Tonight will no doubt be filled with heaps of Halloween revelry for most, meaning the morning after can be pretty brutal. One of our favorite hangover cures has always been kombucha, the bubbly probiotic tea that's known to get your system straight.
And Health Ade's teas have had us form the word go. Their kombuchas use local seasonal produce like pink lady apple and plum, and their slightly sweet effervescense always keeps us going back for more.
One of our favorites is their staple flavor, cayenne ginger, which on its own is the ultimate hangover cure. It tastes a little bit like the master cleanse, with a spiciness that'll wake you and your system up in no time. It's so popular, in fact, that our local Whole Foods and Larchmont Farmers Market often sell out of it. Which lead us to the Beet flavor, which admittedly isn't our favorite on its own. But its sweet beet flavor makes for a fantastic cocktail, especially if you've got a tummy ache after all of your Halloween antics.
This kombucha cocktail will give your tummy a hit of probiotics as well as a little buzz. It has tummy-soothing, detoxifying ingredients like Angostura bitters, ginger cayenne simple syrup, and amaro—or an Italian digestif that's known to soothe the belly after ambitious meals.
We went with a cayenne ginger simple syrup to mimic the flavors of our favorite Cayenne Cleanse flavor form Health Aide, and the leftover simple can be mixed with some soda water for a pick me up any day of the week. If you can't find Health Ade near you, Synergy works just fine too. We imagine the original flavor or one of the berry versions would be good mixes for this combo.
Cardamaro was the easy spirit of choice, as it's kind of a gateway amaro because it has a wonderful sweetness and spiciness. You can find it at the Barkeeper in Silver Lake as well as K&L and some Bev Mo locations.
Here's how it's done:
Halloween Hangover Helper
Ingredients
1 oz Cardamaro
2 shakes Fee's Orange Bitters
2 oz Health Ade Beet kombucha
1 oz ginger cayenne simple syrup (see below)
1 oz fresh lemon juice
Ginger cayenne simple syrup
50 g ginger (about one large bulb), peeled and sliced
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup alkalized water
Method
Start with your simple syrup. Peel the skin off the ginger using a spoon. Then slice into dime-sized pieces, and place into a small saucepan along with sugar, cayenne, and water. Stir. Turn the heat up to a simmer and stir until sugar dissolves. Once dissolved, turn off the heat, then allow ingredients to steep in the syrup while it cools. Once cooled, strain through a sieve into a squeeze bottle or Mason jar. This simple syrup can be stored in your fridge for weeks to come.
To make the cocktail, add simple syrup, lemon juice, Cardamaro, and bitters to a shaker with ice. Shake vigorously for 30 seconds, then add kombucha and stir. (You don't want to shake with kombucha because it will explode due to the carbonation.) Strain into cocktail glass. Take one of the pieces of ginger you strained off the simple syrup and dust it with sugar to use as a candied ginger garnish.
