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Rooibos Old Fashioned | Taste and TIpple

Rooibos Old Fashioned

Course Drinks
Cuisine Indian
Keyword Rooibos Old Fashioned
Prep Time 5 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes
Servings 1 cocktail
Author Yvonne Langen

Ingredients

  • 1 tsp absinthe, preferably Dillon's
  • 1 ½ oz Maker's Mark bourbon
  • ½ oz Rooibos tea syrup recipe follows
  • ¼ oz Fernet Branca
  • 2 dashes Aztec Chocolate bitters
  • 1 strip orange peel

Rooibos Tea Syrup

  • 1 ¼ cup granulated sugar
  • 10 rooibos tea bags or 10 heaping teaspoons of loose leaf rooibos tea
  • 1 star anise
  • 1 small cinnamon stick
  • 4 black peppercorns
  • 3 tbsp honey

Instructions

  1. Pour 1 tsp of absinthe into a rocks glass. Swish the absinthe along the bottom and sides of the glass, be sure to coat every part of the interior of the glass. Dispose of the excess absinthe. 

  2. Fill the glass with ice cubes and add all the cocktail ingredients, except for the absinthe (which you've already used for the rinse) and orange peel. Stir for about 30 seconds, then strain through a Hawthorne strainer into a rocks glass filled with ice. Roll up the orange peel and squeeze it above the cocktail to express the citrus oils before placing it in the glass as garnish. 

Rooibos Tea Syrup

  1. Place all the ingredients for the rooibos tea syrup in a small saucepan with 1 cup of water. Bring to a simmer over medium heat and simmer for about 20 minutes, until the liquid has reduced by a third. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool before straining through a fine-mesh sieve and transferring to a sealed bottle or jar. The aromatics can be discarded. Keep in the fridge until ready to use. Rooibos tea syrup will keep in the fridge for up to 3 weeks. 

Recipe Notes

Recipe adapted from: Ottolenghi, Yotam and Ramael Scully. "Rooibos Old Fashioned." Nopi. London: Appetite by Random House, 2015.