Bisonfeather cocktail will up your bartender game for Kansas City at Buffalo Bills

Whether it’s tailgating or homegating, fans of the Buffalo Bills are known to be elite tier when it comes to food. Wingin’ It returns for it’s eighth season of Mad Hatter-esque recipes taking inspiration from the Buffalo Bills and their opponents.

Bisonfeather

Can you believe I almost forgot a Halloween recipe this year? My subconsicous was dead set on not allowing that. I turned to cocktails for Kansas City, having explored their culinary world once or twice a year now for a few seasons. Intrigued by the Horsefeather cocktail, I set out to make a Buffalo version.

The Horsefeather is simple. Rye whiskey, ginger beer, a couple dashes of bitters, and a little lemon juice. How can I make that “Buffalo?” Loganberry syrup was the obvious solution but I did that for my Dawson Knox Blox.

I decided to go a little more abstract. Rather than a “Buffalo” version, I decided to go for a “buffalo” version. You with me? What might an actual buffalo look for in a cocktail? Easy. Grasses. A little wheatgrass addition raises the complexity level and makes a spooky green color just in time for Halloween. It’s not a gimmick either. The wheatgrass adds depth to an already complex drink and enhances the aromatics of the bitters.

This is intended for persons of legal drinking age and if you’re drinking, do so responsibly.

Bisonfeather

Makes: 1 drink
Active Time: 1 minute
Total Time: 1 minute

Ingredients

3-4 dashes Angostura bitters
2 oz rye whiskey
4 oz ginger beer
1 oz wheatgrass

Fresh thyme for garnish (optional)

You will need: A glass

1. Add 3-4 dashes of bitters to a highball glass.
2. Pour remainder of ingredients into the glass and stir, swirl, or shake like they taught you in high school chemistry.
3. Garnish with thyme if you want.
4. Enjoy!

Wingin’ It Tips

I added the pictures above since this is literally as easy of a recipe as I can give you. I add the bitter first because holy **** do you not want to overdue these things. If you dash too aggressively, this is your opportunity to rinse the glass and start over. I figure for this section I’ll mainly talk a few of my personal bartending choices and ingredient selection so I can add words and justify this as an article.

Let’s circle back to the bitters. The horsefeather uses Angostura bitters, which is a brand I wasn’t familiar with. I picked them up for authenticity for my bisonfeather variant and noticed the label is too big for the bottle. I looked it up and apparently back in the 1870s the two brothers running the company screwed up a rebranding effort and got the bottle/label sizes wrong. It’s 150 years later and they’re still running it that way, which is frankly awesome.

For the ginger beer, I chose a Jamaican style. I’ve been known to listen to reggae on occasion, and who doesn’t know Bob...