Tea time meets happy hour

Tea time meets happy hour at Wild Dunes Resort, thanks to unexpected craft cocktail infusions that have plenty of Lowcountry history in the bag.

There’s tea time and there’s happy hour, but only at Wild Dunes Resort do two coexist, thanks to a partnership with the Charleston Tea Plantation, North America’s only tea plantation. When looking for different mixers to freshen up the drink menu, Wild Dunes Resort only had to look as far as neighboring Wadmalaw Island to find hundreds of thousands of tea bushes that can trace their Carolina lineage back to the 1880s. The goal was to keep it simple and make cocktails using familiar ingredients that everyone recognizes and has at home, just with the Resort’s own Southern twist.

The result is the Durban Cocktail, a “porch pounder” crafted to be an herb-y cross between a Kentucky mule and a mint julep. This Kentucky Derby-inspired drink replaces the bitter bite of a traditional ginger beer with the smoother finish of tea to complement the smokiness of the bourbon, while a mint simple syrup keeps the julep’s refreshing quality intact. It’s a one-two Southern punch sure to perk up your next Sunday afternoon supper.

Durban Cocktail

Ingredients

1 Bottle (750 ml) Stranahan’s bourbon

½ oz loose leaf black American Classic tea

½ oz mint simple syrup

3 dashes bitters

1 lime twist

Mint leaves (for garnish)

Preparation

1. Combine tea leaves and bourbon in a container; infuse for about 12 minutes. Taste bourbon several times to determine when a good flavor fusion has been achieved.

2. Strain tea leaves out of bourbon, pour bourbon back into its bottle, and discard tea leaves.

3. Rinse a chilled coupe glass with bitters and dump. Stir simple syrup and 4oz of infused bourbon over ice, then strain into coupe.

4. Squeeze the lime twist over the drink and garnish with mint leaves.