This post was made in partnership with Truvia®. Recipes and ideas are my own.
I have been getting approximately one thousand emails since New Year’s about where you should go for Valentine’s Day. It seems like a prerequisite that you must leave your house with your significant other to enjoy this holiday. Well, I’m not buying it. Or anything actually.
My husband and I have been together for over a decade and the thought of going to a crowded restaurant on this particular day makes us both uneasy. We haven’t written off going places or doing romantic things together, we just choose to do them on days when we’re not fighting for a parking space to make a 9pm table (because that was the only reservation left last minute). What we do instead is put a little effort into making each other feel special at home.
And for me, that means making a special cocktail. Not just something like a Negroni that, let’s face it, I can make with my eyes closed and one arm tied behind my back. Nope, instead I try out some new spirits, and put together something special.
Which brings us to today’s cocktail, a Raspberry Pisco Sour. I am working with Truvia® this month to create a perfectly balanced sweet and sour cocktail that gives a nod towards Valentine’s Day with its beautifully pink color, and a recipe that balances being special but not too complicated to make. I loved using the Truvia Natural Sweetener packets to make a Valentine’s Day cocktail because they add zero-calorie sweetness to my drinks and the sweet messages on every packet are a bonus!
Using fresh berries here is key. The trick to getting more flavor out of them is to macerate them with the Truvia and let them sit for a little bit. I do that step first and then let the mixture sit while I prep the other ingredients. Also, let’s talk about egg whites here! If you’re new to working with egg whites in cocktails, first, don’t panic. You can buy pasteurized egg whites from the grocery store and use those instead of fresh egg whites. I know where my eggs come from and trust the source so I use whites from whole eggs. If you prefer to make this vegan, you’re lucky, because I have several ways of substituting egg whites for cocktails on the site. The easiest is subbing in aquafaba, which is just the liquid from a can of chickpeas. You can read all about that here!
Other than crushing a few berries and either grabbing some egg whites or some aquafaba, this cocktail comes together fairly easily, but it looks and tastes like you put way more effort into it. And you did put some effort into it, so congratulate yourself for that. I think it’s a great drink to make when you want to show someone you think they’re pretty special. And this drink does just that. Cheers!
Raspberry Pisco Sour Cocktail
makes 2 cocktails
6 raspberries, whole
3 Truvia Natural Sweetener packets
4 ounces pisco
2 ounces freshly squeezed lime juice
1 large egg white or 1 ounce aquafaba
6 drops Angostura bitters
In a small prep bowl, muddle together the raspberries and the Truvia Natural Sweetener packets. Let that sit while you prep the rest of the ingredients.
Next, in a shaker, combine the pisco, lime juice and aquafaba. Dry shake for 20 seconds. Then add in raspberry mixture and fill 2/3 with ice. Shake vigorously for an additional 20 seconds. Double strain into two chilled cocktail coupes. Garnish with 3 drops of Angostura bitters on each drink.
If you’re visiting Los Angeles, or happen to already be a resident, and want to find a bar with a decent jukebox, I have a few I can recommend. There’s my beloved 
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You’ve read on here before my thoughts on pisco- it’s a versatile mixing spirit that I don’t think gets enough credit. I’ve also used the base recipe for a pisco sour to show you how you can use BEER! as an 
You might not be a vegan but you might be someone who cringes at the thought of an egg white in a cocktail. Even though most bars are either using pasteurized egg whites or eggs from their own back yard chickens (I’m sure that’s a thing) to prevent salmonella from entering your cocktail. Still, I get it, you don’t want to drink the egg whites. So now you can give Instafoam a try. But won’t it just make the cocktail taste all chemically? NO! I know way back in the dark days when there was only Fee Foam you were going to get a weird aftertaste (and I’m not knocking on Fee Brothers, they were a beacon of bitters in a world that didn’t understand the need yet.) but here you just taste the cocktail.
Yes, this is a riff on pisco sour cocktail. We’ve got the usual culprits: pisco, lime juice, simple syrup, bitters. However, we’ve spiced it up a bit with the addition of jalapeño jam. I often add marmalade or something of the sort to a whiskey sour just to give it an extra layer of flavor. Here it does the same with a spicy, slightly sweet bite with just a bit of earthy aftertaste from those peppers.
bean, cut lengthwise and seeds scraped (reserve pod)
