This is one my business partner, Benjamin Amberg, came up with for our menu at Pacific Standard last year – and boy is it a good one.
It all started when the owner of a new non-alcoholic spirit company out of Seattle reached out to me and let me know he was coming to Portland and asked if I’d like to get together and try his new product. Now, ordinarily I get a lot of these requests but I’m usually too busy to take time out of my bar schedule to sit down and taste new products. But this was before the first bar opened, and after Clyde Common closed its doors, so I was technically in between jobs. So yeah, I’d love to get together and taste this one.
I gotta say, and I’m sure most of you are the same way – it’s pretty rare when I try a new product and it blows me away. I taste literally hundreds of new products every year, and so that really special combination of a product that not only tastes incredible but is also doing something new and exciting is honestly really hard to come by.
The Pathfinder is a hemp-based non-alcoholic spirit that drinks more like an amaro or a dark, spiced rum than your typical N/A spirits. I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve found a lot of those N/A spirits to really get lost when you try to mix them into a cocktail. A lot of them read more like delicately flavored water than a true non-alcoholic spirit to me, and adding anything else to them just buries the flavor and I’m left wondering why I spent $35 on something that isn’t contributing to the cocktail whatsoever.
But Pathfinder breaks that mold and we’ve been massive fans of it since we first tried it. I had been working on another drink using our own housemade non-alcoholic spirit (recipe to come) at the time, so I asked Benjamin if he had anything up his sleeve, and the Wandering Path was born. It’s been one of our biggest sellers at the bar and we’re super proud of it.
You can look at your specialty shops for The Pathfinder, or you can pick up a bottle from their website. Again, this drink is zero proof but if that’s not your thing I can attest to the fact that this recipe works quite well with alcoholic amari as well.
Wandering Path Print Me
- 2 oz/60 ml Pathfinder
- 1 oz/30 ml grapefruit juice
- ¾ oz/22.5 ml lemon juice
- ½ oz/15 ml 2:1 simple syrup
- ½ oz/15 ml egg white
- Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice cubes.
- Shake well until cold.
- Double-strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
- Serve without garnish.
Photo Credit: Carter Hiyama
Recipe printed courtesy of jeffreymorgenthaler.com
What would you use as a substitute for grapefruit juice? I know some folks that can’t have it due to some medication they’re on.
I wouldn’t suggest a substitute, I would suggest a different drink. I understand that some folks can’t have grapefruit but there’s nothing similar that works equally well.
The guys at Zig Zag introduced me to The Pathfinder, and I think it knocks the socks off any other non-alcoholic spirit I’ve had. This cocktail sounds delicious. I’m also imagining it made with Cynar.
Dear Jeff (& Banjo),
That is a beautiful cocktail.
I look forward my next visit out your way and in the meantime I will try my hand at making one and report back.
Sincerely,
Jacob
I’m just a home bartender, but these cocktail-looking-but-not-alcoholic cocktails are *always* very well received by abstaining guests. Aside from being refreshingly different to the sodas and juices that’re usually served to such guests, they also allow the guest to feel more included in the party, with a glass in hand indistinguishable from the non-teetotaling guests. This one looks fascinating, and I’ll be adding it to the rotation for sure.
Also, really enjoying the increased frequency of posts. Your content is outstanding.