My recent posts were about whisky, bourbon and gin. As is known, all these ones aren’t native to Russia. So now I’m about to revert to ingredients which are widespread and favorite in Russia. I’m talking about vodka and apple juice.

Not long ago I’ve been given three bottles of homemade apple juice. It was pressed, then sterilized and bottled immediately without adding sugar. It was in autumn, and now after six months in dark cellar the juice became clear.

Tasted, it has no differences with freshly pressed apple juice and seems slightly more concentrated.

Sipping the juice, I was browsing and trying to find some proper cocktails with apple juice. My search was successful, and below is one of that recipes. It’s called Red Apple.

A source for this recipe, CocktailDB is my favorite place to find something interesting and new for me. There are cocktails’ recipes which are so simple and clear that no any adaptation is needed. Just use the best ingredients you can find and follow the recipe. And Red Apple is the same.

• 30 ml 50% ABV vodka (Danzka Vodka),
• 30 ml apple juice,
• 15 ml fresh lemon juice,
• 15 ml grenadine (homemade),
• 1 dash orange bitters.

Shake with ice and strain into cocktail glass.

List of ingredients speaks for itself, it makes it possible to predict the flavour.

Definitely Red Apple cocktail inherits the taste of its mixer, apple juice. Sweet and tart, it benefits from vodka backing becoming deeper and brighter. Grenadine keeps sour balance while lemon creates fine bitter note in aftertaste. But the main thing in aftertaste is the apple flavour too.

One exclusion I made is orange bitters. The first version was without bitters. The second was with orange tincture combined with a dash of Angostura bitters. And the third was with my experimental orange bitters based on Regan’s No.5 recipe. The one difference the second and the third versions have is more tart and sharp finish.