The Smoked Rosemary and Blackberry Fizz Worth Making Slowly in Front of Him

Some drinks are made in the kitchen while you hide. This one isn't. The Smoked Rosemary and Blackberry Fizz is theater, and the best seat in the house is a stool pulled up to the counter where your date can watch your hands. Stirring, I've found, is the most underrated form of eye contact.

Here is the build. Muddle six ripe blackberries in the bottom of a mixing glass with a teaspoon of honey until the juice runs dark as a bruise and smells like late summer. Add the juice of half a lemon. Set it aside while you deal with the fire, which is the part everyone leans in for.

Take one sprig of rosemary and hold the tip over a flame until it smolders and curls. Blow it out gently and drop it, smoking, into an empty rocks glass, then turn a second glass over the top to trap the smoke. Let it sit while you stir the blackberry mixture with ice, slowly, for a full count of thirty. Do not rush the count. The pause is the point.

Here is the build.

Lift the top glass and let the smoke spill out across the counter like a rumor. Strain the blackberry over fresh ice in the smoky glass, top it with cold sparkling water, and finish with a rosemary needle floating on the foam. It tastes like woodsmoke, jam and a cold finish, and it looks like trouble, which is the best kind of looking.

A few staging tips. Wear something you like being watched in. Keep the lights low so the flame glows. Say very little while you work, then slide the glass across and ask what they taste first. If they say smoke, you win. If they say you, put the second glass down and let the evening make its own plans.

The stirring is half the flirtation, and I have strong opinions about wrist technique. If you'd like to hear them in my own voice, come find me on TheFriend and I'll walk you through it.

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