Fun fact: March is "Maple Month" in our fair state. For farmers, that means extra work tapping trees all over, and for you it means new excuses to drink sweet-ish cocktails that embrace the bounty of their labor. Behold our definitive guide to the area's best maple syrup-infused libations—as well as where to wrap your sticky hands around them.
Afternoons spent stomping around Government Center, with its brick and concrete dreariness, require a little sugary spirit-booster. So the good barkeeps at Woodward muddle up a pile of fresh strawberries, basil, Vermont maple syrup and bourbon in a shaker tin before gently pouring it over crushed ice in a highball glass. Dreariness over.
Drinking around Kenmore Square usually means endless pints of beer. But when you're hunting for a break from the suds, look to Eastern Standard's barpeople, who mix Navy-strength rum (high proof, pot-distilled and aged for years in American bourbon barrels in Jamaica and England) with lemon, bitters and Grade A maple syrup. Perfect after a Sox game.
You're always trying to get your girlfriend to learn the pleasures of 12-year-old Scotch. If diving right into the two-finger tumbler is too aggressive, Morton's bar gods take 12-year-old Macallan and add egg yolk, cream, top-shelf maple syrup and peanut butter. Then they shake the hell out of it and strain it over ice. Think of it as baby steps to going neat.
Say you're joining that friend of yours who's a PhD candidate at BC for a little late-night "study" session. The Metropolitan Club shakes up dark and light rum with a fresh banana, pineapple juice and—of course—sweet, sweet maple syrup. Should bubbly be in order, rest easy—it even comes with a fresh Prosecco crown.
The Adirondacks call to mind tough mountain men and loggers requiring strong hooch and stacks of flapjacks. So Trina's aptly named cocktail mixes homemade-butter-infused bourbon with fresh maple syrup for the Paul Bunyan in you. One strike against its machismo quotient: it's served in a martini glass.
No cocktail list—maple syrupy or not—would be complete without a vodka entry. And proving it really does mix with anything, the Boston Harbor Hotel offers you a crazy libation combining vodka, fresh sage, peach bitters, lemon juice and a dollop of high-grade maple syrup. Served shaken and in a chilled martini glass. Just like Bond takes his maple syrup.
