In the gallery of gulps, cocktails should be the main exhibits. But sugar and additives loom like vandals with black markers. For pure cocktail creativity, discover tea infusions. Here the art is organoleptic, with original flavours, easy preparation, and guilt-free enjoyment.
Be warned – once you master the jaw-dropping tea cocktails in this article, you may end up chained to the bar like a drink-mixing Cinderella. Embrace it, or keep your alchemy discreet.
How to make tea cocktails
There are two stages: infusing the spirit with tea, then mixing the drinks. If you have any questions, see our tea cocktail FAQ down the page.
Equipment:
- Funnel
- Strainer
- An empty bottle
- (Or for small batches: An empty mini mason jar)
You’ll also need:
- Atlas & Eden organic tea
- Your choice of spirit
- Nexba sugar-free mixers
- Ice
- Various garnishes (see recipes)
Step 1 : Add tea to the spirit
- Using a funnel, add 1 tablespoon of loose leaf tea per 100mL of spirits. Shake well.
Step 2 : Leave it
- Let it steep at room temperature for 1-2 hours.
Step 3 : Steep in the fridge (optional)
- Most infusions will be pretty good after step 2, so what you do from here depends on the tea and your preferences. Perform any further steeping in the fridge. Our preferred fridge steep times are:
- Peruvian Dinner Mint 18hrs
- Elba Island 12hrs
- Blue Beauty 18hrs
- Wildflower Immunity 18hrs
- Lapsang Souchong 12hrs
Step 4 : Discard tea leaves
- After the desired steep time, you need to remove the tea leaves. Pour the infusion into another bottle/jar via a funnel and strainer.
Step 5 : Mix your cocktails!
- Now you’re ready to use your spirit infusion to make cocktails. Read on for our favourite recipes…
Peruvian Dinner Mint
A pure alternative to sugary chocolate liqueurs
Alluring chocolatey cocktails are often a work of deception. The siren song is chocolate, but the sugar, additives, or lack of inventiveness leaves you lamenting that it wasn’t worth it. Our Peruvian Dinner Mint cocktail is built on authentic pillars of taste that feel light and coordinated, not syrupy. The tisane is roasted Peruvian cacao husk elevated with precision amounts of peppermint and spearmint, and you can take it with either scotch or vodka. Overall, it offers a refreshing and airy cacao experience that you just won’t find in a bar.
Ingredients
Peruvian Dinner Mint
Recommendation: Benromach Organic Scotch
Recommendation: Antipodes Organic Vodka
Made By Cow milk
Pyure Organic Maple Flavored Syrup, or Escuminac Organic Maple Syrup for the real thing
VanillaBazaar Organic vanilla extract
Fresh organic mintSteps
- To a cocktail shaker, add 1 shot of Peruvian Dinner Mint tea-infused spirit per intended number of cocktails.
- Also add ice, your milk of choice, 1 Tbsp organic maple syrup (or alternative), a few drops of vanilla extract + mint. Shake very well.
- Add ice to your glass.
- Pour shaker contents into your glass, letting through only the liquid.
- Garnish with fresh mint + a sprinkle of Peruvian Dinner Mint tea.
Enjoy!
Elba Island
Impossible flavours from an exotic syndicate
An Elba Island cocktail is for when “take me away” or “surprise me” is your only drink instruction. What you get is pure adventure. Madagascan vanilla bean, sweet orange peel and mint are the golden threads running through a malty trivium of Yunnan, palace Pu’er and roasted Peruvian cacao husk. Inspired by ultimate escape, the swirling flavours have a unique valence difficult to put into words. We’ll just say that to us, it tastes like fun beneath sun and stars. Definitely one to try.
Ingredients
Elba IslandRecommendation: Antipodes Organic Vodka
Nexba Classic Tonic Water
Fresh organic orange
Fresh organic lime
Organic cucumber peelFresh organic mintVanillaBazaar Organic vanilla extractSteps
- Add ice to your glass.
- Add 1 shot of Elba Island tea-infused spirit.
- Add a fresh slice of orange, lime + cucumber.
- Fill with Nexba Classic Tonic Water.
- Add 3 or 4 drops of organic Madagascan vanilla extract (with seeds), then stir well.
- Garnish with fresh mint.
Enjoy!
Blue Beauty
A vodka apparition moving from Prussian-blue to icy amethyst
She’s pretty like an orchid. But don’t be fooled – this is very drinkable, and will lull you into the chill zone as if you’re an unsuspecting mark in a film noir con scene. She arrives sapphire thanks to butterfly pea flower, which inks the silver needle white tea, ginger and lemongrass. But adding the rose lemonade kombucha changes her to sparkling amethyst, and the pristine vodka cuts through a little too nicely. Made for skin, hair and eyes, Blue Beauty is all sophistication, and offers a cocktail that will turn heads anywhere.
Ingredients
Blue BeautyRecommendation: Antipodes Organic Vodka
Nexba Rose Kombucha Lemonade
Fresh organic lemonFresh organic mintSteps
- Add ice to your glass.
- Add 1 shot of Blue Beauty tea-infused spirit.
- Fill with Nexba Rose Lemonade Kombucha & stir well.
- Garnish with a slice of fresh lemon + mint.
