Meyer lemons in cocktails

[jsmeeker]

I picked up some meyer lemons at the store yesterday. I've used them before, but in baking/cooking. Never in cocktails.

Anyone have any good ideas on how to use them? Should I just make a cocktail that uses lemon with them, like a Sidecar or an Aviation? Or does there flavor profile beg for something different?

[eje]

Did you see Gary Regan's column last month?

When life gives you Meyer lemons, make a Midnight Smash

Meyer lemons have a reputation for being kinder and gentler than regular lemons - some say there's a hint of orange or tangerine in their juice - so from a bartender's point of view, they must be treated differently from any other citrus fruit. This fact led me to make a request of the young McDonnell man. I wasn't satisfied with mere lemons as a gift. I wanted more.

Two factors: the juice tends to be less sour and the peel can have a gamey, thyme-like flavor/scent.

The flavor of the peel is often not as intense with store bought meyers, as they have been well washed and waxed or oiled. But, to me, that peel flavor/scent makes them nearly useless in any cocktail that hasn't been specifically designed with Meyer Lemons in mind.

[TVC]

In a Jack Rose...tasty.

1.5 Applejack

1 meyer lemon

.5 homemade grenadine (100% pomegranate, reduced half - add equal amount sugar - splash of orange blossom)

shake, strain

I also remember playing around with a sort of tequila aviation this time last year to some success.

2 oz reposado

1 oz meyer

.25 maraschino

.25 agave

several dashes of bitters (Bittermen's Chocolate, I think I used)

Edited March 12, 2008 by TVC (log)

[jsmeeker]

Did you see Gary Regan's column last month?

When life gives you Meyer lemons, make a Midnight Smash

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Nope.. But I'll read it for sure!

In a Jack Rose...tasty.

1.5 Applejack

1 meyer lemon

.5 homemade grenadine (100% pomegranate, reduced half - add equal amount sugar - splash of orange blossom)

shake, strain

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That sounds great! I have some Laird's Apple Jack at home. I was thinking of making an "Apple Cart" (like a Sidecar, but with applejack instead of brandy). I don't have any grenadine. I almost picked up a bottle of it at the store the other day. Of course, I could try making it myself (though I don't have orange blossom. not even sure what that is exactly)

[eje]

The odds of you having Zirbenz Stone Pine Liqueur are probably slim, but I liked this cocktail when I made it a couple years ago.

Saaz Junior

2 oz Sazerac 6 year

1/2 oz Zirbenz Stone Pine Liqueur

1/4 oz Meyer Lemon Juice

dash angostura bitters

dash rich simple syrup

Stir, strain.

I called it Saaz Junior because I was using the Sazerac Straight Rye and the flavor reminded me a bit of hops.

[jsmeeker]

Thanks

OF course, I don't have any Averna, either. I had never heard of it before.

Nuts. This is habit is costing me money!!

[slkinsey]

I've never been particularly fond of Meyer lemons for cocktails. Like eje, I think it's only useful in the few cocktails that have been designed specifically for Meyer lemon juice -- and those tend to be in what I'd loosely call the "California Fresh Produce" school of mixology, which is not one that has much appeal for me.

To be clear: the Meyer lemon is a kind of citrus fruit, but it is not a "kind of lemon" any more than a tangelo is a "kind of tangerine." I would argue that there is more comonality between Persian limes and Mexican limes than "regular" lemons and Meyer lemons.

The Meyer lemon has some lemon-like qualities, but is missing the true lemon's bright acidity as well as its unique ability to contribute to a cocktail in the background without necessarily standing out as a parsable flavor. This makes Meyer lemons somewhat similar to oranges with respect to mixability -- which makes some sense, since the Meyer lemon is supposed to be a hybrid of a lemon and a sweet or mandarin orange.

The difficulty with Meyer lemons (and oranges) is that, since they don't pack the acidity or strong flavor of lemons and limes, you have to use a lot of the juice in order to get much of a flavor impact. This presents a bit of a mixological challenge, which is also one of the reasons there are so many more cocktails with lemon and lime than there are with orange juice. Adding to the difficulty, for me anyway, is the fact that, unlike orange juice, I don't find Meyer lemon juice particularly pleasant in the concentrations required to make an impact worth the trouble of procuring a Meyer lemon.

[eje]

I've never been particularly fond of Meyer lemons for cocktails.  Like eje, I think it's only useful in the few cocktails that have been designed specifically for Meyer lemon juice -- and those tend to be in what I'd loosely call the "California Fresh Produce" school of mixology, which is not one that has much appeal for me.

