With the summer upon us and outdoor parties happening regularly, it’s time to introduce some simple cocktails designed for sipping outside on a warm day. I also want to address a common concern expressed by readers: many of the recipes on this site get a little complicated. As such, all of my summer cocktails will share one simple feature: They can be built, shaken, and served in one mason jar. That’s right. No muddling. No straining. Just shake and serve. At most, you might pour in some soda after you’ve shaken, but other than that, these are build-shake-serve cocktails.
I want to kick off this series with a twist on a Southern classic: Lynchburg Lemonade. Tennessee Whiskey is similar to bourbon in many respects, but it undergoes an additional filtration through sugar maple charcoal, giving it a little extra sweetness and smoothness. This filtration, known as “The Lincoln County Process,” is the key difference between bourbon and Tennessee Whiskey. Arguably the best known Tennessee Whiskey is Jack Daniels, and when mixed with triple sec, sour mix, and Sprite, you get the standard Lynchburg Lemonade.
Now, that recipe is dubious for a number of reasons. First of all, I hesitate to call anything “lemonade” that doesn’t have real lemon juice in it, so I’m going to fix that by using real lemonade. For extra bonus points, you can mix your own (1 oz lemon juice, 2 tbsp sugar, and about 5 oz water), but store-bought works just fine too. Lastly, that triple sec is going to make things a little too sweet, so I’m nixing it and making a drink more akin to an extra-large whiskey sour. So here’s the finished recipe:
Lynchburg Lemonade
2 oz bourbon or Tennessee Whiskey
3-4 dashes Angostura Bitters
Lemonade
Fill a mason jar with ice; add ingredients above (put in enough lemonade that it almost reaches the top); shake drink; top drink with soda; and serve.
It’s that simple. Break out this recipe at a party to quickly impress your guests, or you could even mix several jars ahead of time and leave them on ice. If you want things a little sweeter, you can even sub in Jack Daniels’ Tennessee Honey (which, for the record, is how this I first tasted this sweet concoction). There’s a lot of possible variation here, so have fun with it, and check back here next Monday for another summer mason jar recipe!