Product: Stirrings 60 Petals Rose and Basil Essence Producer: Stirrings Approximate Retail Value: $5 Category: Mixers Country of Origin: USA Reviewer: R. Pietsch The F Words: Flavor – Cane sugary sweet. Feel – Denser than it should be. Finish – Brief and a little confusing.

Rating:

So Memorial Day has come and gone and summer’s basically here. It’s the time of year for cookouts and parties. There’s your beer and margaritas and the like—all staples—but, people are always looking for new ways to shake up a decent cocktail.

Here’s Stirrings to bring us some refreshing ideas in cocktails. Their essences include an interesting variety of floral flavors to give your old vodka cocktails a facelift. Imagine for a second a rose-flavored martini. Well now all you need is a quick trip to your favorite spirit shop and you need imagine no further. Stirrings has done all the work for you (save the mixing, shaking and straining).

How are they? They’re interesting. For this, we sampled 60 Petals Rose and Basil both very spring/summer oriented. First, we followed the portions on the bottle exactly, and then we began to experiment on our own.

When mixed with decent vodka, it’s honestly a little difficult to tell exactly what you’re drinking. If you poured it and knew it was basil, you’d probably be able to put your finger on it. But, if you were just handed this as a random, slightly foggy martini-like drink, you’d be a bit confused. If you’ve read our feature with the founder of Stirrings, you know they pride themselves on using only the highest quality ingredients. However, in the battle for dominant flavor in these cocktails, the pure cane sugar is the winner.

This is not to say that these are in any way bad drinks. A little bit goes a long way and you might be surprised with the things you could do with these. With the floral features taking a backseat, you don’t have to worry about offsetting an already well-balanced drink. Think of replacing an ingredient like simple syrup, or grenadine with one of these and you should be in the clear. Our favorites were the 60 Petals Rose in a Cape Cod with a splash of soda, and using the Basil to replace the sugar/simple syrup in our Mojito. While you might not spend an evening downing Basil Essence Cosmopolitans, these products are certainly good for adding a little perplexity to your tired old cocktails.