to achieve extra flavour to the wrapper for certain lines.
The famous bourbon brand Maker’s Mark has their own cigar, sold in tubes with the signature wax coating. Drew Estate works with Pappy van Winkle and used to make Kahlua cigars. Mombacho used to have the Diplomatico series but Mombacho no longer exists. General Cigars works with Sazerac, which resulted in Fireball cigars, Weller by Cohiba and collaborations with Buffalo Trace. And there is the Diesel Whisky Row, a collaboration with Rabbit Hole Distilleries. Fratello Cigars also sells craft beer.
Most famous are probably the Cuban collaboration between Martell Cognac and Cohiba. Dominique London, the European retailer with more than 20 shops in the UK, Belgium, Switzerland and the Canary Islands takes it one step further. They bought a distillery in Wales and produce whisky, gin, rum, vodka and liquors.
Pumpkin Spice
The name comes from the original use of the spice mix, as it was used in pumpkin pies, and the mix does not contain any pumpkin at all. It is an American spice mix commonly used as a flavouring for pumpkin pie, but does not include pumpkin as an ingredient.
Pumpkin pie spice is similar to the British and Commonwealth mixed spice. It is generally a blend of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and sometimes allspice. It can also be used as a seasoning in general cooking and in cooking. I made some Pumpkin Spice Syrup, which does contain pumpkin, and used it for cooking. But why not use it in a few cocktails as well right? I mean, it is the Pumpkin Spice time of the year. You can find the recipe for the Pumpkin Spice Syrup by clicking here.
Pumpkin Spice Whisky Sour
A whisky sour without egg, I always like the egg white and the creamy texture it provides but this cocktail just asks for whisky, lemon juice and pumpkin spice syrup so let’s make it and drink it.
It is odd to see a whisky sour without a foam layer. The nose is sour, from the lemon, with some spices from the syrup and the Stalla Dhu Speyside whisky. The lemon is overpowering, the amount of syrup isn’t enough to combat the citrus acidity. The whisky is overpowered too, all I taste is lemon with only a slight spicy aftertaste and none of the whisky. But when the temperature of the drink goes up a little, more of the whisky characteristics start to shine through. Because of the citrus, this will be very hard to pair with cigars. Only the strongest cigars with the boldest flavours would be able to stand up to this sour cocktail.
And now for the pumpkin spice whisky sour recipe:
2 ounces or 60ml of whisky
¾ ounce or 22½ml of lemon juice, freshly squeezed
¾ ounce or 22½ml of pumpkin spice syrup
Shake with ice and strain into a chilled coupe glass.
Pumpkin Spice Irish Coffee
I’m not a coffee drinker, I never had an Irish coffee but recently I made some cocktails with coffee and I liked those so maybe not all is lost on me. I always do enjoy the flavour of coffee in ice-cream, cake, cigars etcetera, but never liked the drink itself. Only when I’m in the Caribbean, then I drink a Cuban (style) coffee in the morning and I’m hyper all day.
This cocktail smells like coffee. This is another coffee cocktail that gets my seal of approval. Creamy because of the heavy cream, sweet with spices from the pumpkin spice, smooth Irish whisky and coffee. A perfect balance between sweet, bitter, umami and all with a creamy mouthfeel. Delicious and a perfect cocktail for a medium bodied cigar with strong flavours. The flavours need to be strong enough to match the coffee, a Cuban Juan Lopez would be perfect, actually, most Cuban cigars would be perfect but a nice Kafie Sumatra, La Aurora 107, La Flor Dominicana Nox or something from CLE would be nice to pair with this cocktail.
And now for Pumpkin Spice Irish Coffee recipe:
1½ ounces or 45ml of Irish Whisky
1 ounce or 30ml of Heavy Cream
¾ ounce or 22½ml of Pumpkin Spice Syrup
4 ounces of 120ml of hot coffee
Add hot water in a glass and then dump it. Add coffee, whisky and syrup to the glass and stir gently. Top with slightly whipped cream.
Pumpkin Spice Rum Old Fashioned
The rum I use is Angostura 1824, which refers to the year that Angostura was founded and created the bitters. The rum distillery is older, but was always the rum that was the base ingredient for the bitters. In 1919, both companies merged to the House of Angostura.
The recipe is different than the Rum Old Fashioned I made with the same rum earlier. It actually comes closer to a traditional Old Fashioned than the rum Old Fashioned I made. The orange peel is on the nose but with some notes of the spices in the pumpkin spice syrup too. The cocktail has the right amount of sweetness, more syrup isn’t needed due to the sweetness that rum brings. The spice is clear in the finish, and to any non-smoker it would sound strange, but also in the retrohale. I like this cocktail, the sweetness, the smoothness, the spice, and I won’t be drinking this just in the autumn, I will be drinking this in the winter too as long as my Pumpkin Spice syrup remains good. I will pair this with a nice peppery Nicaraguan cigar from My Father Cigars, Espinosa or A.J. Fernandez.
And now for Sloe Gin Sour recipe:
2 ounces or 60ml of Dark Rum
¼ ounce or 7½ml of Pumpkin Spice Syrup
2 dashed of aromatic bitters
Orange twist
Add the rum, syrup and bitters in a rocks glass with a bit rock of ice. Stir for 45 seconds to chill and dilute, then squeeze the orange oils over the cocktail and dump the twist in the glass.
Pumpkin Spice Old Fashioned
Will this be the ultimate autumn (fall for our American friends) Old Fashioned? I used Stalla Dhu C.Gars Ltd Single Malt for this cocktail and homemade Pumpkin Spice Syrup and homemade allspice dram (1 oz of white rum, ¾ oz of simple syrup and 5 dashes of Angostura bitters) as I didn’t have allspice dram at home.
The nose is all about orange, due to the orange peel that I added. This is not in the original recipe though, but I accidentally added it anyway, it’s an automatism when making an Old Fashioned. There is also aroma from the smoked cinnamon. The flavour is sweet, yet with that classic pumpkin spice flavour. Cinnamon flavours shine through as well. But yes, this cocktail tastes like autumn. The flavours of the whisky still shine through and truthfully, I will be making this cocktail more often, even in other seasons as it’s very tasty. A nice medium bodied cigar with a Habano or Corojo wrapper will be very nice, although a Cameroon wrapper could also be a perfect match.
And now for the Pumpkin Spice Old-Fashioned recipe:
1½ ounce or 45ml of whisky
1 ounce or 30ml of allspice dram
½ ounce or 15ml of Pumpkin Spice syrup
3 dashes of ginger or tiki bitters
Cinnamon stick (for smoking and garnish)
Add ice to a cocktail mixer glass along with all of your ingredients. Stir everything together. Grab a short glass and add a large ice cube to it. Strain the cocktail into the glass. Now we are going to do something a little different… we are going to smoke a cinnamon stick and get that flavour into the cocktail! Using a smoke lid/top and a torch, break up some cinnamon sticks and start smoking them. Garnish with a fresh cinnamon stick and enjoy!
Inspector X
