Yesterday we met Richie Moe, the bartender savant who mixes the drinks at Scottsdale's newest spot, Citizen Public House. Today he shares with us the recipe for the Citi-Zen.
"It fits into our name -- it's the Citi-Zen. It's our Zen City martini," Moe says. "It's a simple cocktail but it tastes phenomenal."
Clever, right? Citizen uses their own house-made sweet and sour, which you can easily replicate by mixing 12 ounces of lemon juice, 18 ounces of water and ¼ cup of sugar.
"Your sweet and sour should taste like more bitter lemonade," Moe says.
The ingredients:
2 ½ - 3 oz. Absolut Pear vodka
1 oz Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur
1 ½ oz. homemade sweet and sour mix
Long, thin strip of lemon peel
Swizzle stick
How to make it:
Pour vodka, ginger liqueur and sweet and sour into an ice filled shaker. Give it a good shake and strain into a chilled martini glass. Take the lemon peel and twist over the glass, allowing the oils to fall on the liquid (Moe tip: "Not only does the lemon twist look really cool, but you can also see the oils come right off the lemon. Zest it right over the glass to get a bit of that lemon oil in there and give it a really good lemon flavor."). Garnish with the lemon twist and a stick of rock candy, which you can swirl around in the glass if it needs sweetening.