Enjoy!
Wildflower Immunity
From provincial tisane to incandescent vodka jewel
Imagine ordering a drink and the bartender disappears into a forest and returns with this luminous elixir. Wildflower Immunity seems able to become anything you want it to be. With a handful of blueberries, sprig of rosemary and kombucha, it manages a cocktail of scarlet elegance. The tea ingredients are purposeful, offering true-blooded flavours that feel connected beyond the glass. To throw around an alternate cocktail name, ‘Free Chateau’ does it justice.
Ingredients
Wildflower ImmunityRecommendation: Antipodes Organic VodkaNexba Rose Kombucha Lemonade
Fresh or frozen organic blueberries
Fresh organic rosemarySteps
- To a cocktail shaker, add 1 shot of Wildflower Immunity tea-infused spirit per intended number of cocktails.
- Also add a handful of blueberries & shake very well.
- Add ice to your glass & pour in the entire shaker contents.
- Fill glass with Nexba Rose Lemonade Kombucha & stir.
- Garnish with a sprig of rosemary.
- Optional: Add more blueberries to serve.
Enjoy!
Lapsang Souchong
Whiskey and wilderness make for blazing executive decisions
Introducing the liquid equivalent of air lifting your mahogany desk to the peak of a mountain, where big bucks still have their heads attached, and real eagles perch next to your fountain pen which tilts toward you like Excalibur. It’s no surprise that the famed smokiness of Lapsang Souchong seems a natural born co-conspirator with scotch or bourbon whiskey. Apple and mint chime in like a diligent jade assistant letting you know that everything is in order, take the afternoon off. Enjoy your new trophy drink.
Ingredients
Lapsang SouchongRecommendation: Benromach Organic Scotch
Recommendation: King’s County BourbonNexba Classic Tonic WaterFresh organic mint
Fresh organic green appleOptional: VanillaBazaar organic vanilla extractSteps
- Add ice to your glass.
- Add 1 shot of Lapsang Souchong tea-infused spirit.
- Fill with Nexba Classic Tonic Water & stir well.
- Add slices of fresh green apple & mint.
- Optional: Add a few drops of organic Madagascan vanilla extract.
- Optional: Also tastes great on the rocks with less spirit-infusion time.
Enjoy!
Final thoughts
There you have it – guilt-free cocktails and new taste experiences. Show us your work on Instagram #atlasandeden #teacocktails #cocktails #tea (@atlas_and_eden).
FAQ: Tea cocktails
Use 1 Tbsp of tea for every 100mL of spirits. For example, to infuse a bottle of 750mL spirit, use 7-8 Tbps. To infuse smaller amounts of spirits, use a mini mason jar (180mL-260mL) is a good size.
No. Maceration involves breaking, dicing or crushing the ingredients in order to expose a larger surface area to the spirit, so that more flavour is transferred. ‘Infusion’ involves simply placing the botanicals in the spirit as they are.
We don’t recommend maceration when making these cocktails. Among other things, maceration speeds up the process too much and introduces more variables that are harder to replicate and control. It is simpler to use infusion steep time to control flavour extraction.
Steep times beyond 2 hours are best performed in the fridge because the lower temperature slows down the extraction process. This allows you to infuse the tea for longer, resulting in more flavour and colour, but without bitterness from over-steeping that occurs at higher temperatures.
Vodka has a ‘neutral’ taste and smell. The flavour and the colour of the tea is more true to itself in vodka. By definition, gin is flavoured, and is therefore not neutral. You can get more neutral gins, but gin botanicals may still compete or clash with the tea, as well as the mixers and garnishes. Feel free to try using gin – it is possible, and we’ve done it, but we haven’t provided any recipes for it yet. Blue Beauty works nicely with the right gin.
Our tea has no sugar added whatsoever, and we recommend Nexba sugar-free mixers. Of course, there are technically some traces of natural sugar from any garnishes used (e.g. a slice of apple/orange, blueberries, etc).
Yes. The higher the percentage of alcohol, the easier it is to extract the tea’s flavour, therefore you would infuse for less time to avoid over-steeping. For example, vodka is 30-40% alcohol, whereas gin is 40-50%, so you would need to factor this in.
Organic tea:
Spirit recommendations:
- Antipodes Organic Vodka – Doorstep Organics (NSW) | Antipodes
- Benromach Single Malt Organic Scotch Whisky – Doorstep Organics (NSW) | Dan Murphy’s
- Kings County Distillery Bourbon Whiskey – Doorstep Organics (NSW) | Dan Murphy’s
Sugar-free mixers:
We recommend Australian brand Nexba’s Classic Tonic Water (bottle), Lime, Cucumber & Mint Tonic Water (bottle), and Rose Kombucha Lemonade (glass bottle). Available from Nexba or major supermarkets.
Vanilla extract:
This organic Madagascan vanilla extract by VanillaBazaar is our favourite.
Maple syrup:
Sugar-free alternative: Pyure Organic Maple Flavoured Syrup The real thing, if you’re fine with traces of natural sugar: Escuminac Organic Maple Syrup ‘Late Harvest’.
Organic garnishes:
If you’re in NSW, we recommend We highly recommend Doorstep Organics.