Usually for St. Patrick’s day we celebrate by adorning ourselves in green, hitting the town with our friends and enjoying plenty of green beer and Irish whiskey. Of course, this year we won’t be able to do that due to the pandemic but if you know me, you know that I will never miss an opportunity for a celebration. Doesn’t matter the occasion, I will always find a way to have some festive fun. So while we can’t hit up the Irish Pubs this year, I surely wouldn’t let this holiday go by without doing a little something.

Green beer on St. Patrick’s day always looks fun but in reality I don’t really enjoy downing a big glass of Coors Light and food dye. I generally opt for a good Irish whiskey cocktail as I’m a big whiskey fan but of course it never looks as festive as a green hued drink. Thus, I set out to combine both concepts! I’m a huge advocate for using whole foods and real ingredients and my cooking and cocktail making reflects that. The thought of drinking dye, even though it’s edible, just doesn’t sit well with me. So I immediately knew I wasn’t just going to add green food dye to my drink. I actually had experimented ways to make crazy colored cocktails with natural ingredients back during Halloween and thought to use Matcha powder for green coloring. I decided to revisit the idea for St. Patrick’s day and found that it actually works quite well in a whiskey sour as Matcha gets a bit foamy and helps add to the lucious foamy layer of the whiskey sour. Whiskey sours are one of my favorite types of cocktails so I’m super excited to share this fun festive version with you all.

A few things to note about this whiskey sour – If you don’t like matcha, don’t worry! I actually don’t like matcha at all but you can hardly recognize that it’s in this drink. I had a few taste testers for this drink who also aren’t matcha lovers but they still approved of this cocktail. I also discovered that matcha powder doesn’t just dissolve or disperse like you would think. To combat this I warmed up the whiskey a bit to help the matcha dissolve easier and THOUROUGHLY whisked it. I whisked for a solid two minutes to combine it as much as possible and then put the whiskey in the freezer to help it cool back down. Aside from matcha, another thing to note about this cocktail is that the delicious foam layer is created by adding egg white to the drink. I know this sounds odd but it doesn’t taste anything like egg. The lemon juice actually “cooks” the egg white a bit which causes it to thicken up and create the silky smooth layer at the top of the drink. That said, if you’re someone who is uncomfortable consuming raw eggs or is vegan, you can use aquafaba instead. Aquafaba is the liquid from a can of chickpeas. Two tablespoons is equal to one egg white.

I hope you enjoy this drink as much as I do and that it adds a little extra cheer to your St. Patrick’s Day!