Lavender in Your Cocktail Garden: A Bourbon Sidecar for Bourbon Heritage Month
I’ve been waiting all spring and summer for my lavender to flower to no avail. It probably didn’t help that it took a major hit during Tales of the Cocktail when I was out in these New Orleans streets instead of in the garden watering and cooing sweet love songs to make things grow. BUT! Lavender leaves are perfectly acceptable!
Meet the plant
Lavender (Lavandula) is a woody Mediterranean perennial and two kinds are easy to find: English (L. angustifolia) and French (usually L. dentata). As an ecologist, I planted it with the expectation that it would feed pollinators during New Orleans hot summers when fussier plants sulk. And of course that I would have buds to collect for cocktails. Used with a light hand it is floral, honeyed, and faintly resinous and I was excited to play around with it at the bar.
Grow it yourself
Lavender wants full sun and sharp drainage above all else — it would rather be thirsty than wet, and soggy soil kills far more plants than cold does. Give it gritty, neutral-to-alkaline ground, water sparingly once it's rooted in, and otherwise leave it be; this is a plant that rewards restraint. I have had little to no success with English lavender. It always dries to a desiccated husk within a month of planting. My French lavender has had much better success, flourishing for the most part even if it refuses to flower. But here’s a key tip - most people will tell you the flowers are what you want but the leaves are equally delicious with a much fainter lavender flavor and a hint of rosemary for an extra je ne sais quois. Which in my opinion makes it perfect for a lavender liqueur!
The cocktail
For Bourbon Heritage Month I wanted a fun bourbon cocktail that would capture those last wisps of summer so I built a riff on the Side Car with homemade lavender liqueur. I call it The Provenance: a nod to origin, to the craft in the bottle, and to Provence, where the lavender's story starts. First you make a small-batch lavender liqueur, then you use it the way a Sidecar uses triple sec. The nose on New Dawn’s bourbon already carries chamomile and sugar cane, so the lavender doesn't sit on top of the whiskey — it finishes a note the whiskey started.
The Provenance
2 oz New Dawn Bourbon
¾ oz lavender liqueur*
¾ oz lemon juice
sugar rim
Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake till cold and strain into coupe with a sugar rim. Homemade lavender liqueur: steep ½ cup fresh or dried lavender buds and leaves in 2 cups vodka or neutral grain spirit for 3-4 weeks, strain, then stir in ¼ -½ cups cooled simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water). Makes enough for many drinks; keeps refrigerated for weeks.
Sip with purpose. When you grow lavender you plant something (in theory) that works with your climate instead of against it, and put a genuinely handmade liqueur behind your best bottle. That's grain to glass — bold by nature, built with care — and it's the quiet, uncompromising kind of craft worth celebrating any month of the year. Pick up a bottle of New Dawn today and join our email list for exclusive offers. [Sign up here.]
