We’re always looking for new wine cocktails to add to Cocktail Party, but good ones are few and far between. Wine – especially red wine – is a tricky ingredient to incorporate into a well-balanced drink, and it takes a skilled mixologist to make it work.
When we first found the Stormy Weather recipe in the archives of the Spirits column over at The Washington Post, we had our doubts. At first glance, it’s all over the place – wine and rum and ginger and agave? Would any of those things even go together, we wondered?
Lucky for us, mixologist Trudy Thomas at the Camelback Inn in Scottsdale, Arizona knows what’s she’s doing. The result is a lovely ruby-red jewel of a drink, dominated by fruit and rum flavors with a hint of wine on the finish. Thomas developed this recipe specifically for Yellow Tail’s own Shiraz blend, but it’s excellent with any full-bodied, fruity red wine.