Have a cuppa tea in your summer cocktails

A glance at the calendar would indicate it’s the beginning of iced tea season — but the weather isn’t cooperating perfectly.

In May, I started testing iced tea cocktails, trying to magical-drink the weather into collaborating — to “tea up” spring, if you will. Surely, I thought, that sunny season will show up any day now?

Instead, it came through like blocked pay-per-view channels, in brief and frustrating bursts of color.

I could claim to have grown up with tea, but it’s more truthful to say that, thanks to my dad’s job in the Foreign Service, I grew up around it without ever managing to pick up the habit.

It wasn’t until college, when I spent a year in the U.K. — where a cuppa is offered as a soothing remedy for everything including a stressful commute and a death in the family — that I drank tea at all. Even then, the main attraction was its chubby wingman: a scone smeared with strawberry jam and clotted cream.

Through cocktails, I’ve come to be an appreciator of tea. It falls right under bitters on my list of ways to add flavor without adding much alcohol or sugar.

I like how preparing teas is both similar to and different from making cocktails. Like a good drink, a good cup of tea requires precision. The proper extraction of flavors in tea is a matter of careful measurement of time and temperatures. Over-steep a finicky leaf and you can wind up with a cup of bitter, aggressively vegetal unpleasantness, barely recognizable.

Maybe it’s odd that my primary sense memory of tea is from my parents’ roots in the Deep South, where you can’t throw a grit without hitting iced tea, most of it so sweet it’ll make your teeth itch.

Those sweet teas were on my mind when I developed the accompanying Porchard recipe, adding other fruits of the South — specifically, bourbon and peaches. It tastes like a Southern summer. The lemon adds a nice, fresh note, but I like the cleanness of the tea and bourbon without it, too.

Surely once we all start drinking things like the Porchard, the weather has got to take the hint.

The Porchard

This Southern-inflected sipper will be best when you can use fresh, ripe peaches. But even unripe peaches with a good fragrance will work. The lemon juice brings brightness; omit it if you’re looking for a drink that more closely echoes a classic Southern sweet tea.

Make ahead: The bourbon needs to infuse for a day or two in advance; the infused bourbon can be refrigerated for up to a few weeks.

3 cups chilled black tea

1½ cups peach-infused bourbon (see notes)

6 ounces fresh lemon juice (from 2 lemons; optional)

6 to 12 ounces Demerara syrup (see notes)

Ice

Mint sprigs, for garnish

Combine the tea, peach-infused bourbon and lemon juice, if using, in a large pitcher. Add 6 ounces of the Demerara syrup, then taste; add some or all of the remaining syrup as needed. Refrigerate until well chilled.

When ready to serve, fill 4 glasses with ice. Take sprigs of mint, slap each one between your palms (to release the herb’s oils) and add one sprig to each glass. Pour the drink over the ice to fill.

Notes: To make the peach-infused bourbon, place 12 ounces of peeled, sliced fresh peaches in a bowl and cover with 1½ cups of bourbon. Allow to infuse for 24 to 48 hours, then strain, pressing on the peaches to release any remaining liquids. Discard the solids.

To make the Demerara syrup, combine 1 ½ cups of Demerara or turbinado sugar and 1 ½ cups of water in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Cook for a few minutes, then turn off the heat. Cool completely before using or storing (for up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator).

4 servings. Nutrition per serving: 330 calories, 0 g protein, 28 g carbohydrates, 0 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 0 mg sodium, 0 g dietary fiber, 26 g sugar

Summer Suzie

Subtle, floral and lightly bittersweet, this drink incorporates chamomile tea with the sun-hued, gentian-based aperitif Suze.

1 cup chilled chamomile tea

4 ounces Old Tom Gin

2 ounces Suze brand aperitif liqueur

2 ounces dry curacao

Ice

4 twists of lemon peel, for garnish

Combine the tea, gin, Suze and curaçao in a pitcher, then stir.

