While indulging in the taste of Iceland, as part of Scandinavian pop-up restaurant Aska‘s last serving at Brooklyn’s Kinfolk Studios, we were fortunate to try the Mead of Poetry cocktail—a multilayered, rich and flavorful marriage of vodka and mead. Designed by the team at a CH favorite, Reyka Vodka (an Icelandic tipple that’s filtered over lava rocks from the island nation’s mystical landscape), the drink celebrates both the historic fermented honey and fruit beverage, as well as the spirit’s ability to blend. With grace notes of all spice and the froth of egg white, it’s complex and full of character but magnetically drinkable and charming. It’s also easy enough to make at home and still maintain all the liquid poetry within.
Mead of Poetry
1 1/2 oz Reyka Vodka
3/4 oz mead
Scant barspoon of St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram
3/4 oz fresh lemon
1/3 oz simple syrup
Egg white
Simply combine all ingredients in a tin and dry shake. Add ice and then shake the concoction again. Serve the cocktail up, in a chilled coup with an orange twist garnish for additional flavor and style. If you’re interested in making your own mead (a fermentation of water, honey, yeast and citrus), only a few simple steps and some patience go into a drink that’s as mythologically significant as it is tasty.
Images courtesy of Gunnar Larson