Searching for some fresh and simple ways to turn up the heat with your Valentine on Cupid’s favorite day? We’ve got tantalizing tastes that will transform your average bubbly, turn kid candies into tempting adult treats, leave your favorite crush lovestruck, and seduce you into finishing every last piece.

PASSIONFRUIT BUBBLY

In this super easy but sensuous cocktail, I poured one tablespoon of Liber & Co’s Tropical Passionfruit Syrup into a champagne flute, added bubbly, and graced with a raspberry. The natural punch of tart Peruvian passion fruit shines through, and a touch of gum arabic provides a silky, luxurious mouthfeel.

What will you do with any leftovers after the day of love? This tropical simple syrup is a perfect complement for rum-based cocktails. Whiskey can go tiki, too, when mixed with passion fruit syrup, a little Grand Marnier, and a squeeze of fresh lemon. In the kitchen, drizzle over vanilla ice cream or toss with fresh fruit.

Woo your heart throb or star-crossed lover with concoctions that are easy, fun, and unexpected!

Inspired by the “boozy gummy candies” playfully gracing the cover of a recent Bon Appétit, I decided to experiment with a couple of my favorite items for The Savory Pantry’s cocktail shop—Liber & Co.’s Fiery Ginger Syrup and Pink House Alchemy's Cardamom Simple Syrup—using versatile vodka to boozify both. I will definitely be making these again as they were stars among dinner party guests and potential combinations are practically unlimited. Gummies will keep for several days, so in the unlikely event that you have leftovers, you can continue to enjoy them.

Flaming Hearts Fiery Ginger Boozy Gummies

3 Cups Fresh-Squeezed OJ
1 and ½ Cups Vodka
Juice of ½ Lemon
½ Bottle Liber & Co. Fiery Ginger Syrup
3 Packets Unflavored Gelatin

DIRECTIONS: Combine orange juice, lemon juice, vodka, and ginger syrup in a small saucepan. Sprinkle gelatin as evenly as possible into the mixture and allow to sit for 10-15 minutes, allowing gelatin to soften. Turn stove on and cook over medium to medium-low, being careful not to allow mixture to boil. (Getting that vodka in your nostrils!?) Simmer until no gelatin granules are visible and any gelatin clumps are fully dissolved (around 5 minutes). Pour into an 11x7 glass casserole. Chill for at least two hours. Cut with cookie cutter just prior to serving. If desired, sprinkle with sugar just prior to serving.

Notes from Erin: Read my “Meet the Maker” interview with Robert Higginbotham of Austin, Texas-based Liber & Co to learn more about how Liber got its start making world-class cocktail mixers with premium ingredients and none of the yucky stuff. Also, say sooie for our “Fiery Rasperback Cocktail,” perfect for Arkansas Razorbacks tailgating.

Star-Crossed Lovers Cardamom Boozy Gummies

¾ Jar of Pink House Alchemy Cardamom Simple Syrup
1 Cup Vodka

DIRECTIONS: Combine cardamom syrup and vodka in a small saucepan. Sprinkle gelatin as evenly as possible into the mixture and allow to sit for 10-15 minutes, allowing gelatin to soften. Turn stove on and cook over medium to medium-low, being very careful not to allow to boil. Simmer until no gelatin granules are visible and any gelatin clumps are fully dissolved (around 5 minutes). Pour into glass casserole (I used round pie dish). Chill for at least two hours. Cut just prior to serving. Sprinkle with silver sugar just prior to serving.

Notes from Erin: Read my “Meet the Maker” interview with Emily Lawson of Fayetteville, Arkansas-based Pink House Alchemy to learn more about the beginnings of incredible maker of simple syrups, shrubs, and bitters.

Don't want to linger in the kitchen this V-Day but still want to give your Romeo or Juliet some tastes to remember?

Prestat Coronation Sea Salt Caramel Thins, $23

When three twenty-five-year-old guys walked into the service entrance of the Lawrence, Kansas, luxury hotel, The Oread, they were full of hope, if a little lost. Liber & Co co-founder Chris Harrison’s neighbor worked at The Oread, and had invited the trio to use its commercial kitchen to expand their stovetop-developed Spiced Tonic recipe to sell back to the bar as a craft cocktail mixer.

Chris, Robert Higginbotham, and brother Adam Higginbotham were greeted by a 30-gallon steam kettle that they had to ask for assistance to turn on. Once it was operational, they looked into the 30-gallon kettle and then back at their piece of paper with their stovetop recipe—a rich and complex spiced tonic made with real cinchona bark, a natural source of quinine. How would teaspoons and cups transform into cups and gallons? There was nothing to do but get out the calculator and start doing some math.

