On a recent trip to Las Vegas (Kid Rock in Vegas) for a Red Stag event celebrating the brand's partnership with Kid Rock and Operation Homefront, I was introduced to Master Mixologist Bobby Gleason, better known to the cocktail world as "Bobby G". Bobby's been tending bar and crafting signature drinks since 1984, when he started his cocktail career in the fast-paced nightclubs of South Florida. He soon moved on to Las Vegas, where he's opened bars at some of the most prestigious hotels on the strip.
We were poolside at the Hard Rock, sampling various cocktails made great by Red Stag by Jim Beam, when Bobby blew us away with wild concoctions that included everything from applesauce to pomegranate seeds, each tasting better than the last. Bobby went one step further for CraveOnline, doing us the honor of putting together a specialty drink using Red Stag as its core building block. He called this succulent concoction the Red Crave, and it tastes every bit as delicious as it looks.
Red Crave
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1 1/2 oz Red Stag by Jim Beam
3/4 oz Dekuyper's pomegranate
2 oz Blood Orange soda
When you're building a cocktail you're adding the parts in the glass you'll serve, over the ice in the drink, with soda at the finish. If you prefer a shaken cocktail, you'd use blood orange juice instead of soda. Add the juice, the pomegranate, Red Stag, then shake & strain. Serve in a chilled cocktail glass. The result is a smooth, sweet and surprisingly complex cocktail that's great by the pool or out with friends.
Here's a closer look at the mixmaster wizardry of Bobby G:
Red Stag is a specialty whiskey that puts a spin on the unique Jim Beam bourbon flavor that people have been mixing for over 200 years. It infuses natural black cherry flavors into 4-year-old bourbon for a taste that's sweeter than the Jim Beam you're used to, with the same great elements that bourbon drinkers have come to expect from the Jim Beam brand. The depth of flavors added to make the Red Stag is surprisingly sophisticated, a definite departure from the artificial flavor-house additives other brands rely on.
Even brand ambassador Fred Noe, a great-grandson of Jim Beam, sees the tinkering with a time-tested Kentucky tradition as a positive way to lure new customers.
"The bourbon purists might think it's a little too sweet," Noe said during an event touting Red Stag at Beam's Clermont distillery in central Kentucky. "But for somebody who is not a big fan of bourbon, this may be an opportunity for them to enjoy bourbon in a little different way."
The 80-proof Red Stag by Jim Beam, as the product is formally called, was a centerpiece of Jim Beam's successful partnership with Operation Homefront and Kid Rock to assist the well-being of military men & women and their families. A noble cause for an ideal partnership, made that much sweeter by Red Stag by Jim Beam.
