The BCC Cocktail

Low Carb Cocktails 101

The new spice blends from Eat Happy Kitchen are on the way!

When life gives you delays, you…well, you roll with it because what the heck else are you supposed to do?

The spices are going to arrive later than expected. I mean, we’ve put 18 months into R&D, packaging development, branding, reformulating, finding a new manufacturer, getting organic certification…what’s another two weeks?

We are still waiting on two ingredients to be delivered so the spices can be blended. Then as soon as the blending happens, the fulfilment magic happens, and spices will arrive at your door. Hopefully around or before April 20th.

I do not take the pre-selling of items to you lightly. Thank you for your patience.

I have so many great new recipes lined up that use the spice mixes, and I can’t wait to share them with you.

However, there’s no point in burning Substack real estate on these new recipes until you have the spice blends in-hand.

Might I suggest we pour a cocktail instead and do a little mixology review?

Low Carb Cocktails 101

Muddling for a Blueberry Thyme Gin Fizz, recipe in Eat Happy Too

I haven’t been drinking at all lately, so my urge to post this cocktail recipe might be the direct result of my subconscious missing alcohol.

First, let’s do a quick primer on the architecture of a cocktail. And more importantly, how to achieve a good flavor while forgoing sweetness.

When you go low carb, you give up cloying mixers, added sugar, and liqueurs. I’m always looking for fun ways to play mixologist and generate cocktail ideas to keep it fresh. Vodka sodas are boring.

Plus it’s spring, and cocktail season is upon us.

Strawberry Mint Mojito, recipe in Eat Happy Too

Just like there are six flavor profiles when you eat a well balanced dish (salt, sweet, tart, salty, bitter, and savory/umami), a perfect low carb cocktail beckons for balance in its own composition:

• liquor (always distilled liquor at the base, nothing fortified or sweetened, usually 2 ounces)

• tart (usually in the form of citrus, about .5-1 ounce)

• herbal (pulverized or muddled to release the flavor, or used as garnish)

• bitter (hello, ever heard of bitters? Quite an on-the-nose name.)

• sweet (we will use lower glycemic whole fruit, not juice, and omit liqueurs and simple syrup altogether)

• savory/salty (used sometimes, ie: tomato in a Bloody Mary, bacon for smoke in a bourbon drink, salt on the rim of a margarita, etc)

We will mix and match and add fun things to change it up, but the list above is the basic structure to spring from if you’re going to lug out the bar set and experiment.

Since we are always finding ways to reduce our sugar intake, one flavor shortcut you can take is to infuse your liquor. Cherry infused bourbon, jalapeño infused gin, citrus peel infused tequila, and berry infused vodka are all examples of this. I invite you to experiment.

Tom Collins Anisette, photo by Anna Vocino, recipe in Eat Happy Too

If you make the above Tom Collins Anisette in Eat Happy Too, you will have infused vodka with star anise pods to achieve the flavor profile in that drink. It doesn’t look like much, but the hidden spice essence in the gin mixed with lemon juice gives this cocktail a refreshing flavor.

So those are some cocktail basics. Now let’s get to a specific new cocktail recipe that you didn’t even know that you loved until today.

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The BCC Cocktail, photo by Anna Vocino

My friend Meagan North-Hawkes likes to tell me things I need to cook, and I’m honored to be her very own personal recipe creator. Meagan runs the Thursday Clubhouse check-in, plus she’s the admin in all of the Facebook groups, so you’ve probably seen her there. She is a delight of a human.

Side note: I will henceforth refer to Meagan as Foxy-Hawkesy, because I am both Italian and Southern, and if there’s one thing Italians and Southerners cannot do, it’s refer to anyone by their given name.

So Foxy likes to text me food and cocktail ideas. And I relish the opportunity to step up to the challenge.

The conversation birthing this new drink went a little like this:

Foxy: I was on vacation and had a cocktail that you have to figure out how to make.

Me: Why don’t you figure out how to make it?

Foxy: Because I want you to figure out how to make it.

Me: That’s fair. I’m intrigued. Do you know what’s in said cocktail?