Photo: Heami Lee • Food Styling: Jessie YuChen. Photo: Heami Lee • Food Styling: Jessie YuChen
Bartender Robert Lam-Burns created this riff on the Jungle Bird, a classic tiki cocktail, for the Sichuan and Hunan restaurant Blue Willow and the Chinese-inspired speakeasy Ye’s Apothecary in New York City. It swaps out the traditional Campari and rum with Aperol and baijiu but keeps the fresh pineapple and lime juices, which enhance the tropical fruit undertones in baijiu, and adds a delicate osmanthus honey syrup. Look for a strong-aroma baijiu such as Ming River or Mianzhu Daqu. Not only is the name of the drink a nod to the grain used to make the spirit, but it also honors a Chinese book of the same name, Red Sorghum, the Nobel Prize-winning 1986 novel by Mo Yan in which sorghum is a prominent motif. To make your drink nice and foamy, Lam-Burns recommends using Ms Better’s Bitters Miraculous Foamer, though an egg white will also work well.
Featured in “Baijiu, the World’s Most Popular Spirit, Is Coming for Your Cocktail” by Megan Zhang.
Yield: 1 cocktail Cook Time: 10 minutes Ingredients ¼ cup osmanthus honey 1½ oz. strong-aroma baijiu ¾ oz. Aperol ¾ oz. fresh lime juice ½ oz. fresh pineapple juice 12 drops foamer, or 1 egg white Dried rose buds, for garnish Instructions