Fill 4 highball glasses with ice and divide the drink among them. Express a piece of lemon peel over the surface of each drink, then drop the peel in; or roll the peels, skewer them with cocktail picks and rest one across the rim of each glass.

4 servings. Nutrition per serving: 120 calories, 0 g protein, 4 g carbohydrates, 0 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 0 mg sodium, 0 g dietary fiber, 3 g sugar

La Bergamote Juste

Gin and Earl Grey tea go beautifully together. The bergamot — bergamote in France — in the tea complements the botanicals of the gin in this crisp, refreshing drink.

Ice

3 ounces chilled Earl Grey tea

1½ ounces citrusy gin, such as Tanqueray 10 or Malfy

¾ ounce honey syrup (see note)

½ ounce fresh lemon juice

1 to 2 ounces tonic water

Twist of grapefruit or orange peel, for garnish

Fill a highball glass with ice. Add the chilled Earl Grey tea, gin, honey syrup and lemon juice, then stir. Top with the tonic water as needed.

Twist/express the citrus peel over the top of the drink, then drop it in.

Note: To make the honey syrup, dissolve ¼ cup of honey in ¼ cup of boiling water, stirring until the honey has dissolved. Cool completely before using.

1 serving. Nutrition per serving: 170 calories, 0 g protein, 17 g carbohydrates, 0 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 5 mg sodium, 0 g dietary fiber, 16 g sugar

High Tea

This simple, delicious concoction highlights oolong tea. To make a crowd-size batch, multiply the ingredient amounts by the number of servings you want, mix in a pitcher and refrigerate until ready to serve, then pour over ice.

Make ahead: The rich simple syrup can be refrigerated indefinitely in an airtight container.

Ice

2 ounces brewed, chilled oolong tea

1½ ounces Laird’s Applejack

½ ounce chilled rich simple syrup (see NOTE)

2 dashes orange bitters

Fill a highball glass with ice. Combine the chilled tea, applejack, rich simple syrup and orange bitters in a mixing glass, stirring to incorporate. Pour into the highball glass.

Note: To make a rich simple syrup, combine 1 cup of sugar and ½ cup of water in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Bring to a low boil, then cool. Transfer to a heatproof container. Once it has cooled to room temperature, cover tightly and refrigerate until chilled through; store indefinitely.

1 serving. Nutrition per serving: 140 calories, 0 g protein, 12 g carbohydrates, 0 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 0 mg sodium, 0 g dietary fiber, 12 g sugar

Adapted from Chris Jakubowski, bar manager at Slipstream in Washington, D.C.

I Love Humanity

This is from bartender Chantal Tseng’s weekly series of cocktail events at the Reading Room in D.C., featuring drinks inspired by various authors. The roastiness of the barley tea and the richness of apple brandy and bourbon bring depth to the drink.

Barley tea is caffeine-free. It is available in Asian markets and at some specialty tea shops. Allspice dram is an allspice-flavored liqueur, available in D.C. at Ace Beverage, MacArthur Beverages and Batch 13. Maraschino liqueur is not the juice from maraschino cherries.

Ice

1 ounce brewed chilled barley tea (see headnote)

¾ ounce apple brandy (such as Copper &Kings or Laird’s)

¾ ounce bourbon

¼ ounce allspice dram (see headnote)

¼ ounce maraschino liqueur

¼ ounce fresh lemon juice

Whole nutmeg, for garnish

Fill a mixing glass with ice, then add the barley tea, apple brandy, bourbon, allspice dram, maraschino liqueur and lemon juice; stir until well chilled. Strain and pour into a chilled rocks glass.

Use a microplane zester to grate a little fresh nutmeg over the top.

1 serving. Nutrition per serving: 190 calories, 0 g protein, 13 g carbohydrates, 0 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 0 mg sodium, 0 g dietary fiber, 9 g sugar

Adapted from Chantal Tseng, bartender at the Reading Room