How to Make a Delicious Green Tea Cocktail with Vodka

Green Tea Cocktails involve little more than infusing green tea into your favorite vodka and blending it with a green tea simple syrup! Simple and delicious!

Culinary tea cocktails could be an entire book unto itself. There are many exciting variations of tea-infused cocktails.

Cynthia Gold, the author of Culinary Tea, was a guest speaker at a seminar held by the Mid-Atlantic Tea Business Association at One Steep at a Thyme in Jamesburg, NJ. She presented Culinary Tea Cocktails, Syrups, and Infusions to discuss which alcohol goes best with tea. This green tea cocktail recipe is a variation of Cynthia Gold's green tea gimlet recipe in her book.

I've changed it up a bit, as excellent as the recipe was. Instead of using a tea-infused gin, I've used a tea-infused vodka. Vodka makes a perfect liquor for tea-based cocktails. You can mix gin and tea, but I selected vodka because it's relatively neutral and won't conflict with the other tea flavors.

As Cynthia explained in her presentation, sometimes you have to be careful with gin and tea. Her recipe called for a tea-infused gin, but each brand uses its style of juniper berries and spices that can react differently when you mix tea and alcohol.

When making an alcoholic tea, the tea is not infused as a steeped tea but incorporated as a simple syrup or tea leaves infused into the base alcohol. Here, a green tea liqueur is created by infusing green tea into vodka, making a great infusion that you can use to create any green tea cocktail with vodka.

Gimlet Cocktail

What is a gimlet cocktail? A traditional gimlet is one part gin, and one part sweetened lime juice. That's it. It's beautifully balanced. You can hardly feel it's 50% alcohol, so these can be pretty dangerous. It's easy for them to sneak up on you!

As far as alcoholic tea drinks go, this green tea drink recipe is a refreshing twist on a classic gimlet drink recipe. The vodka replaces the gin tea liquor, and As far as alcoholic tea drinks go, this green tea drink recipe is a refreshing twist on a classic gimlet drink recipe. The vodka replaces the gin tea liquor, and green tea and lemongrass-infused simple syrup replace the sweetened lime juice.

Tea mixed drinks are enjoyable and easy to make!

What You Need to Make a Green Tea Cocktail

• Freshly squeezed lime juice, sugar, green tea, and lemongrass for the simple syrup.

• You'll need two chilled coupe glasses and a Boston shaker glass filled with ice. You can find the 2-piece Boston cocktail shaker set on Amazon or just about any glassware shop. You'll also need a strainer.

• Vodka (unflavored) for the green tea vodka infusion.

Proper barware is a must for any cocktail lover. Home Wet Bar specializes in personalized glassware, barware, signs, and decor. These make fantastic gifts or simply as an addition to your home bar.

Teatulia has an excellent cocktail shaker set that comes with a tea cocktails recipe book. The collection includes A Mixologist's Guide to Legendary Tea-Infused Cocktails and a 16 oz. Cocktail shaker.

The green tea cocktail is a lovely simple recipe with basically three ingredients. Simple syrup is enhanced by making it a lemongrass and green tea simple syrup. And the vodka becomes a tea with liquor.

How to Make a Green Tea Vodka Infusion

You can use any green loose leaf tea for the green tea vodka infusion and the green tea syrup. A Dragon Well or Gunpowder green tea works well and is easy to use.

Fresh lemongrass is available at most markets, or you can buy the dried version for a tea. A lot of tea vendors blend the lemongrass, but you can buy just lemongrass from Adagio Teas. They also sell Dragon Well (Lung Ching) and Gunpowder green tea.

Lemongrass is an amazingly citrus-scented fragrant herb with a distinctive lemon flavor. Often used in cooking, it's also blended into many herbal teas. It's rich in minerals including potassium, zinc, calcium, iron, manganese, copper, and magnesium.

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• Always start with a good quality vodka. The tea leaves are infused directly into the vodka (or alcohol of choice). Vodka is the easiest alcohol to work with since it is the most neutral.

• Pour the vodka into a pitcher and add the green tea and lemongrass. Let the mixture infuse for at least 30 minutes or more. As with any tea-infused liquor, use double the amount of tea than you would normally use for a cup of hot tea.

• When infusing loose-leaf tea into the vodka adjust the time so the flavor is at a concentration you like.

• Strain the infusion through a coffee filter. Make sure all bits of tea and any fruit are removed so the remaining liquor is crystal clear. Store in an airtight glass container. Cynthia advised that as long as no bits of tea or fruit are left behind, the alcohol infusion is stable for several months.

How to Make a Green Tea Syrup

The simple syrup has two ingredients, sugar, and water, in equal parts. It's best to use pure cane granulated sugar. It dissolves quickly.

• Heat one part water and one part sugar until the sugar dissolves. If you’re adding a flavoring – in this recipe we’re adding green tea and lemongrass, you’ll need to heat the water and turn it off just before it boils to infuse the tea and lemongrass into the syrup.

• NOTE: You may need a little more water to compensate for the evaporation when the water heats up.

• You can leave the flavoring ingredients in until the syrup cools. This gives it time to really meld the flavors together.

• Store the simple syrup in a glass airtight container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.

Green Tea Cocktail Drink Recipe

Pro Tips:

• Green tea simple syrup and green tea-infused vodka can be made several days ahead of time.

• Chill coupe glasses before serving.

• Always use fresh ingredients. Use fresh lime and fresh lemongrass if available.

Thanks for reading. Cheers!

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