Drinks

Pumpkin Daiquiri

By: Hannah Lee Leidy

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The classic daiquiri is one of Chasing Sage’s favorite canvasses for creating seasonal drinks. One technique the Charleston restaurant employs when adding different ingredients to a daiquiri-style cocktail is adding a little bit of citric acid to bump up the tartness. This helps to balance the sweetness of the other ingredients. Citric acid occurs naturally in lime juice, and by replacing some of the lime juice with an acidified syrup, they can squeeze in more of the flavor they’re going after – in this case, pumpkin. A little bit goes a long way, so precise measurements are necessary for this recipe.

recipe

yields

1 cocktail

ingredients

Pumpkin Syrup

1 sugar pie pumpkin, or other cooking pumpkin
1 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean
1½ teaspoons citric acid

Daiquiri

4 milliliters allspice dram
¼ ounce lime juice
¼ ounce VSOP Rhum Agricole
1½ ounce pumpkin syrup
1½ ounce white rum
Cinnamon and nutmeg, to garnish

steps

Make the pumpkin syrup

Wash pumpkins, no need to peel them. Remove seeds and pulp and cut into pieces.
Using a juice machine, juice the pumpkin pieces.
Weigh the juice and add half that much sugar by weight.
Add vanilla bean, split and scraped.
Simmer for 30 minutes on low to medium heat, juice should reduce slightly.
Cool and strain. Once cooled, add 1.5 grams citric acid for every 100 grams of pumpkin syrup and stir to combine.

Make the cocktail

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker tin with ice, and shake until the outside of the tin is very cold.
Fine strain into a chilled coupe glass, and garnish with the grated cinnamon and nutmeg.