This week has been a weird one. I’m slowly recovering from being sick with a virus that smacked me down on the couch for a week and a half. And my camera and my car both decided to get sick and die at the very same time. How is this fair?! Don’t we wish all of our mishaps and hiccups could be dispersed over several months’ time, but maybe having all the crap happen at once is a blessing.

I’m posting this delicious cocktail, but at the same time, I’m also on a serious cleanse: no caffeine, no sugar, no booze, no animal products. I’ve made it past week one, so I am feeling rather strong. I did take a slight deviation on Friday, when I met up with two friends at Café Max and had one of Max’s famous matcha green tea lattes, made with almond milk. My friend, Sherrie, who is coincidentally my health coach, couldn’t finish hers. With crazed eyes, I brazenly reached across the table and pulled her room-temperature latte closer to me and slurped up the last, lightly caffeinated drips. It was an enlightening moment on my caffeine dependency.

Ouch. Whatever, I balanced it all out with a round of green juice, so it’s all good.

And if I haven’t mentioned it already, I am thoroughly embracing fall – all of its brilliant color, all of its aromas, all of the cozy, and copious amounts of its fruits and vegetables. I’ll admit that I’m more of an apple-lover than a pear-lover, but I’ve been stepping out of my comfort zone and am finding that I love the flavor of pears, especially when they are either roasted or paired with baking spices.

Or bourbon.

I created a cocktail for the Urban Outfitters blog this past week, and it simply screams so many of my favorite fall flavors – juiced pears, fresh sage and thyme, and toasty, bitter notes of orange peel, allspice, and cinnamon.

The cocktail itself is a mashup of sweet, savory, herbaceous, and bitter aromas and flavors. I find that adding bitter notes to an otherwise fruity cocktail brings balance to the components of a cocktail and really brightens and sets it off. You can add bitter notes by adding an amaro or tossing in a few dashes of bitters to a cocktail. I always have a batch of bitters developing in my liquor cellar. Right now, I am making a lavender bitters, a celery version, and a cardamom blend.

Bitters are super easy to make, but if you’re not keen on sourcing out the various or possibly obscure ingredients necessary, one of my favorite bitters-makers, Hella Bitters out of Long Island, actually makes a DIY bitters kit. It couldn’t be more simple than using your favorite base spirit, like bourbon or gin, and adding the dried bitter components in the kit. I was really impressed with the quality of their ingredients, and their labels couldn’t be more classy.

You can read more on the Urban Outfitters blog for the recipe for this bourbon and spice pear cocktail. And I was beyond happy to make yet another batch of bitters; I have a feeling they’ll show up in a few friends’ Christmas gifts this year.

Get the Bourbon + Spiced Pear Cocktail recipe over at the Urban Outfitters Blog and learn more about Hella Bitters’ Craft-Your-Own Bitters Kit HERE.

Cheers to a much better week than this one! Actually, cheers to an amazing finish to this week! I’m no longer sick, my car is fixed, my laptop is revived, and I have a new camera in my possession. Things are looking up!

Signing off with a few of my favorite ciderific pear, freshly picked apple, or all-things-autumn cocktails I’ve come across recently and wishing you a superb second week of November. November!? When did that happen? I’m still catching up on June.

XO,

Jayme

• With Food + Love’s Black Peppercorn + Cranberry Shrub with Gin
• Floating Kitchen’s Pumpkin Beertail with Tequila and Spiced Rum
• The Kitchn’s Sparkling Apple Cider Sangria, via Maureen Petrosky
• Oh So Beautiful Paper’s A Rum Stone Fence, via Liquorary
• Craft + Cocktails’ The Bitter Honey Bee with Cynar 70
• 10th Kitchen’s Spiced Honey Collins
• Freutcake’s Spiced Pear + Bourbon Cocktail
• The Drink Blog’s Nutty Spiced Chocolate