Raspberry Lynchburg

Novice

The Raspberry Lynchburg is a Lynchburg Lemonade with Chambord taking half the triple sec's measure. Tennessee whiskey, black raspberry liqueur, a little orange, fresh lemon and sparkling lemonade over ice: a long, easy summer highball with a blush on it. The parent drink is Tennessee whiskey, triple sec, lemon and lemonade, named after the town where Jack Daniel's is distilled. This version came out of the UK bar circuit, where the Lynchburg Lemonade became a menu fixture and Chambord was on every back bar anyway. On a good many of those menus the variation now outsells the original. The swap is a halving rather than an addition, and that is the whole discipline of it. Chambord brings its own sugar, so fifteen millilitres of it replaces half the orange liqueur rather than joining it. Get that wrong and the drink stops being a highball and becomes a cordial with whiskey in it.

BuiltLong DrinkPartySessionable

Glassware: Collins Glass

Garnish: Lemon Wheel fresh and Raspberries

Ingredients

Serves

Tennessee Whiskey

40ml

Charcoal-mellowed before barrelling, which takes an edge off and lets it sit under fruit and lemonade better than a high-rye bourbon would. It is the constant across the whole Lynchburg family.

Chambord

15ml

Black raspberry with a honeyed depth that fresh berry syrups do not have. Fifteen millilitres colours and rounds the whole glass, and it replaces half the orange rather than joining it.

Triple Sec

10ml

Cut to ten millilitres from the parent's full measure, because the Chambord brings sugar of its own. The orange is still doing useful work; it is simply sharing the job now.

Fresh Lemon Juice

20ml

The only real acid in a glass holding two liqueurs and a sweetened mixer. Squeezed to order, and the one ingredient here that cannot be substituted.

Sparkling Lemonade

90ml

The length, and it is already sweet, which is why the rest of the build is measured tightly. A drier, more citrus-forward lemonade gives the better drink.

Instructions

Fill a collins glass with cubed ice.

Add the whiskey, Chambord, triple sec and lemon juice, and stir briefly.

Top with the sparkling lemonade and stir once more.

Garnish with a lemon wheel and a few fresh raspberries.

Expert Tip

Halve the triple sec rather than adding the Chambord on top. This is the single mistake people make with the drink. Chambord is sweet, and a full measure of orange liqueur alongside a full measure of raspberry liqueur produces something you cannot drink two of on a warm afternoon, which defeats the point of a highball entirely. Use Tennessee whiskey rather than bourbon. Charcoal mellowing before barrelling takes an edge off the spirit, and the result sits under fruit and lemonade better than a high-rye bourbon does. Squeeze the lemon. There is already a lot of sugar in the glass between the two liqueurs and the lemonade, and fresh juice is the only thing bringing real acid to balance it.

Flavour Profile

RaspberryLemonCharSweetLong

Where It Comes From

The Lynchburg Lemonade is named after Lynchburg, Tennessee, where Jack Daniel's is distilled, and it is essentially a whiskey highball with a sour built into it: Tennessee whiskey, triple sec, fresh lemon and lemonade.

Its origin was litigated. A restaurant owner in Alabama sued the distillery in the late 1980s claiming the recipe was his and that it had been taken after a company representative visited his bar. By most accounts he was awarded nominal damages of a single dollar, which is the kind of outcome that guarantees a story outlives the drink.

The raspberry version is a good deal younger and considerably less dramatic. It grew on the UK bar circuit through the years when the parent was a standard menu item.

Why Chambord Rather Than Syrup

Raspberry syrup and Chambord are not interchangeable, and the difference shows most at highball length.

Syrup gives bright, slightly one-note fruit and a lot of sugar, and once it has been stretched with ninety millilitres of lemonade it reads thin. Chambord is a black raspberry liqueur with vanilla, honey and a touch of cognac in it, and that depth survives the dilution. At fifteen millilitres it colours the entire glass and gives it a rounded, faintly jammy body that syrup cannot supply.

It is the same reason a French Martini works with Chambord and does not with syrup.

The Halving

The parent uses roughly twenty millilitres of triple sec. This uses ten, plus fifteen of Chambord.

That is a small piece of arithmetic doing a lot of work. Both liqueurs are sweet, and a version that keeps the full orange measure and adds raspberry on top is noticeably sweeter than either the parent or this. On a single glass you might not object. On the second one on a warm afternoon, which is what the drink is for, you will.

The blush should deepen the drink rather than candy it, and the measure is what decides which of those happens.

