Morgan Mends the Line | A Custom Cocktail with Orange Spice Tea-Infused Whiskey

Morgan Mends the Line is a bold yet sweet cocktail made with orange spice tea-infused whiskey, tangelo juice, lemon juice, and ginger simple syrup. It blurs the lines between sweet and bold, complex and simple. It’s a custom cocktail created especially for my Instagram friend Morgan.

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A few weeks back, Girl & Tonic hit a milestone– I got 1,000 followers on Instagram. 🎉 As a mom, I’m a pro at celebrating evverrryy milestone. As my follower count inched towards 1K, I was already brainstorming ways to commerorate this occassion. A giveaway was my first thought– that’s kinda the norm on Instagram. Reach X amount of followers, run a giveaway. I wasn’t feeling the traditional route though.

After a lot of different ideas, I did end up settling on a giveaway– a custom cocktail giveaway. To be entered, all someone had to do was comment on the post as many times as you wanted. The winner would receive a custom cocktail named after them and also a printed recipe card. I was shocked by how well-received it was.

I used a random comment picker and an awesome gal named Morgan (@morganreidmiller) won! I was honestly surprised because one of my Instagram friend’s comments equated for 1/5 of all the entries. Probability and statistics, eh? 🤔

The idea behind a customized cocktail is to create a recipe that personifies that individual. I’ve been IG friends with Morgan for several months now so I knew some about her already. To get to know her more, I sent her a questionnaire and my Custom Cocktail Word Board. I had SO much fun thinking up a custom cocktail recipe that reflected her. Here are the reasons behind the name and ingredient choices.

Morgan has a few interests that would be so fun to explore through a cocktail, but I decided to focus on her love for fly fishing. The name Morgan Mends the Line is not only a nod to the fly fishing term, but also to Morgan’s personality.

To “mend the line” in fly fishing means to handle your fishing line and rod in a particular way to combat the currents of the water. This is done to keep the lure, or the “fly”, from drifting too far downstream. If a line is mended poorly, the lure will either move too slowly or too quickly to be perceived as a real fly. No fish will fall for it. Mending the line requires a steady hand and a perceptive eye that knows when to build up the slack and when to adjust.

You see, when I asked Morgan what she was most proud of, she said “my ability to work through tough situations with a level head and objectively”. Ahh. Now I can see why she’s both drawn to fly fishing and why she’s good at it. Fly fishing, and this cocktail, externalize Morgan’s inner strength–remaining at ease under tense situations.

“Bold” is one of the adjectives that Morgan selected from the Custom Cocktail Word Board. I wanted to add some kind of spicy kick but also needed to keep it in check because “sweet” was a selected adjective as well. Ginger simple syrup is the perfect solution.

Morgan is also a very talented barista. The obvious choice would’ve been to use coffee liqueur in the drink. But two of the words she selected from the word board were “adventurous” and “creative”, so I knew I had to push the envelope a bit. I decided to infuse whiskey (one of her fav liquors) with orange spice tea. It’s got the boldness and the caffeine of coffee but a sweet flavor and aroma that really complements the whiskey. I also tried making it with vodka and it was good, too.

I served it up in a coupe glass because Morgan selected the word “intricate”. Many whiskey drinks are typically served in a lowball or Old Fashioned glass. By serving this one in a coupe glass, it gives the drink a more delicate, gentle persona. Like Morgan.

There’s the story behind Morgan Mends the Line. Thank you to all of you who entered the giveaway! This definitely won’t be the last custom cocktail giveaway I do.

(Before any of you fly fishermen and fisherwomen out there come for me, I *know* the lure used as a garnish isn’t one used for fly-fishing. I used what I had on hand, okay? 😅 I’ve never fly-fished before but I would really love to. The only reason I was able to write this post is because of what I learned from Matthew Bernhardt’s article on Drift Hook.)

Ingredients for Morgan Mends the Line

• 1 1/2 oz orange spice tea-infused whiskey
• 1/2 oz tangelo juice (can sub fresh orange juice)
• 1/4 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz ginger simple syrup

How to Make a Morgan Mends the Line

To make the orange spice tea-infused whiskey, pour 5 oz of whiskey into a small jar and add one bag of orange spice tea. Let the whiskey and the tea infuse at room temperature for 30 minutes. Remove the teabag. Store the extra whiskey in an airtight container. It’ll keep for a long time.

Add ice, the orange spice tea-infused whiskey, tangelo juice, lemon juice, and ginger simple syrup to a cocktail shaker. Shake well. Strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a slice of lemon (or a fishing lure but not really bc that’s dangerous, y’all).