[...]

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Ha, well don't knock it until you've tried it!

Why just Monday night I was talking to a certain New York bartender with stars in his eyes over the cornucopia of fresh produce and herbs easily available here. And then he even went on to make me a cocktail with Thai Basil in it! A New York bartender!

[TVC]

Ha. I overheard at Death & Co. once that in New York, we like our cocktails "brown and stirred".

[thirtyoneknots]

Not 100% relevant to the Meyer lemon discussion, but not entirely unrelated either: I recantly had some modest success creating a drink with Kolomondins (I think thats the name), a tiny, intensely sour type of orange that a regular brought in as a challenge to me. They're about the size of key limes and have a slightly bitter edge to the juice (esp when not fully ripe). The flavor is something like a corss between lime and tangerine. I ended up using 1/2 of the juice (which took like 7 of the fruit to make) with 1/2 oz of Frangelico and 2 oz Pierre Ferrand Ambre, up. Now I'm not super-familiar with Meyer lemons but from the description here it sounds like somthing similar could be made to work? Maybe use 2 oz gin, 3/4 oz meyer lemon, 2 tsp Frangelico and a short dash of bitters (tiny amounts of Angostura are good at controlling the dominating nature of nut liqueurs, and very complementary too).

Hmmm....on second thought, maybe rum is what you need instead of gin.

Edited March 12, 2008 by thirtyoneknots (log)

[slkinsey]

Erik: This is not to say that there aren't great bartenders and cocktaiks in California, or that fresh ingredients don't have a place in cocktails. Just that I prefer for my cocktails to be about the booze, with the fresh ingredients as an accent, rather than being primarily about the fresh ingredients.

Andy: Meyer lemons have substantially less acidity compared to standard lemons, so exactly the opposide of calamondin (aka kalamansi) in that respect. FWIW, I think kalamansi juice is about 1000 times more interesting in cocktails than Meyer lemon juice.

[jsmeeker]

The difficulty with Meyer lemons (and oranges) is that, since they don't pack the acidity or strong flavor of lemons and limes, you have to use a lot of the juice in order to get much of a flavor impact.  This presents a bit of a mixological challenge, which is also one of the reasons there are so many more cocktails with lemon and lime than there are with orange juice.  Adding to the difficulty, for me anyway, is the fact that, unlike orange juice, I don't find Meyer lemon juice particularly pleasant in the concentrations required to make an impact worth the trouble of procuring a Meyer lemon.

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A few weeks ago, I bought a large grapefruit. I sliced it in half and sectioned it, then ate the fruit. I squeezed out the juice like I always did, but instead of slurping it up I poured it into a small pitcher to make cocktails with it. Thinking I could use it as a base in a sour. Well, it didn't work out well. the grapefruit juice isn't nearly sour enough or intensly flavored enough.

Still, I'm willing to give these meyer lemons a go. Right now, the Jack Rose seems to be a leading candidate. I'm also thinking of exploring a drink I had over the weekend. A Strawberry Basil Lemonade. Basically, it was fresh straberries, soem strawberry syrup, basil, and Plymouth gin. Served in a tall glass on the rocks, topped off with what I guess was just soda water. It was pretty good.

[slkinsey]

Grapefruit juice is also very tricky to use as a mixer -- even more so than orange juice. It is not particularly sour, and it also has a certain bitterness.

Ultimately, though, I think grapefruit juice is more rewarding and interesting than Meyer lemon juice.

WRT a Jack Rose-alike with Meyer lemon juice: Not sure I have much hope for that. The Jack Rose depends on the acidity of the citrus juice to balance out the grenadine. With something like Meyer lemon juice, you'd either have to use a ton of the stuff in order to get sufficient acidity or you'd have to use a minute amount of grenadine in order to avoid an overly sweet drink. Either way, it doesn't sound particularly harmonious.

[TVC]

I've found meyer lemon to be tart and acidic enough. You may want to tone down the grenadine in the usual Jack Rose recipe, though a half ounce seems to balance it out nicely in my experience.

I had a friend bring in some Amargo bitters from Peru this week and decided to make Pisco Sours last night. I didn't have meyer lemons on me but I wonder how they'd turn out in a Pisco Sour. My Peruvian friend told me to use lime instead of the usual lemon in American recipes for the drink, as limon means lime in Spanish and actually limes in Peru are a bit sweeter than the ones we're used to.

