How to Use Fall and Winter Produce in Cocktails, According to Bartenders

Anyone in the food and beverage industries will be well-acquainted with the concept of seasonal menus. And when it comes to cocktails, farmers market finds often offer inspiration that translates to the glass more easily than others. Come summer, making a blackberry-infused Margarita or an Old Fashioned riff with peaches might seem like a no-brainer. Come fall and winter, though, when much of America’s greenery is frosted over, it can take a little more creativity — especially for the at-home bartender. And let’s face it: not every fruit or veggie takes well to juicing or infusions. One day we might encounter a Rutabaga Martini, but thankfully that day hasn’t come yet.

To help you seize the seasons, we chatted with three NYC bartenders and got their secrets on how to get the most out of fall and winter produce.

Pumpkins

While orgeat is traditionally made with almonds, at Tiki Chick in NYC’s Upper West Side, bar manager Linda Nivar reinvents the syrup with pepita seeds (the hulless seeds of certain pumpkin varieties) creating a unique spin on the tiki bar staple while honoring her Latin roots. “I wanted to give a nod to Dia de Los Muertos, and pepita seeds are used in moles and several Latin recipes like horchata,” she says. “Halloween is also pumpkin-spice season, so I wanted to make a nut-free drink that still fits with the theme.”

Pepita Seed Orgeat Recipe

Ingredients

2 cups pepita seeds
5 cups warm water
6 ½ cups granulated white sugar

Directions

Put pepita seeds in a large pan over medium-low heat, tossing occasionally until they turn golden brown.
Blend the toasted seeds in a food processor.
Put the blended seeds in a large bowl and cover with warm water.
Let soak for one to three hours.
Strain out the solids through a cheesecloth to obtain pepita milk.
Heat pepita milk in a stock pot over medium-low heat.
Add sugar, and whisk until dissolved.
Remove from heat, and let cool.

*For smaller batches, combine 1 ½ cups of pepita milk with 2 cups sugar.

Dates

Although the last dates of the year are typically picked in late September, we tend not to see them on restaurant menus until the winter. They may not be the juiciest fruit in the world, but their rich, sticky-sweet flavors can be easily extracted through infusion. At Brooklyn’s Congress Bar, beverage director Ramon Castellanos makes a date-infused mezcal (recipe below) for a seasonal Negroni riff. Simply mix equal parts date-infused mezcal, Campari, and sweet vermouth, along with a few dashes of chocolate bitters. Pour that into a rocks glass over a large ice cube, garnish with an orange twist, and enjoy.

Date-Infused Mezcal Recipe

Ingredients

One pint of pitted dates
One bottle of mezcal

Directions

Add dates to mezcal in a sealable bottle, and let rest overnight (roughly 12 hours).
Put the mixture in a blender and blend until dates are finely chopped.
Strain out the solids through a cheesecloth to obtain infused mezcal.

Kumquats

Thanks to the magic of international shipping, we can get fresh citrus anytime throughout the year, but technically winter is the harbinger of citrus season. It also brings a certain citrus-adjacent fruit that often goes overlooked within the seas of lemons, limes, and oranges on the shelves. We’re talking about kumquats, which are essentially bite-sized, oblong oranges.

“It can be really fun to make an oleo saccharum with kumquats because they have such a nice ratio of oily skin to the remainder of the fruit,” says Harrison Snow, co-owner and beverage director of NYC cocktail bar Lullaby. For those unfamiliar, an oleo saccharum is a citrus oil syrup made from coating peels in sugar and letting them sit out for a period of time. The sugar draws out the oil from the peels and forms a slurry-like mixture that can have myriad applications in cocktails. And since kumquats are mostly skin, you don’t even have to peel them to make the oleo saccharum. Snow recommends using his kumquat oleo as a modifier in a Spritz, Gimlet, or a Tom Collins.

“It pairs really nicely with gin,” he says. “After you make the kumquat oleo, a sustainable thing you could also do is take the remaining kumquats, put them on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet, and pop that in the oven at a low temperature. It candies them, and you can use that as a garnish.”

Kumquat Oleo Saccharum Recipe

Ingredients

1 pound kumquats
sugar

Directions

Place kumquats in a large, wide bowl or Cambro.
Cover the kumquats generously with sugar, mixing them around to make sure they are completely coated.
Cover the bowl or Cambro with a dry dish towel.
Let sit at room temperature overnight (roughly 12 hours).
Strain out solids through a fine mesh strainer.

Concord Grapes

Prior to citrus season, the fall gives us another expansion of a year-round fruit family: grapes, specifically concord grapes. They make a great jam, a good juice, and a stellar shrub. Making a shrub is very similar to making an oleo saccharum, but instead of just using peels, shrubs require the whole fruit and a little bit of vinegar. The recipe below is also a Snow original, and he recommends using as neutral a vinegar as possible, such as cane vinegar or a simple white wine vinegar. “You can use Champagne vinegar, an apple cider vinegar, or sherry vinegar, but those are going to impart more flavor,” he says. “It just depends on how you want it to taste.”

Due to the acetic acid in vinegar, shrubs have a slightly sour bite to them, making them a great substitute for a cordial or liqueur in cocktails and mocktails alike. “People like having some kind of bite in their non-alcoholic cocktails, and shrubs really make them hit like a cocktail without the alcohol,” Snow says. “The grape shrub would also be really cool in a riff on El Diablo or something with aged tequila and a little bit of lime.”

Concord Grape Shrub Recipe

Ingredients

14 ounces concord grapes
3 ½ ounces sugar
2 ½ ounces neutral vinegar, such as cane vinegar

Directions

Place concord grapes in a large bowl or Cambro and muddle them.
Add sugar and stir.
Cover the bowl or Cambro with a dry dish towel.
Let sit at room temperature overnight (roughly 12 hours).
Strain out solids through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl or bottle.
Add vinegar and stir. Add more vinegar to taste.

Granny Smith Apples

Another idea courtesy of Harrison Snow, some simple Granny Smith apple juice can kick a cocktail up a notch. While apple juice isn’t a common cocktail component, Granny Smiths are tart enough to provide a nice kick of autumnal acidity to drinks. “The more recently juiced, the better,” Snow says.

There are two primary ways to obtain fresh Granny Smith apple juice. If you have an electric juicer at home, the process is as simple as putting peeled green apples in there and turning it on. If you don’t have a juicer, chop those apples up, discard the cores, and toss the slices in a blender. This method may require adding a small amount of water to help yield a smoother consistency, but it all depends on how powerful the blender is. Once blended, strain out any solids through a cheesecloth, and you’re good to go.

This juice is relatively versatile when it comes to cocktail creation, but if you don’t know where to start, try it out in Snow’s Abuelita cocktail.

Harrison Snow’s Abuelita Recipe

Ingredients

1 ½ ounces Espadín mezcal
¾ ounce fresh-pressed Granny Smith apple juice
½ ounce lime juice
¼ ounce orgeat
¼ ounce cinnamon syrup
3 drops saline solution (or a pinch of salt)
Garnish: dehydrated apple slice and grated cinnamon

Directions

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice.
Shake until chilled.
Double-strain into a chilled rocks glass over fresh ice.
Garnish with a dehydrated apple slice and grated cinnamon.

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