The ingredient list for our Brown Derby cocktail recipe is so short that you can count them with the fingers on one hand.
Ingredient quantities are detailed in the printable recipe card below.
Bourbon
Selecting the right liquor is a priority when you craft a simple cocktail. We choose to use Four Roses bourbon in our Brown Derby recipe.
Four Roses is a great cocktail bourbon since its balanced flavors are relatively mild with hints of both vanilla and caramel. It’s also one of the more affordable bourbons produced in Kentucky and has a 40% ABV, the lowest possible ABV for Kentucky bourbon.
Discover more bourbon cocktails.
Maple Syrup
Typically produced in Vermont and Canada, maple syrup is a product usually served with pancakes, french toast and waffles. We sometimes use the sweet elixir when we cook bacon. In a culinary twist of fate, the natural sweetener is a great cocktail ingredient too.
We like to use amber Grade A maple syrup when we craft Brown Derby cocktails at home. The distinct syrup achieves a rich flavor that we adore. Canadian cities like Montreal sell maple syrup in cans at local markets. In Lisbon, we can buy Canadian maple syrup at a nearby grocery store.
Grapefruit
While you could technically use grocery store grapefruit juice in this and other cocktail recipes, using fresh grapefruit juice is worth the extra effort. As a bonus, you only need to squeeze one grapefruit to craft two drinks.
It literally took us less than a minute to extract the juice from this grapefruit using our Braun juicer. We also made a grapefruit twist from the skin of the same fruit.
