Ladies and Gentlemen,

The first Mixology Monday in 2010 is hosted by cocktail virgin slut and tea is the topic, which sets it apart.

Lets first of all see, what Frederic from cocktail virgin slut has to say:

1. CocktailVirgin will be hosting this month's Mixology Monday, a monthly online cocktail party with a different theme each month. This month the chosen theme will be tea.
   

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3. Tea has played a historical role in cocktails for centuries. Perhaps the best documented early example was its inclusion in punches as part of the spice role to round out the spirit, sugar, water, and citrus line up. Later, teas appear in many recipes such as Boston Grog, English Cobbler, and a variety of Hot Toddies. And present day mixologists are utilizing tea flavors with great success including Audrey Saunder's Earl Grey MarTEAni and LUPEC Boston's Flapper Jane. Now it's our turn to honor this glorious cocktail ingredient!
   

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5. Here's how to play:
   

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7. • Find or concoct a drink recipe that uses tea or tisane (a herbal "tea" which lacks tea leaves) as an ingredient. This can be hot tea, cold tea, tea syrups, or infusions and use it in a cocktail, punch, or other drink type. Be careful how long you infuse them (after 2 hours, things get really bitter!) if you go that route, and feel free to take a shortcut and use Beefeater 24 which has tea already in the botanical mix.
   

8. • Make the drink and then post the recipe, a photo, and your thoughts about the drink on your blog or on the eGullet Spirits and Cocktails forum.
   

9. • Include in your post the MxMo logo and a link back to both the Mixology Monday and CocktailVirgin sites. And once the round-up is posted, a link to that summary post would be appreciated.
   

10. • Post a link to your submission in the comment section here, or send an email to yarm-at-verizon.net
    

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12. The due date is Monday, January 25th which I will interpret as whatever gets posted before I awake on Tuesday the 26th.
    

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14. Cheers,
    

15. Frederic
    

Tea... that sounds interesting! Tea is highly aromatic with an astringent quality. And it is virtually everywhere on this planet consumed.

Though - you know me - I just don’t want to take a random recipe...

When I heard tea, I remembered the rather annoying time in Yekaterinburg. Tea is a very common beverage in the culture there. And it is usual to drink black tea in combination with Varenja - kinda berry jam - some people are dissolving it to sweet the tea - others are spooning it separately.

As I supposed to take care of the Fireside bar there, I created a drink, which was directly taking onto this ritual; the Fireside Sour.

Basis of this drink was blended Scotch - first, because Fireside is a whisky-centric bar - second because people like to drink whisky there.

Honestly - Russians are drinking quite  a lot of whisky - especially those who can afford to drink it - vodka there [even the very fancy Russian vodkas like Kauffman or Beluga] is really cheap. Even a pouring spirit of an imported beverage, is more expensive as a premium vodka.

Hence Scotch is much more expensive - well and this is the point - Russians like to buy expensive things - if they can afford those.

Anyway - I infused Johnnie Walker Red Label [yes I would not use it normally - though we had quite a lot of bottles of it in the bar] with Lapsang Souchong - which is a really smoky black tea.

I’ve combined the tea infused scotch with freshly squeezed lemon juice and varenja syrup [varenja combined with simple syrup- much easier to work with] plus a bit of egg white.

This is a fantastic drink, smoky - whisky-y and fruity with a lot of froth of the egg white.

I like to spray some citrus oils from a twist. So you get rid of the egg white-y smell...

Never seen this method - though everybody is talking about egg white, though didn’t you ever recognize the light but definitely recognizable smell of it? This is not really appetizing. But with a twist, it will be al OK!

So here we are:

The Fireside Sour

5 cl Lasang Souchong infused Blended Scotch

2 cl instantly squeezed Lemon Juice

2 cl Varenja [Russian berry jam] Syrup

1/4 Egg White

Shake all ingredients very long and very strong with a Boston Shaker on whole ice cubes.

Strain into a pre-chilled ice cube filled tumbler.

Use a large citrus twist [lemon or orange] to spray citrus oils on top of the surface and garnish, the drink with it.