Fake Empire.

Half awake.

Fake Empire.

My favourite band – The National – release their new album Sleep Well Beast today and I thought I’d mark the occasion the only way I know how to: by creating a cocktail. I took my inspiration from the first verse of Fake Empire, opening track of their (superb) 2007 album Boxer.

Stay out super late tonight

picking apples, making pies.

Put a little something in our lemonade

and take it with us.

So I’m thinking apples, lemons, cinnamon and, of course, the national drink* of the USA, bourbon. Those are flavours that really love each other so our task is actually pretty easy. For bonus points let’s double down on the apples and use some apple brandy too. Now if you’re in the US that means applejack but if you’re in Europe calvados will be far more available. In either case use a decent aged variety. The apple juice should be the unfiltered cloudy type – known as apple cider in the US. We’ll need some sweetness to counter the lemon juice so let’s use a cinnamon syrup and kill two birds with one stone. Just in case it wasn’t clear, the cinnamon is there to represent the “pies”.


Fake Empire.

1.5oz / 45ml bourbon of choice.

1oz / 30ml apple brandy such as applejack or calvados.

1oz / 30ml fresh lemon juice.

1oz / 30ml cloudy apple juice.

0.75oz / 22.5ml cinnamon syrup.

Shake with ice and strain into a DOF glass containing a diamond slipper, erm, I mean a big block of clear ice.

Toast The National.


*See what I did there?

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