The final festival in this group of cocktails is the Dongzhi Festival. Celebrated in China and east Asia, Dongzhi is a Winter Solstice festival that celebrates the lengthening of daylight hours and the increase in positive energy. While not an official holiday, it is a special time for reuniting with family members.
As with many festivals, traditional foods play a pivotal role in Dongzhi. Glutinous rice balls (tangyuan) with various fillings and lamb dumplings are often eaten to recharge energy during the long, cold winter. While lamb is delicious, we decided that a mutton infusion was not the best way to go with this cocktail. Instead, we started off with some Chinese spirits and then added some ginger and orange & summac spirits to come up with a distinct martini that is ready to recharge anyone's failing winter energy.
The Dongzhi Festival Cocktail
- 1 part - Chinese Rice/Grain baijiu (we used Red Star ER GUO TOU)
- 1 part - Ginger Liqueur (we used Giffard's)
- 1 part - Manitou Orange & Sumac Liqueur
Combine ingredients into a shaker. Shake over ice. Pour into a martini glass. Garnish with a mandarin slice.
Cocktail Notes
- We'll be the first to admit that we know next to nothing about Chinese baijiu. We read up a bit on it (there is quite a good blog about baijiu called 300 Shots at Greatness). But the mysteries of baijiu still proved elusive. When we went to look for something appropriate at the liquor store here in BC (where you think there would be some good options), there were several bottles, usually at one of two price points: around $30 and around $200. We like you guys, but not that much. So, this is probably not the best choice if you're serious about getting to know baijiu.
- The Manitou is delightful and the sumac really brings out the sorghum in the baijiu. But I'm guessing that you could use another orange liqueur like Cointreau for a similar effect.
- Baijiu and lemon do not play together well. At least this particular baijiu.
- One of the other ideas we had for this was an infusion of osmanthus flowers or incorporating osmanthus paste or jelly. We couldn't find any in time, but that's something we'd still like to experiment with.
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