Split Rock Cocktail

Typically we come up with a drink recipe and then create some original artwork to illustrate the cocktail. This time we are working in reverse. The watercolor of Split Rock Lighthouse was painted a number of years ago by the artist member of this partnership. It’s a painting we’ve always loved and it hangs in our dining room. For our Split Rock Cocktail we are translating the colors of the rocks, sky and water into purple basil, blueberry and honey (along with alcohol of course - but more on that later).

Split Rock is located on Lake Superior - north of Duluth. According to the Minnesota Historical Society; “A November gale that wrecked nearly 30 ships in 1905 prompted this rugged landmark's construction. When the U.S. Lighthouse Service completed Split Rock Light Station in 1910, it soon became one of Minnesota's best known destinations… with a drama-filled history and breathtaking Lake Superior views.” Split Rock Lighthouse is worth the trip, but we suggest you try to get there in the summer (also know as "July" in Duluth). Even is late spring, it can be breathtaking in more than one way thanks to the cold wind blowing off the lake.

Minnesota has a large population of citizens of Norwegian heritage, so we decided that we ought to use Aquavit in our Split Rock Cocktail - specifically, Linie. This Norwegian spirit has a famously unique production process in which it is stored in sherry casks and aged at sea as it travels from Norway to Australia and back, crossing the equatorial line (or "Linie") twice. Aquavit has a herbal flavor that we balance with vodka. Interestingly, the word aquavit is derived from the Latin aqua vitae "water of life" and vodka derived from the Russian voda "water" - so these liquors seem to really belong in a cocktail based on a watercolor painting of a lighthouse above a Great Lake.

Of course, we serve the Split Rock on the rocks in a short (old-fashioned) glass. To be even more literal, we tried splitting the rock (aka large ice cube) and it made for a nice effect.

We think we’ve created a cocktail worthy of the Split Rock Lighthouse. We hope you agree.


Split Rock Cocktail

1 ounce Linie Aquavit
1 ounce vodka
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
3/4 ounce honey syrup (see recipe below)
4-5 leaves fresh purple basil
8 fresh blueberries

Muddle basil, blueberries, and lemon juice in a cocktail shaker. Add honey syrup, aquavit, vodka and ice cubes - shake well. Strain through a mesh strainer into an old-fashioned glass with a large ice cube. Garnish with purple basil.

Split Rock Cocktail ingredients

Honey Syrup

1/2 cup wildflower honey
1/2 cup water

Heat water and honey until honey melts. Stir, remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Bottle and keep refrigerated for up to 2 weeks.

The cocktail with a "split" ice cube "rock"

Enjoying the cocktail and our original artwork

Watercolor sketch of Split Rock Lighthouse - done as a study for the painting
A photo we took of Split Rock Lighthouse in April

Popular posts from this blog

The Last Call

Image
This post is a week late, but this blog is our hobby (not our real job) so we’re not going to worry about it. Anyhow, we came up with this drink for Mardi Gras as the “last call” before the beginning of Lent – a time when some of us stop drinking for 40 days (we’ll let you know how that works out). The name “Last Call” also references the classic “Last Word” cocktail. The Last Word is really a perfect cocktail. It’s equal parts of four ingredients (gin, Green Chartreuse, Maraschino Liqueur, and lime) and a superb balance of tart, herbal, and sweet. It’s one of our fallback cocktails – one that we mix up when we can’t make up our mind about what we want to drink.  Another classic that we regularly enjoy is the Aviation Cocktail. The Aviation is another gin cocktail and is one of the few that uses Crème de Violette – a sweet, floral liqueur that is typically a deep purple hue. It takes mixing quite a few Aviations to go through a bottle of Crème de Violette, so it’s probably
Read more

Lemon Bergamot Gimlet

Image
In case you don’t know us personally, or haven’t read the bio on our blog , you may not realize the “The Cocktail Artist” is really a partnership between two architects (who also happen to be married to each other). One of us comes up with the recipes, does the photography, and writes the blog posts – the other one creates all of the original artwork and offers opinions on the cocktail recipes. Being architects, we sometimes let our design-sense get the better of us – meaning we have been known to purchase a bottle of booze because we like the design of the bottle.  Occasionally this backfires, but rest assured (with some creative mixology or a bit of barrel-aging) we have always been able to make use of the contents of those impulse-buy bottles. Right now, two of the most attractive bottles in our liquor cabinet contain Italian spirits – Malfy Gin Con Limone and Italicus . Italy has always been a design trendsetter, so it’s not surprising that these bottles stand out (they ev
Read more

Amalfi Martini

Image
Darn! Why didn’t we buy those airline tickets to Italy when they were cheap? It would be so nice to be lounging in a beautiful Italian seaside town right now.  The Amalfi region, on Italy's west coast, is known for it's production of lemon liqueur and fine writing and art paper - sounds like the perfect place for us! Oh well, maybe it would be better to be there during the off season. Italy is probably packed with American tourists right now. Let's  just pull out the watercolor paints and the cocktail shaker and bring a bit of la dolce vita  to our patio. Our Amalfi Martini (naturally) features limoncello. It's a fairly low-alcohol liqueur, so we boost the proof of this cocktail by adding our vodka of choice - District Made Vodka by One Eight Distilling. If you are using a vodka that doesn't have much flavor on it's own (which, honestly, is most vodka) you may want to add a couple dashes of citrus bitters to this recipe. This just wouldn't be an Ita
Read more

Cherry Capital Old Fashioned

Image
Cherry Capital Old Fashioned - original watercolor painting by The Cocktail Artist If you've read some of our previous posts (such as the Up North Raspberry and Rye or the Grand Mariner Cocktail) you know that we're fans of the bourbon and rye produced by The Traverse City Whiskey Co . Traverse City, Michigan is known as the "Cherry Capital" for being the area with the largest production of tart cherries in the United States. In Traverse City, you will find wonderful freshwater beaches, lots of summer tourists, and (of course) cherries! You can attend the Cherry Festival in July, go to the Cherryland Mall, and fly into Cherry Capital airport. So the folks at Traverse City Whiskey (naturally) produce an American Cherry Edition of their bourbon. Here in the Nation's Capital we were lucky enough to find this cherry bourbon at our local liquor store. It's a nice bourbon for sipping neat, but during #OldFashionedOctober we also tried it in an Old Fashioned and
Read more

Douglas Fir Martini

Image
This was one of our very early blog posts. Now that the holiday season is here it seems like a good time to revisit it. Our cocktail recipe remains unchanged, but we wanted to add some information about the ingredients and include a bit more artwork. This martini, with it’s pine forest aroma, is our antidote to holiday stress. Mix up a couple of these to help you through your decorating, gift-wrapping, etc… Doesn’t enjoying a cocktail while you relax in front of the fireplace sound much nicer than struggling to get the Christmas tree in the stand? Along with The Cocktail  Artist's watercolors maybe we can give you the feeling you're walking through a pine forest instead of stressing out over some holiday preparations. At the heart of this cocktail is Clear Creek Distillery’s Douglas Fir Brandy . We discovered this unusual liqueur in our local liquor store a couple of years ago and just couldn’t resist giving it a try. Clear Creek calls it “a tree in a bottle”. It's m
Read more