Chilled Drink of the Week: Tiergarten Tea

All Natural Mixmasters with Bärenjäger Honey Liqueur

While I was living abroad I made a trip to Berlin in the fall and one memory still vividly sticks with me. The leaves were changing and falling, there was a refreshing crisp to the air and I had a simple meal of soup, salad and an ice cold beer outside in Tiergarten Park. There was no one thing that stood out, but the sweet harmony between many different things that made an impact.

For my cocktail the Bärenjäger Honey Bourbon acts as the backbone of the drink and represents that harmony of flavors. From there I chose gin to represent the damp, autumnal landscape; crushed ice for the crispness in the air and the berries and lemon to add a refreshing flavor. I topped it off with a float of a nice peaty scotch to add a touch of smoke to represent the ever-present smell of fires in the fall.

Tiergarten Tea cocktail

Tiergarten Tea

Photo Courtesy Kyle Darrow

Tiergarten Tea

By Kyle Darrow

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 oz. Bärenjäger Honey Bourbon
  • 3/4 oz. Gin
  • 1/4 oz. Lemon
  • 1/4 oz. Islay Scotch
  • 5 ct Blackberries

Preparation: Combine all ingredients except Scotch into a shaking tin with ice. Shake well and strain into a beer stein filled with crushed ice. Reusing the same “dirty” tin add scotch and re-shake vigorously to get a rough crush of the ice. Pour entire tin into stein to top off the cocktail.


Kyle Darrow - CHILLED 100 Member, Philadelphia

Kyle Darrow – CHILLED 100 Member, Philadelphia

Photo Courtesy Kyle Darrow

Meet Kyle Darrow

CHILLED 100 Member, Philadelphia

I started bartending at a small neighborhood restaurant. They stuck me behind the stick because of my personality, even though I had zero beverage knowledge. Luckily it was the sort of place where if you weren’t there one or two nights a week, you weren’t considered a regular. Those kinds of guests allowed me to try a lot of things and make mistakes, and my pride drove me to become better.

As the Lead Bartender for the Red Owl Tavern inside Kimpton’s Monaco Hotel in downtown Philly, I’m now with a great company that allows me to be creative. Plus the hotel setting allows me to meet a ton of interesting people, which is really what gets you through the day to day.

Personally I am married to my wife Jessica and we have two kids, Miles (a 3 year old boy) and Ruby (a 1 year old girl). Travel and food are our passions. Miles was on 12 planes before he turned a year old, and we’re planning more trips now that we have juggling two kids and two jobs down. We live in the Bella Vista neighborhood of Philadelphia, just a block away from the famous Italian Market and most of our time is spent on our daily walks around the city and playing with the kids.