The Lush Chef

Sorry that it's been a while since I've posted, my dear lushes.  I have been making drinks and cooking up a little storm, but I've just been a wee bit lazy about documenting everything on the blog.  So I bring you a fun libation that I concocted actually a few weeks ago, when I was trying to figure out how to use up some Pernod-Ricard, fennel, and rose water simple syrup from a cake I had previously baked. That Sunday afternoon I decided that I fancied myself a Fennel Fashioned.  I've been slightly obsessed with veggie forward cocktails as of late (witness, this Green Giant drink with snap peas).  In this little twist on an Old Fashioned, I selected the slightly floral High West Rendezvous Rye and Miracle Mile's Celery Bitters to further bring out the fennel and Pernod-Ricard flavors in the simple syrup.  A little lemon peel and fennel fronds for garnish, and voilà!  This is one of my new favorite interpretations of an Old Fashioned...I had three that night...

Fennel Fashioned

Ingredients:

• 3 oz rye whiskey (I used High West Rendezvous Rye)
• 1/4-1/2 oz Pernod-Ricard, fennel and rosewater syrup (recipe here)
• 3-4 dashes celery bitters (I used Miracle Mile)
• Lemon peel, for garnish
• Fennel frond, for garnish

- Add the simple syrup and bitters to a glass and swirl around a little to combine.

- Add ice and whiskey, and stir until nicely chilled.

- Squeeze the lemon peel skin side down into the drink and rub the peel around the glass, dropping it in after.

- Garnish with a fennel frond.