Caramel Apple-tini

To me, Fall means apples.  It also means everywhere you look you will find something flavored with pumpkin (I’ll try a pumpkin cocktail later).  For today’s ‘tini, it’s apples!  A Caramel Apple-tini to be exact!

I’m sure if you look in your local liquor store, there will be several different brands of vodka flavored like a caramel apple. So if you want to make it easy on yourself, go ahead and buy a bottle of caramel apple vodka, or caramel vodka, and combine it with apple juice and you’re done.  But to me, that’s too easy and not very creative.  And, I don’t know about you, but sometimes an entire bottle of a flavored vodka that is only used in one drink is just too much and sits.  So for this martini I used regular Absolute Vodka, which I always have stocked in my bar.  To get the caramel apple flavor I added apple cider, apple liqueur, and caramel ice cream syrup.  I figured the ice cream syrup was pretty much just like flavored simple syrup.  The apple liqueur I used is Berentzen Apple Liqueur.  You could use Sour Apple Pucker if you like. For a comparison, I made one with Sour Apple Pucker and another with Berentzen Apple Liqueur.  I preferred the Berentzen Apple Liqueur.  Sour apple pucker was a bit more…sour!  But you could use it in a pinch, or any other brand of apple liqueur.

Hope you enjoy all the goodies of Fall and my Caramel Apple-tini for your Hump Day Happy Hour!