Prior to this pivotal preparation, Chris was living in Lawrence, working in a genetics lab, Adam was living in Austin and shipping tastes back and forth with Chris, and Robert was working as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. The three had been kicking around an entrepreneurial idea based on the dearth of exceptional bar syrups that could help home bartender create cocktails equivalent to those found in the best bars in the world. They liked the name Liber, meaning “the free one,” the Roman god of fine drinks and good times.

So when the opportunity arose, the three met in Lawrence, Robert using his frequent flyer miles and taking what then was a nauseating risk—putting $1,500 of bottles and labels on his credit card.

Robert reflected on that rough transition in The Oread’s kitchen, transforming small batches to a large one, “Hours later it was time for dinner service and we were still in the way. They were trying to go on about their business. We were washing dishes to try to keep everybody happy so we could finish. Finally, we had 19 gallons of tonic syrup. We brought it out to Chris’s truck in 5 gallon buckets and it was sloshing everywhere. Eventually, we got back to Chris’s apartment, feeling totally defeated by the process. Of course we had to have a drink! It was 11 at night and we were exhausted and we still had hundreds of bottles to fill by hand, one at a time. Somehow, we got it done.”

Robert took some bottles back to DC in his luggage. After he made a gin and tonic for a friend who managed a grocery store near Robert’s DC residence, the friend was so impressed that he ordered a case for the store. “He wrote a check to me personally because we had no bank account at the time. That was five years ago and he’s still a customer. Amazingly, we were profitable on our first case. We went right back in with our earnings and spent on more inventory.”

With Robert an entrepreneurial spirit, Adam an avid cook, and Chris an avid cocktail enthusiast, the three formed an ideal partnership in Liber & Co, which thrives on the trio’s mutual love of food and beverage. The experiences they were constantly trying to create at home for family BBQs, dinners with friends, and impromptu cocktail parties were something they wanted to share with the world, providing mixers that were the same quality as those being made behind bars.

“What was out there before was high fructose. Artificial. Nuclear,” said Robert. “While there were all kinds of high-end spirits, liqueurs, and bitters, there were still no cocktail syrups with high-quality, thoughtfully sourced raw ingredients, made from real fruits and vegetables. We wanted to fill that void because we understood that the discerning cocktail drinker’s day in the sun had arrived. We’d witnessed the wine boom and the micro-beer boom, and knew that cocktails’ turn was next.”

Chris moved back from Kansas. Together, Adam and Chris experimented and created and marketed. And soon, their big break came. “We had pitched to HEB grocery stores because they really support local business. We thought it hadn’t worked out but then we heard from them again. They wanted the Spiced Tonic we made in Lawrence. And they wanted our Texas Grapefruit Shrub. At the time those were the only two we had and they were kind of ‘out there’ in terms of flavor and they wanted both. To put a single case of each product in each of their stores had Adam and Chris in the kitchen for 18 hours. And HEB had 90 stores! It was overwhelming, but we knew that if they were dedicated to our product, we had that support, and that we’d find a way to make it work. We did. By 2014 we were all three back in Austin, moved in to a dedicated 3,000 sq ft space, and we’ve grown from there.”

Today, all three men are full-time employees of Liber & Co., and their stovetop batches have transformed to 220 gallon tanks. Next year, they have plans to move into a 10,000 sq ft space, and their semi-automated production line will be upgraded to fully-automatic. In 2015, they produced 50,000 bottles, every one of which was capped by hand. This year, they are on pace for 70,000, some bottles being made especially for bars buying at larger liquid volumes. In other words, life at Liber is pretty sweet.

The Savory Pantry proudly stocks Liber & Co.’s Spiced Tonic, Fiery Ginger, Tropical Passion Fruit, Classic Gum, and Almond Orgeat Syrups, as well as their Texas Grapefruit Shru b.

What is it like to live in Austin? Robert says it’s a blast: “We’re all from College Station. The city is booming, young, with a great music and art scene. It takes well to a brand like ours that is small, entrepreneurial, and created from scratch. People respect and support that and it shows in our dedicated consumer base who loyally attend our events.

It’s great to sell nationwide, but so cool to have people loving what you make right in your back yard. Our goal is to equip people with what they need to personally make what they need to replicate the best bars in the world. We provide lots of great recipes, but we like the idea that people will use our products to come up with their own expressions of themselves. We hope we empower our customers to follow their own intuitions and use their creativity to come up with something entirely new.”