Rosemary and Pear Martini

Do you believe it!  We're still on the Entertaining with Booze book!  Percentage-wise I've made more recipes from this cookbook than I've ever made from another cookbook.  I turned the preparation of this recipe over to my inestimable sous-chef, Connie, to prepare. 

We thought that this sounded good so, one day, we stopped by Kahn's, our local liquor super store.  This is the weirdest liquor store that you ever want to see.  It is a wanna-be "big box" in that it is a warehouse type building.  On the other hand, it is mostly full of wine, has a amazing selection of beer and has all sorts of liquor.  We drive by and it's closed at nine o'clock!  Never heard of such a thing, but I guess they know their clientele and the folks they sell to are not running out for a six-pack, pack of cigarettes and a lottery ticket at 10:45.  Whatever, it's still the place to find whatever weird liqueur you want.

They also offer tastes.  Look at a bottle of liquor.  It sounds interesting, but do I want to spend $X on something that I'll never touch again?  At Kahn's, they have most of their liquors open to taste.  It's not a sampling menu, mind you, but on the other hand (back to the subject) when you find a recipe and it sounds interesting, you can ask for a taste.  The other thing is that most of these guys have tasted or at least have recommendations on the direction.  So we picked out some pear flavored vodka called Hanger 1 "Spiced Pear".  They didn't have a pear brandy that was called for, but since we sampled it, we said, "I can deal with that!"  Now, the recipe in the cookbook makes about a pint.  Unless we wanted to be snoring on the family room floor, that wasn't happening.  So, we practiced our math skills and cut the recipe down to two servings.

Rosemary and Pear Martini

serves two

Ingredients:

2 1/2 tbs simple syrup (we use 2:1)
1 sprig rosemary
2 tsp lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
4 oz vodka (we use Smirnoff)
2 tbs pear liqueur (Hanger 1 as noted)

Directions:

We muddled the first three ingredients and pulled out the rosemary sprig.  We then added the rest of the ingredients and ice.  Shake, shake, shake!  Strain and stir.  Holy moly!  This was tasty.  Next time we'll start a little earlier and ummm,,,

Well, here is the secret.  The original recipe was triple of what I said above and a lot more complicated. 

Make a simple syrup from 1/2 cup of water, 1/2 cup of sugar, (1:1 simple syrup) and 3 sprigs rosemary.  Simmer and stir until the sugar is dissolved.  Remove the rosemary, then cool.  Combine the cooled syrup, 1 1/2 cups! of vodka, 1/2 cup of the pear liqueur and the juice of 1/2 lemon. Place in the freezer until well cooled.  FINALLY (as if Connie and I are going to wait this long for a drink!), Stir with a handful of ice, strain into martini glasses.  Garnish with a sprig of rosemary and serve.

As it turns out, our drink improved as we slowly savored it.  Therefore we resolved that as good as the drink was, the cooling and removal of any extraneous muddled rosemary and ice shards from the shaking would improve the drink.

So there you have it.  Lovely drink
Option 1: - Follow the recipe, you have enough to intoxicate the cul-de-sac. 
Option 2: - Have patience and consume it over it a couple of days. 
Option 3: - Do it our way and deal with a little detritus.

Have fun either way.  And, remember to kiss the one you love!