Autumnal Gin Fizz with pear and vanilla
Imagine yourself sitting in your favorite bar on a cool autumn evening, ordering a true classic. The Gin Fizz has been a staple on good cocktail menus for ages. We're giving this timeless drink a seasonal update, bringing that bar feeling right to your home.
- 200g pears
- 120 ml water
- 100 g sugar
- 1 vanilla bean
- ice cubes
- 80 ml Gin
- 4 tbsp pear-vanilla syrup
- 2 tsp lemon juice
- 360 ml sparkling water
- Wash the pear, remove the core and cut it into small pieces.
- Place the pear in a small saucepan, add water, sugar and the vanilla pod, and heat everything over medium heat.
- Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 5-8 minutes, until the liquid turns amber and the pears are cooked down.
- Stir the pear while cooking to ensure it cooks evenly.
- Remove the pear and vanilla puree from the heat, remove the vanilla pod, and filter the resulting syrup into a container with a spout.
- Allow the syrup to cool to room temperature before use.
- For the pear and vanilla gin fizz, place ice cubes in two glasses. Add 40 ml of gin and 2 tablespoons of pear and vanilla syrup to each, along with 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, and whisk everything together. Tip: This works particularly well with a long-handled bar spoon 🛒.
- Fill with sparkling water and stir gently again.
- Garnish your Gin Fizz with pear pieces and a vanilla pod for stirring, if desired.
Recipe for Gin Fizz with pear and vanilla
To truly understand the drink, a brief look at cocktail history is worthwhile. The Gin Fizz is essentially a classic sour. This drink category is always based on three fundamental elements: a spirit, an acidic component such as freshly squeezed lemon juice, and a sweet ingredient, usually simple syrup. The unique aspect of the Fizz is the addition of carbonated water at the end. The soda water provides the characteristic fizz and gives the cocktail its name.
The key to our drink lies in the preparation. To ensure the flavors are optimally distributed in the ice-cold cocktail, we first prepare a flavored syrup. For our pear-vanilla syrup, we gently simmer water and sugar, then add fresh pear pieces and real vanilla. Ripe and aromatic pear varieties like Williams Christ are particularly well-suited for this. Once the syrup has cooled, you have a wonderful base that you can also use for non-alcoholic lemonades.
Pour the pear and vanilla gin fizz through a bar strainer into a tall highball glass, ideally also filled with fresh ice. Want even more gin fizz ideas? Then try mixing a peach and rosemary fizz, a pineapple fizz, or a rose fizz.
