Black Dragon’s Bite

Drop 5 blackberries into a shaker, along with the bourbon and lime juice. Muddle the blackberries into the liquid. Fill the shaker half-way with ice and shake. Place a large cube or sphere of ice in the rocks glass, and double strain the contents of the shaker into the glass. Slowly stir in the Guiness Garnish with a lime wedge on the rim of the glass and two blackberries threaded on a toothpick. While the rest of these cocktails are vodka or gin based, the Black Dragon’s Bite is our only bourbon entry on this list. It’s a bit of a cross-riff between a Black Velvet and an Old Fashioned. Not only is this drink dark in color like it’s namesake, it also has a good acidic tart to it that alludes to the dragon’s acidic breath attack.   To begin, we are going to muddle five blackberries in a bourbon-lime juice-grenadine mixture. (See notes below on juicing citrus and grenadines.) All that muddling means is to essentially mash the fruit until it releases it’s juices and oils. If you don’t have a muddler, that’s fine; a spoon or the end of a rolling pin work well enough.   Drop the blackberries into your shaker tin, and add the bourbon, lime juice, and grenadine. With your muddler, gently press the berries. Adding in a slight twisting motion with each press will help. You don’t need to mash it to absolute mush, but you want it well broken down to get all of that blackberry goodness into the drink.   Then, we are going to fill the shaker half-way with ice. While you’ve the ice out, find yourself a good large piece to put into your rocks glass. If you are planning on doing cocktails for people semi-regularly, I recommend picking up one of those large cube silicon ice molds. That way, your drinks will have picture perfect ice cubes that resist dilution.   Presentation Give the shaker a good shake, 30-45 seconds. You want that ice to not only chill, but also to break down slightly and add dilution. Double strain into your rocks glass with either a Hawthorne strainer or wire mesh strainer. Slowly stir in the Guiness to top off the drink.   To garnish, add a wedge of lime on the rim along with two additional blackberries threaded on a toothpick. Because we’ve strained out the muddled blackberry, you don’t need to serve it with a cocktail stirrer, although you can if you wish.   On Juicing Citrus When you need to juice citrus, there’s a technique you can use to make things easier on yourself and get maximum juice for minimum work.   Stick the fruit in the microwave for 3-5 seconds. Not long. Pull it out and put it on a flat surface like a counter top. Using the heel of your hand, lightly press on it while rolling it around.   What we are doing here is breaking down the fibers inside the citrus. With the fibers pre-rendered (in a sense), the juice will be easier to free. Plus, you’ll get more of it with less pulp.