Make a Tip of the Hat with Jacob Geaney from The Gresham
This rich cocktail is perfect for after-dinner drinks — and for the festive season.
A great cocktail doesn’t always boast a lengthy origin story. Sometimes, a standout drink just needs a firm purpose. The Gresham’s Jacob Geaney explains the Tip of the Hat cocktail falls into the latter category.
Created by one of the Brisbane bar’s former staff, the Tip of the Hat came about because they were looking for “a good stir-down, basic bourbon-based cocktail that packs a punch,” says Geaney. The balance of flavours was really the main focus”. It is a delicate task to craft a drink that has both “rich, chocolatey flavours” and “a crazy coconut flavour”.
The end result is a drink that consistently surprises The Gresham’s customers. With its blend of bourbon, cherry liqueur, chocolate bitters, port and Southeast Asian plant pandan, it’s also “a very Christmassy drink,” he says. “To be honest, I don’t think we intended it to be.”
We asked Geaney to share the bar’s recipe, below, so you can make one at home.
What you need
INGREDIENTS
45ml Maker’s Mark bourbon
10ml pandan syrup
10ml Cherry Heering liqueur
5ml Galway Pipe port
2 dashes chocolate bitters
Pandan flag to garnish
STEP ONE: MAKE FRIENDS WITH PANDAN
Before you can make a Tip of the Hat, you need to make pandan syrup. That involves buying pandan, which will require you to venture beyond your local chain supermarket. “Pandan isn’t the easiest thing to get your hands on,” Geaney says. “You may have to dig a little bit to find it.” He recommends heading to an independent seller or farmers’ market.
The big tip with pandan is once you’ve found it “you don’t need much”. Geaney says, “You can buy a couple of leaves, shred it up, then put it into the syrup and that’ll create a large batch, so you can make it for the entire season.”
As for making the syrup itself, combine equal parts sugar and hot water on the stove, then add the shredded pandan. From there, you just need to stir it together and let it reduce to your desired flavour.
The technique
STEP TWO: MAKE A TIP OF THE HAT
“It’s a stir-down cocktail, so first you’ll need a stirring glass,” says Geaney. Now that you have pandan syrup on hand, making a Tip of the Hat is as easy as combining the required ingredients.
If you’re wondering about sourcing cherry liqueur and Galway Pipe, you’ll find them at your local bottle shop — alongside Maker’s Mark. You can substitute any port, he says, but Galway Pipe is one of the only ports The Gresham stocks. “I don’t drink a lot of port, but it’s very nice.”
Another suggestion from Geaney: you also can switch chocolate bitters for black walnut. “You’ll get similar kinds of flavours coming through.”
Stir, strain and serve
“Stir all the ingredients, then strain it out over a Nick & Nora glass — no ice,” says Geaney.
“Then, cut flags of pandan leaves,” he says. “It creates a nice little garnish that you can smell when you bring the glass up to your nose. It really helps bring out the flavours.”
The pairing
Even if you’re planning to sip a Tip of the Hat after a meal, you might still be thinking about pre-dinner snacks. “As it has rich, Christmassy flavours — chocolates, cherries and bourbon — you’ll want something with a strong taste,” says Geaney. He suggests blue cheese or heavy bries, or any other type of cheese with a very distinct flavour.
“Salty foods also work well,” he notes. “And toasted sandwiches, which is what we do, go really well with it too.”
If all this talk of chocolate and cherries has you thinking of dessert, that’s understandable. “It’s definitely a nightcap,” says Geaney. “It’s one of those drinks that, when you’re starting to wind down for the night and thinking of heading home, it’s a perfect drink to finish up on.”
Find out more about Maker’s Mark, here.
All images: Millie Tang.