Boston Public Market Mixers

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This summer saw the much-anticipated launch of the Boston Public Market, the United States’ first all-locally-sourced market. Over 35 vendors represent the best of the region at the year-round, indoor space with everything from farm produce to hand-made pasta to pastrami. There’s plenty of foodstuffs to fill your basket, and your cupboards, but there’s also an array of drink additions to take home. Stroll down to Haymarket and look for these local specialty products that double as bar staples. With the recipes below, you can add a Massachusetts mixer (or three) to your cocktail repertoire.

Mangé Fresh Fruit Vinegars

Chef Christopher Spivak founded Somerville’s Mangé in 2012 after culinary training in France introduced him to the use of fresh fruit vinegars. In the kitchen, the flavorful sauces can be used as salad dressings and barbeque marinades, while at the bar, they add an acidic touch to mixed drinks. Mangé offers ten-plus varieties of the pureed fruits preserved in vinegar, which means plenty of cocktail options—like the Blackberry Caipiroska Shrub below.

Blackberry Caipiroska Shrub
1/2 cup Blackberry Fresh Fruit Vinegar
1 lime, quartered
3 oz cachaça or vodka
1 oz Cabernet Sauvignon
1 orange, squeezed
1/2 cup seltzer water
1 sprig of mint for garnish
Ice

Put lime wedges, orange juice and a handful of ice in a highball glass and crush together. Add the blackberry vinegar, cachaça, Cabernet and stir. Top with seltzer and garnish with mint.


Boston Honey Company

honeyBack in 1996, owner Andy Reseka’s beekeeping hobby took flight and turned into Boston Honey Company in Holliston, MA. He and his co-owner/wife Addie now manage between 2100 and 2200 hives, one of which you can see at their first ever retail location in the Market. Besides beeswax candles and bee-auty products (couldn’t resist, sorry) like Addie’s skin creams and soaps, you can get a look at (and a taste of) their line of raw, unfiltered, kosher honeys. Apiarist Nick Delaini suggests a honey simple syrup to add complex sweetness to your cocktails: “If the water is too hot, it’s going to beat up the profile of the honey, so I like hot tap water (no more than 110 degrees F) instead of boiling water.” Below he finds a boozy use for their dark-hued Japanese Knotweed honey in an original cocktail named for a famous Benedictine monk and bee breeder.

Brother Adam
1 3/4 oz Applejack
3/4 oz Fernet Branca
1/2 oz 2:1 Japanese Knotweed honey simple syrup
Ginger beer

To make the simple syrup add 2 parts honey to one part hot water and mix until dissolved. Add the Applejack, Fernet, and Japanese Knotweed honey simple syrup to a shaker with ice and shake gently until mixed. Strain into an Old-Fashioned glass half-filled with ice and top with ginger beer.


Spiker’s Shrubs

spikersOver at Corner Stalk Farm in the Market, you can find Spiker’s Shrubs, founded by Kate Broughton and based in Amesbury, MA. Corner Stalk’s East Boston-grown Italian basil plays a main part in Broughton’s number one-selling Pineapple Basil shrub. Shrubs— infusions of fruit, vinegar and sugar— can run syrup-y, but Broughton likens Spiker’s to “drinking vinegars.” She explains, “We don’t cook our shrubs. Cooking produces somewhat of a ‘jammy’ taste, and it also creates a cloudier, darker and thicker liquid.” Her apple cider fruit vinegars are cold-processed for a resulting “almost cellophane-like clarity” that keeps a cocktail bright and beautiful, more so than a murky acid like lemon or lime juice. The fruit shrubs work just as well in mocktails but below you’ll find a boozy concoction using Boston Harbor Distillery’s local spirits.

Raspberry Bergamot Sparkler
1 1/2oz Lawley’s New England Spirit
1/2 oz Spiker’s Raspberry Bergamot Shrub
Prosecco

Combine the spirit and shrub over ice in a shaker tin and shake until chilled. Strain into a flute and top with prosecco, then garnish with fresh raspberry or a lemon twist.

The Boston Public Market is open all year so you can add to your bar mixers as the seasons change. In the meantime, check out the current vendors and shake up a shrub- or honey-enhanced cocktail with New England flair.

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