SunGod Cocktail Recipes: The Hyperion and the Elysian

We did not plan on SunGod ending up in a shaker. It was built to be opened and drunk as it is, still, 5%, spring water from Palomar Mountain, a neutral grain spirit and real organic juice. But bartenders see a can and think about what else it could do, and Jess Latta, the bartender in residence at The Landing in Lake Tahoe, looked at the two flavors and saw two cocktails. These are the recipes Jess helped us develop, the Hyperion around Solar Drift and the Elysian around Minted Sol, and they are the first two SunGod cocktail recipes we are putting our name on.

Both recipes are written out in full below, and the card itself is here to download for the bar. Here is Jess building the Hyperion.

What a split base is, and why a Hardwater works in one

A split base cocktail is one where the base is shared between two spirits instead of one, the way a lot of tiki drinks split their rum between two styles, or a margarita splits tequila with a little mezcal for smoke. The second half of the split does not have to be a full strength spirit. In these two drinks it is SunGod, and the reason that works is the same reason the can works on its own: there are no bubbles to knock out of it in the shaker, the juice in it is real, and the ginger that runs through both flavors is already there, so the drink starts with a backbone before you add anything.

The other thing a Hardwater brings is that it is already a finished, balanced thing at 5%, so an ounce of it lands somewhere between a mixer and a modifier. It stretches the drink and softens the spirit without watering it down, and it carries its own fruit, which is why neither recipe below needs much juice. If the category is new to you, what a Hardwater is explains the can, and the flavor development story explains why the ginger is in both.

The Hyperion

Smoky and tropical, built around Solar Drift. Blanco tequila does the work, a half ounce of mezcal brings the smoke, and the pineapple and coconut in the can meet the pineapple juice and the ginger liqueur in the middle. Jess named it for Hyperion, the Titan who was the father of Helios, the sun god, which we did not catch until it was explained to us, and now we like it even more.

Turn the can over once before you open it so the juice is mixed through, then measure everything into a shaker, fill it with ice, shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds (until the outside of the tin is too cold to hold comfortably) and strain. Over fresh ice in a rocks glass is how the card has it; up in a coupe is how Jess pours it at The Landing and how it looks in the photos, and both ways work. Over ice it stays cold through a slow afternoon, up it drinks faster and the smoke comes forward. The saline is optional and worth it: saline solution is just salt dissolved in water (a teaspoon of salt in a quarter cup of warm water keeps in a dropper bottle for months), and 2 or 3 drops brighten the pineapple the same way a pinch of salt does on the fruit itself, without making the drink taste salty.

The Elysian

Bright and green, built around Minted Sol. This one is a vodka drink, which is the right call, because the cucumber, mint, lemon and ginger in the can are the whole flavor and vodka gets out of their way. The mint syrup doubles down on the mint, the lime sharpens it, and a quarter ounce of elderflower rounds the edges off. Elysian is from the Elysian Fields, the good part of the Greek afterlife, and the drink is as easy as that sounds.

Same shake as the Hyperion: turn the can once, measure, fill with ice, 10 to 12 seconds, strain over fresh ice. Jess pours it tall over cracked ice, which is what the photos show, and a rocks glass is fine if that is what you have. Slap the mint sprig once against your hand before it goes in to wake it up. For the mint simple syrup, bring equal parts sugar and water to a simmer, take it off the heat, drop in a handful of mint, let it steep 10 minutes, strain it and keep it in the fridge for a week. The saline matters more in this drink than in the Hyperion, because cucumber and mint are quiet flavors and a little salt brings them forward.

Making them at home

Measure everything. These are balanced recipes, and the difference between a good one and a flat one is a quarter ounce. A jigger is a few dollars, and if you do not have one, a tablespoon is half an ounce. Fresh lime only; the bottled stuff is the fastest way to ruin either drink.

The spirit matters less than the proportions. Jess built these with the bottles behind the bar at The Landing, and a different blanco tequila, mezcal or vodka will move the drink a little, not break it. The two things we would not swap are the SunGod flavor (Solar Drift in the Hyperion, Minted Sol in the Elysian, because the recipe is built around what is already in the can) and the fresh juice.

One can makes 12 of either drink, since each one takes an ounce, and the rest of the can is fine to drink while you work, which is not something you can say about most cocktail ingredients. Both 4-packs are in the shops on the locator, and they ship to most states from the site.

Where this goes next

The second cocktail video is in the works, and the plan is to keep adding to this page as bartenders at the accounts that pour SunGod come up with their own. If you run a bar and build one, send it to hello@drinksungod.com with the spec and a photo, and if we put it up it goes under your name. SunGod started on the shore of Lake Tahoe (the story is here), so it is right that the first two came from a bar on the lake.