How Breezy Flood Savors the Moment with Four Roses Single Barrel
Words by Colleen McNally Arnett
Photos by Vlad Levine
Nationally recognized bartender, beverage director, and spirits educator Breezy Flood knows that creating an original cocktail is as much an art form as a scientific formula. “I really love playing with flavors and making delicious things,” he says. When one of Chicago’s top restaurant groups opened a new concept in the city’s vibrant River West neighborhood inspired by the old-world charm of London's classic cocktail scene, Flood stepped in to build the bar program from scratch. With a lot of freedom and little direction, he looked everywhere and anywhere for inspiration.
Flood shares about his creative process: “Sometimes an idea starts with a food or bottle of wine. Sometimes it’s a technical thing I want to attack and showcase.”
Other times, an idea just appears to him. “I’ve joked they just come from the ether, but I think honestly it’s from all the years of tasting, traveling, reading, and paying attention to the world around me. Your brain definitely collects all of these things, and eventually these unrelated ideas come together and click.” That notion is at the heart of his latest concoction, Borrowed Time, which brings together ingredients gleaned from disparate corners of the globe — such as Four Roses Single Barrel from Kentucky alongside green plums from Korea.
Here’s how he makes it:
Borrowed Time
Ingredients:
2 ounces Four Roses Single Barrel
½ ounce allspice liqueur
¾ ounce Korean green plum (Maesil Cheong) syrup (Note: He makes his own at the bar, but notes that good versions can be found at Asian and specialty grocery stores or online.)
½ ounce fresh lemon juice
3 drops curry bitters
Pinch of salt
Garnish: Mint bouquet and expressed orange peel
Directions:
Add all ingredients to a shaker.
Add ice and shake to combine and chill.
Fill a footed tumbler glass or highball glass halfway with pebble ice.
Strain into the glass of choice. Top with more pebble ice.
Garnish with a mint bouquet, express the peel over the drink, and discard.
Anchoring this cocktail is Four Roses’ award-winning Single Barrel bourbon, a 100-proof expression aged 8 to 10 years and individually hand-selected by Master Distiller Brent Elliott.
With a nose of dried spice, cocoa, vanilla, and maple syrup and a palate of ripe stone fruit, the finish is rounded, rich, delicately long, and unbelievably mellow. It’s a sip worthy of lingering over. Flood chose ingredients to reveal more of the spirit, not hide it. As a self-proclaimed “big rye fan,” he reaches for Four Roses for its extra high-rye mash bill, which gives it a distinct spiciness.
“I was also borrowing things from all over — the green plum from Asia, the allspice, the curry bitters,” Flood adds. While they may be pulled together from different corners of the world, there is beauty in how they blend once shaken up together. There’s another meaning behind the drink’s name, too. “We’re all on borrowed time, obviously,” Flood explains, so we might as well enjoy the moment. That’s why he designed this cocktail for weekends, vacation, or after any long day when you just need to unwind, put your feet up, and watch the sunset.
Poured into a footed tumbler or highball glass with plenty of pebble ice, this refresher is topped with a bouquet of fresh mint and expressed orange. The only thing missing is a chaise lounge.
x
This article is sponsored by Four Roses Bourbon.