[eje]

I find the acidity of Meyer lemons to be highly variable depending on the length of time the fruit has hung on the tree, and the time from picking.

Meyer Lemons that haven't been on the tree for long do have a similar acidity to regular lemons, though with a less assertive flavor. As they hang longer their mandarin genes really start to show. The fruit gets much sweeter and more orange like in flavor.

Still, the thing that bugs me the most about them is the smell of the peel.

It is so very different from the clean bright smell of eureka, lisbon or poderosa lemon zest.

Drives me nuts when people use it on cocktails.

edit - clarify about flavor and forgot my favorite lemon variety, lisbon. mandarin, not clementine...

Edited March 12, 2008 by eje (log)

[thirtyoneknots]

Since it sounds mixologically more like an orange than a lemon, what about trying a Bronx or Ward 8 variation with it?

Re: calomondins, yeah it was pretty interesting but man that juice is dominant, I found it very tricky to deal with, took me two weeks of tinkering to get something I'd make more than once.

[Chris Amirault]

Still, the thing that bugs me the most about them is the smell of the peel.

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I agree with that. It's quite tricky to avoid getting that herbal note when you're juicing it for a drink. I've often thought that I'd managed to do so and then, when the drink hits my tongue -- blech: there it is.

[thirtyoneknots]

Still, the thing that bugs me the most about them is the smell of the peel.

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I agree with that. It's quite tricky to avoid getting that herbal note when you're juicing it for a drink. I've often thought that I'd managed to do so and then, when the drink hits my tongue -- blech: there it is.

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Maybe if you peeled it before juicing? Of course this may be a lot more trouble than it's worth, but that rarely stops any of us.

[Mayur]

On a herbal note: What about a Last Word? Anyone try that?

[Mike S.]

Jeff, try a wedge of meyer lemon in a stiff G&T in place of the lime. I particularly like this when the G is Seagram's Distiller's Reserve (a criminally underrated gin IMO) and the T is nothing but Fever Tree. Delicious. In fact, I think I'll make one now. 'Scuse me....

Cheers,

Mike

[JAZ]

I guess I'm alone on this one. I like Meyer lemons in cocktails -- not as a replacement for Eureka lemons, but in different drinks. I think Meyers go really well with Lillet, for instance.

I use them in my After School Special: 2 oz. gin (Beefeater or similar), 1 oz. Lillet, .25 to .5 oz Meyer lemon juice (depending on acid level), and a dash or two of Chartreuse.

I also like them in a Margarita variation, with 2 oz. reposado tequila, .5 oz. orange curacao or Grand Marnier, and .5 oz. Meyer lemon juice.

[eje]

Since it sounds mixologically more like an orange than a lemon, what about trying a Bronx or Ward 8 variation with it?

Re: calomondins, yeah it was pretty interesting but man that juice is dominant, I found it very tricky to deal with, took me two weeks of tinkering to get something I'd make more than once.

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I like the idea of the Ward 8! Meyer Lemons definitely have an affinity for rye.

About the only cocktail I'm really kind of tired of is the Bronx, so I'm not a good judge there.

I love, love, love calmondins in caipirinha variations. They are so much tastier than those annoying kumquats. But, again, the ones I get here are really variable in tartness. Sometimes they are super tart and sometimes pretty sweet. You can't really buy them commercially, only from Asian fruit and vegetable stands at Farmers' Markets.

[thirtyoneknots]

About the only cocktail I'm really kind of tired of is the Bronx, so I'm not a good judge there.

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Heh it was your complaining about the Bronx and its spawn in the Savoy thread that got me thinking that direction actually

Edited March 13, 2008 by thirtyoneknots (log)

[jsmeeker]

I guess I'm alone on this one. I like Meyer lemons in cocktails -- not as a replacement for Eureka lemons, but in different drinks. I think Meyers go really well with Lillet, for instance.

I use them in my After School Special: 2 oz. gin (Beefeater or similar), 1 oz. Lillet, .25 to .5 oz Meyer lemon juice (depending on acid level), and a dash or two of Chartreuse.

I also like them in a Margarita variation, with 2 oz. reposado tequila, .5 oz. orange curacao or Grand Marnier, and .5 oz. Meyer lemon juice.

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fear not! I'm still going to give the meyer lemons a try.

The After School Special sounds intersting, as I am lookijg for more ways to use my Chartreuse. But I'm not really familair with Lillet. I've SEEN it, but don't know really what it is.

[Sneakeater]

Flavored wine aperitif (like vermouth) from Bordeaux.