SpiritedLA Original Cocktail: The Covey

One of the harsh realities of living with a cocktail obsession is that I’m rarely awake on weekends before 1 PM. Friday nights are just too much fun, so on Saturday mornings I’m generally not fit for much but whining.  However, last weekend I was miraculously up in time to hit the local farmer’s market and found all kinds of inspiring cocktail ingredients that came together to make The Covey.

After picking up fresh lavender, quail eggs, meyer lemons, and blood oranges I headed back to the kitchen and got to work.

First up, I wanted to make a lavender syrup with the fresh lavender. I began by picking off the lavender buds from the stalks (without including the parts that had flowered) until I reached two full tablespoons.

To make the syrup, I added the following to a small saucepan:

• 2 tablespoons lavender buds
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of water

I brought all ingredients to a slow simmer, stirring frequently, and then let it continue to simmer for five full minutes.

After five minutes, I twice strained the syrup through a fine mesh strainer to remove the buds, and then let the syrup cool to room temperature.

While waiting for the syrup to cool, I juiced the blood oranges and meyer lemons. Word to the wise, blood oranges aren’t as juicy as their navel counterparts so make sure to grab a few more than you normally would of regular oranges.

After extracting one and a half ounces of blood orange juice and one teaspoon of meyer lemon, I added them to a shaker along with an ounce and a half of Buffalo Trace bourbon, four dashes of Scrappy’s Orleans bitters, three quarters of an ounce of my homemade lavender syrup, and finally, three quarters of an ounce of quail egg whites. The membranes of these small eggs are very thick which made this job a bit tricky (it was made harder by my reluctance to destroy something as beautiful as these tiny speckled eggs TBH).

I added the lid to the shaker and gave the mixture a dry shake (a dry shake is when you shake a shaker before adding ice– this allows the egg whites to achieve their velvety-soft texture) and I shook it vigorously for thirty seconds. After this, I threw in some ice and shook it for another twenty seconds or so before straining the final product into the glass and garnishing it with a fresh lavender sprig and sliver of blood orange. It was now done and ready to drink.

The Covey:

• 1.5 oz Buffalo Trace bourbon
• .75 oz quail egg white
• .75 oz lavender syrup (recipe and instructions above)
• 1.5 oz blood orange juice
• 1 tsp meyer lemon juice
• 4 dashes Scrappy’s Orleans bitters
• Garnished with blood orange sliver and lavender