A lot went into this cocktail, ingredients, not thought, and like all the good ones…It just sort of happened. The ingredients were there but it was entirely unplanned. A love child born of all kinds of weird shit…Scraps…Different cocktails…Infusions…Luck…Timing…And one of our all time favorites, the Be somebody.

Yeah, when you come up with a great cocktail or dish and it has to go away, people still ask for it and it’s unlikely it’ll ever come back and even if it does people will say it’s not as good. This is because the nostalgia coats these old drinks and dishes in such a layer of adoration and sentimentality that nothing will ever be able to sweep it off the Mount Olympus created in our minds. That’s ok because another, better drink is always around the corner. I described this one on the instagrams as strawberry Quik…If the bunny went off the deep end. Yeah, close, but more like if the bunny spent his life in kitchens, got himself a few degrees along the way, did drugs, drank heavily, battled depression, went through some serious ups and downs in life and came out the other end warped…But intact…And now a family man just trying to do his best in life.

This one’s got some serious work behind it. I’ll post the recipe first so you don’t have to scroll then I’ll do my best to describe the ingredients.

Nobody’s Fool

1.5 oz. Guava Strawberry Scrap Infused White Rum

1 oz. Strawberry Punch

.5 oz. Fresh Lime Juice

.5 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice

.5 oz. Macadamia Koji Orgeat (Mac Daddy)

.5 oz. Strawperol

.25 oz. Strawberry Lactic Acid Syrup

One Dash Shio Koji

Shake, strain over a BFR, dash dehydrated strawperol powder over the top.

The guava scrap rum is quite easy. All the seeds, pulp, and skins from guava prep in November and early December went into a jar with rum. The recent spare strawberry tops went in there too. They had nothing better to do. The result is a green tinged rum with bits of guava floating in it that we tried to pass through a coffee filter in order to clarify…To no avail. So fuck it.

The strawberry punch is a milk clarified punch. Yeah, the cats out of the bag. Adding milk punch to a shaken drink is a serious cheat code, not only is it already balanced but it also adds dairy in the form of whey which is yet another cheat code. You’re in luck, I posted the recipe a few weeks back.

Next up, Macadamia Koji Rice Orgeat. I’ll post the recipe in the upcoming weeks. Let’s just say, if you know what you’re doing with this stuff (I barely do) you’ll reap strange but flavorful benefits. I’m still learning. I just received Koji Alchemy in the mail and plan on going over it real soon.

Strawperol resulted in adding fresh strawberries to Aperol. No measurements. Sorry. It’s really weird how much strawberries change the flavor of any of the big bitter Italians. You know, the most delicious ones with all the artificial ingredients. We put strawberries in another, more ethical product and it just didn’t come out great at all. Maybe yellow #5 and strawberries create some sort of weird, mystical alchemy we’re just now waking up to.

In the quest for the ultimate strawberries and cream drink, we added 2.5% lactic acid to strawberry syrup…It sort of works. I read an article touting it as the greatest thing since sliced bread…Probably from Punch Drink. Yeah, I get the feeling the people writing those articles never shook a drink in their life. Anyway, hating aside, the lactic acid works better alongside other ingredients, not alone. It’s a team effort.

Last but not least. We put the leftover Aperol soaked strawberries into the dehydrator. The result after grinding…A weird powder that tastes like…Strawberries and Aperol…Sprinkle, sprinkle…