:: mxmo XLV roundup! ::

Wow... quite a surprising variety of teas and ways to use them in this Mixology Monday. Everything from smoky or earthy to floral or fruity varieties used in syrups, tinctures, bitters, and as steamy mixers. Some went old school with classic tea recipes like punches, cobblers, and grogs, and others crafted their own recipes. And many had an impressive eye for classic cocktails that could use some extra flavoring by way of one tea varietal or other. Overall, there were 36 entries which is a pretty decent haul, and I could have used a few cups of tea myself in getting through all of them over the last two evenings to prepare this summary. And without further ado:

Mike McSorley of the Mcsology blog was our first entry and he starts us off by using tea in his homemade batch of Swedish Punsch and utilizing it with Genever for the Kick My Assam cocktail.

Andy of Sybaritic Wanderings went all smoky on us and pairs Lapsang Souchong tea with Scotch in an Old Fashioned sort of way in the Tea for Two.

Pantagruel buzzes in with a tea-infused gin to make the Bee's Teas, a variant of the classic Bee's Knees.

DJ Hawaiian Shirt of the Spirited Remix blog ran with Red Zinger and makes a pair of fruity concoctions with including one containing passion fruit syrup, the Fraise.

Mixology Monday first timer Nabokov joined our growing contingent of Russian drink bloggers with a delightful Rooibos tea and rum highball.

Rooibos tea was also featured by our sixth entrant, Andy of the Good Drinks Etc. blog, with the vanilla-spiced Serendipitea.

For my post, I went with an 1895 recipe for a tea-containing bottled Old Tom Gin punch from Kappeler's Modern American Drinks.

.jpg" />Scomorokh of Science of Drink takes the time to school us on the Russian way of making tea. Once his tea was just right, he mixes it with a pair of rums to make an English Cobbler.

My fellow Boston blogger, Jenn of Nightcapped, doubled down on the pomegranate flavor with grenadine and pomegranate green tea in the Pomegranate Princess.

New York City bloggers and food-drink pairers, Paul and Steve of Cocktail Buzz, were tenth in line. Their innovative libation, the Bramble Punch, combines tea with berry flavors and spices.

Jessamyn of the Food on the Brain blog makes a rich and malty Royal Yunnan tea syrup and matches it with whiskey for a pair of recipes.

Rowen kicks off his new blog, the Fogged in Lounge, with a Mixology Monday post! Rowen uses a smoky tea, Russian Caravan, to add flavor to a Tiki-styled punch.

Cocktail Enthusiast blog writer Kevin uses green tea syrup to make a variant of the classic Maple Leaf for what he calls the Bourbon Tease.

Inspired by the Saints' overtime win this past Sunday, Shawn of Rejiggered Cocktails combines a ginger tea syrup with blood orange juice for the O-T Cocktail. Depending on how Superbowl Sunday goes, you may want to have this recipe on hand next to the remote.

Anthony of Abelha Organic Cachaça infuses some gin to make the Chrysanthemum Martini. The tea donates a bounty of floral notes that sound like they would complement the recipe's Noilly Prat dry vermouth rather well.

A Mountain of Crushed Ice's Tiare uses mint and chocolate {!} Kusmi tea to gussy up the Cuban Mojito into something you should not wait until summer to try.

Dominik the Opiniated Alchemist takes the smoky route as well with Lapsang Souchong-infused Scotch in the varenja berry-flavored Fireside Sour.

Jon of Old Town Alchemy ups the ante on the Pearlescent cocktail by using Beefeater 24 (which has two teas in its botanical mix) instead of vodka. A few other ingredient substitutions and the inclusion of an Earl Grey tea rinse and voilà, the Incandescent.

Trader Tiki Blair takes a well-deserved tea break from working on his new Tiki-inspired syrup line to proffer his drink submission. Blair uses black tea along with Batavia Arrack and Genever to craft a new punch recipe.

Michael Dietch of A Dash of Bitters combines the Mixology Monday theme with plotting out his bar's new drink program and schemes up a tea-flavored Gin & Tonic. My cats are intrigued by the catnip-containing tea blend he used...

Entry 21 was Scofflaw's Den's SeanMike who offers up a pair of tea drinks -- a hot toddy one that mixes Scotch with Irish Breakfast tea and a cold summery one using Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka.

Beers in the Shower blog took the infusion route with rum and black tea and concocts a refreshing sounding Daiquiri variant, Tea with Hemmingway.

Alpha Cook prepares one of my favorite tea-laden old school punches, the Philly Fish House Punch. Definitely a good recipe to crack out for parties!

Jake from the DrinkSnob blog presents the tasty sounding play on words, Tea Killer Mockingbird. His recipe uses unbrewed Chai tea that is rapidly infused in the 30 second shaking process!

No surprise that RumDood chose rum to go with his tea, but the hot Negrita Grog recipe he prepares was quite the pleasant surprise though!

Cocktail Chronicle's Paul Clarke presents PDT's Jim Mehan's Butter Cup recipe -- a hot-buttered rum warmed up and flavored with black tea.

Daniel Nadasi of the Gin Not Vodka blog runs wild with his newly infused collection of green tea bitters and makes a Martini variant, Here Comes the Sun.

A Drink with Forrest knows that it's summer in South America and conjures up a cachaça drink flavored with Yerba Mate that he calls El Bolar Tereré.

God Save the King says the Intelligent Bartender with his tea syrup, er sizzurp-flavored take on NYC's WD-50's Silver King gin fizz.

The Rock and Rye blog comes in with the 30th submission with a pair of drinks: one hot, one cold including Audrey Saunder's Earl Grey MarTEAni.

The Drink of the Week blog's Green Tea Gimlet sounds like the perfect tea drink for the vodka lover!

Stevi Deter of Two at the Most wraps up this month's Mixology Monday (assuming there are no tardy cats left to herd) with a Seattle original, the Coho Café's Firenze.

Tacoma's 1022 South's entry just appeared in my Google Analytics data along with the following one (next best thing to ESP, I guess). 1022 South presents two drinks, one a blueberry-tea infused gin one, Blue Monday, and the other a jasmine pearl tea-infused viognier, the Hilltop Pearl.

The Cocktailwelt blog discusses the history and state of tea in Germany, in German! For those looking for a translation, Babelfish will be your friend.

Jacob Grier's entry was not a tardy one even though it is tacked on here at the end instead of being earlier in the write-up. It was due to me not having enough caffeine (or perhaps one too many tea cocktails) and combining Jake of DrinkSnob with Jacob Grier's names and entries. Jacob took a drink off of his bar menu and made a tea variant, the Patty Mills, with Earl Grey-flavored gin. Sorry about the confusion with your infusion!

Scofflaw's Den's Marshall's entry, unlike Mr. Grier's, was tardy though. But since it was a week late and today is Monday, why not? And it's hard to find a reason when Marshall combines yellow Chartreuse and Batavia Arrack for a hot, spiced herbal tea beverage he calls the Celestial Warmer.

Thank you to all of this month's Mixology Monday participants, cheers to Paul Clarke for running the Mxmo show, and I look forward to trying some of these recipes and to seeing what you all will come up with next month!