Why Tennessee Whiskey

Charcoal filtering is what separates Tennessee whiskey from bourbon. The new spirit runs through several feet of sugar maple before it ever reaches a barrel, and what comes out the far side is rounder and a shade sweeter than the same mash would otherwise give.

In a drink with this much fruit and lemonade in it, that softness is useful. A high-rye bourbon has a peppery edge that competes with the raspberry, and a very soft wheated bourbon disappears altogether. Tennessee whiskey sits in the right place, which is presumably why the family is named after the town it comes from.

How to Serve It

Built in a collins glass over plenty of ice: whiskey, Chambord, triple sec and lemon stirred briefly, then the lemonade on top and one more stir.

A lemon wheel and a few fresh raspberries. Both are working garnishes rather than decoration: the wheel adds fresh acid as the drink sits, and the berries tell you what is in it.

The Spirit

Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey

Charcoal-mellowed before the barrel, which is what makes it Tennessee whiskey rather than bourbon. The filtering strips some of the sharper grain notes, so it arrives softer and sweeter than a bourbon of comparable age and suits a long drink accordingly.

Learn more

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Raspberry Lynchburg?

A Lynchburg Lemonade with Chambord taking half the triple sec's measure: Tennessee whiskey, black raspberry liqueur, orange liqueur, fresh lemon and sparkling lemonade over ice. It came out of the UK bar circuit, where the parent drink was a menu fixture.

Why halve the triple sec instead of just adding Chambord?

Because both are sweet liqueurs. Keeping the full orange measure and adding raspberry on top makes a drink you cannot have two of, which defeats the purpose of a long summer highball. The halving is the whole discipline of the recipe.

Can I use raspberry syrup instead of Chambord?

You can, and it will be thinner. Chambord has vanilla, honey and a touch of cognac behind the fruit, and that depth survives being stretched with ninety millilitres of lemonade. Syrup mostly does not, and reads as sugar rather than fruit.

Why Tennessee whiskey rather than bourbon?

Tennessee whiskey is filtered through sugar maple charcoal before barrelling, which softens it. That suits a glass with this much fruit in it: a high-rye bourbon competes with the raspberry and a soft wheated one disappears under it.

Master the Techniques

Stirring vs Shaking: When to Use Each Technique

Lynchburg Lemonade

Lynchburg Lemonade is Tennessee whiskey, triple sec, fresh lemon and sparkling lemonade over ice, named for the town where Jack Daniel's is distilled. It drinks dangerously easily, which was always both the point and the problem, and the reason a distillery eventually wanted it for itself. Tony Mason built it in 1980 at his bar in Huntsville, Alabama, and by the middle of the decade the distillery was running it as a national campaign. Mason sued for misappropriation. By the usual account a jury found in his favour and awarded him one dollar in nominal damages, on the grounds that he could not demonstrate a financial loss. That is the drink's permanent garnish: a genuinely good highball, a national marketing campaign, and an inventor who won his case and collected a dollar. Naming him is the least the recipe can do, and the story has outlived the campaign it lost to.

Whiskey Collins

The Whiskey Collins is the Collins template on bourbon: spirit, fresh lemon and sugar shaken together, strained over ice and lengthened with soda. It is the same build as a Tom Collins with the gin swapped out, and the swap changes rather more than it looks like it should. Bourbon's vanilla and oak survive carbonation better than juniper does. Where a gin Collins stays crisp and botanical, this one reads rounder and warmer, closer to sparkling lemonade with a barrel education. Rye instead of bourbon sharpens the same frame for anyone who wants it drier. There is a naming muddle worth knowing about. Mid-century American menus often called this a John Collins, a name that properly belongs to the genever original from Limmer's Hotel in London. The confusion is genuine and old, and it is easier to give the whiskey version its own name than to argue about it every time it comes up.

Whiskey Sour

The Whiskey Sour is one of the oldest documented cocktails in the American canon, printed in Jerry Thomas’s 1862 bar guide, and its structure of whiskey, fresh lemon and sugar is the template every other whiskey sour derives from. The Honey Sour changes the sweetener. The Penicillin changes the sweetener and the technique. The Amaretto Sour changes the base spirit. Understand this drink and the whole family becomes readable. The egg white question matters more here than in most sours, because both versions are widely ordered and both are correct. With it, the drink is a Boston Sour: silky, with the foam carrying the bourbon’s vanilla to the nose before the lemon reaches the palate. Without it, sharper and more direct. Pre-made sour mix has shown a generation this drink at its worst. Built with lemon squeezed to order, a decent bourbon and a properly proportioned syrup, it surprises almost everyone whose expectations were formed by the imitation.