- 1 oz gin
- 1 oz bourbon
- juice of two limes
- 1/2 oz simple
- dash of Angostura
- top with ginger beer
The Suffering Bastard is one of Dane’s favorite drinks. I always forget that it’s in the tiki family! Lots of variations abound for this one, and the recipe I was looking at used 1/2 oz of ginger ale and then topped with club soda. That seemed unnecessarily complicated, so I just used ginger beer for more bite. Normally I don’t like ginger beer (too spicy) but even I had a sip or two of this. It’s also got a fantastic name for a cocktail.
Ginger beer is definitely the way to go. I’ve tried it with all sorts of substitutes (including pickled and candied ginger steeped in soda water) when I didn’t have ginger beer on hand and nothing else has enough bite to stand up against the rest of the drink. The ginger beer we have right now is pretty sweet and tastes like oranges, so this particular cocktail was gentler than I’m used to. My preference is to for the angriest ginger beer you can find.
If it tastes like whiskey and gin are having a knife fight in your mouth, you did it right.