I grew up in Upstate New York, outside Syracuse, so fall means apples for me. So we’re switching gears from last month’s Smashes to talk about all the fun ways you can incorporate apples into your fall cocktails. We’re starting with a play on the classic apple-based Jack Rose cocktail with a fun and bubbly Jane Rose. – Andrew

Illustration by Shauna Lynn for Oh So Beautiful Paper

The Jane Rose

2 oz Bourbon Whiskey
1 oz Lemon Juice
1 oz Grenadine
Sparkling Apple Cider

Combine the bourbon, lemon juice, and grenadine in a cocktail shaker filled two-thirds with ice and shake well. Strain into a chilled coupe glass and top with sparkling apple cider. Enjoy!

The Jane Rose swaps out the Jack Rose’s apple brandy for bourbon and instead incorporates apples through the sparkling cider. This version still has the original’s brightly tart fruit flavors and rich, oaky backbone, and adds in a fizzy effervescence from the cider that makes this a fun party drink.

Sparkling cider comes in a lot of forms. Some are basically just carbonated apple juices, minimally fermented with some champagne yeast. (I once accidentally made some of this by leaving a bottle of apple juice in the fridge for too long.) Some are fully fermented, with alcohol contents comparable to beers. These tend to be drier, so which one you use will have a big effect on how your drink turns out. A sparkling cider will be much sweeter, so use a bit less grenadine, and have no effect on the proof of your drink. A hard cider will be much drier, so use a bit more grenadine, and will bump up the alcohol content of your drink. So plan accordingly.

(Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, where we’ve been posting our experiments before they make their way onto this column!)

Glassware by Liquorary

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper