Delicious vodka meets delicious cocktail

Last July we moved into our farmhouse. It wasn’t a particularly brutal July, as Texas summers go, but it was bad enough. For sitting outdoors in the evenings (our favorite part of the day) we wanted something more refreshing than our standard rye or scotch. Something icy cold and maybe a little sweet to sip while watching the cows graze. Glen told me about a likely-looking tipple he’d spotted on a recent trip into town: Deep Eddy Peach Vodka. It looked lusciously peachy in the bottle, and it’s a local company, with a distillery in Dripping Springs, not far from Austin. Let’s try it, Glen said. So I went to the liquor store and picked up a small bottle. Foolish mistake. The next time I went I bought the biggest one they had.

At first we didn’t really know what to do with it. Glen’s idea was to make a riff on the Fuzzy Navel, a beverage (I wouldn’t call it a cocktail) of orange juice, peach schnapps, and often a splash of vodka. We’d enjoyed many a Fuzzy Navel in the early summers of our marriage. But after considering it, I decided it was just too sweet and too 1980s. We needed a better use for the vodka than just subbing it in for the schnapps. So for a time the vodka sat on the pantry shelf. (Did it occur to me then to check out the recipes on the Deep Eddy Vodka website? No, but it has since, and you might want to take a look at them too.)

Around that time our cocktail enthusiast daughter Katie had sent us a recipe for a White Mojito. Thanks to a lack of three of the specified ingredients (in particular the white rum), and a burning desire to stay home instead of driving 20 miles one way to the store, I’d transformed that Mojito recipe into the gold rum-based Machete (see my post from May 19th, “The Machete: A Cocktail”). The success of that experiment inspired me to attempt another one. Glen and I enjoy sours, with their delicate blend of sweet and tart so perfect for summertime, so why not create a sour with gold rum and the peach vodka? How bad could it be? Well, it’s darn fine.

That’s how our favorite new warm weather drink was born. And for sentimental reasons, we named it after an old family brand, the anchor. Now that summer’s here again (um . . . yay?), I present:

THE ANCHOR SUMMER SOUR

In a cocktail shaker, put:

2 oz. Deep Eddy Peach Vodka (Be sure to shake the vodka before pouring. Yes, it’s that peachy.)
1 oz. gold rum
2 oz. fresh-squeezed lemon juice (not bottled shelf-stable juice)
1 T. simple syrup (1:1)
1 T. egg white (pasteurized, from a carton)

Add ice to the shaker and shake vigorously for 30 seconds. You want that egg white nice and foamy.

Don’t spare the muscle

Egg white at its finest

Pour it, ice and all, into a glass. Add more ice. Garnish with a sprig of slightly bruised mint. Makes 1.

Enjoy!

Since Deep Eddy Vodka makes several other delicious-sounding flavors, including cranberry and lemon, I expect inspiration will strike again. (Already I’m feeling a blender dessert drink made with peach vodka and Blue Bell Peaches & Homemade Vanilla ice cream coming on.) I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The Anchor Summer Sour

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