Boozy Tea.

Ok, so I know I just made a similar drink with some bubbly but if you love bourbon you HAVE to try this! I enjoyed the green tea champagne drink so much I decided to tweak it for a different use. Enter, orange drop tea from White 2 Tea thanks to my Sipsby box!

P.s.You can use the code teathoughts for 50% off your first box!

Orange drop is a very special treat that I've been dying to try for some time! This is a Xinhui Mandarin stuffed with ripe puerh tea. That's right, tea stuffed into a mandarin! This is meant to be brewed, skin and all. The mandarin sparked an idea. Old fashioned drinks often have the peel of an orange and it gives such a great flavor so I decided to try this tea with bourbon!

You can steep this tea with the skin and in a tradition 4-6 oz pot or a larger pot. I actually decided to used my gaiwan that I love so much! This tea can be re-steeped 10 times so I suggest tasting the tea after the first steep to make sure you like the flavor. You could even keep different steeps separate and use the one where the taste is best. For my drink, I combined the 1st and 2nd steep.

Why sour cherries? Before I go crazy and buy everything from the store, I often try to create a recipe with whatever I have in my fridge because that is more conveniant and I want these recipes to be easy and low effort! I had some sour cherries from the farmer's market and I remember that sometimes bartenders put cherries in an old fashioned. The less ingredients in my drink the better, BUT this means I know that the flavors more or less work!

I'm not sure if you've ever had a sour cherry, or if you like sour things but they are absolutely delicious. I thought the flavors of the orange drop and cherries would go well and the cherries would also soak up the alcohol well. I used shot glass measurements for this drink. I used 1/2 of a shot of bourbon, 1.5 shots of tea and the rest was the sparkling wine. Let me tell you, ONE of these packs a punch!

The sparkling wine brings some sweetness to this drink and you are always welcome to replace it with a dry champagne!

Just like the other cocktail I made, this is bubbly and fun and great for a party or a maybe an intimate celebration!

BTW: I don't work for Bulleit, I just love their bourbon so much. Ever since we discovered it, its always on our shelf. It's great neat but it also is perfect for a mixed drink!

Happy Sipping!