Not So Sweetpea | Telltale’s The Walking Dead

With Lee gone and AJ to look after, The Walking Dead’s Clementine can no longer afford to be just someone’s “sweetpea” any more. It’s time for her to step up—and time for you to step up your cocktail game with this curious combination of gin, elderflower and… snow peas?

You’ll need:

• 1.5 oz (45ml) gin
• 0.5 oz (15ml) snow pea simple syrup
• 0.75 oz (20ml) lemon juice
• 0.25 oz (10ml) elderflower liqueur

Add all ingredients to a shaker half filled with ice. Shake vigorously until chilled. Strain into a coupe glass. Garnish with a lemon or lime, plus a pea pod. Serve!

“Part of growing up is doing what’s best for the people you care about, even if sometimes, that means hurting someone else.”— Lee Everett to Clementine.

Why these ingredients?

Lee might call Clementine “sweetpea” and Clementine might call AJ “goofball”, but there’s no way that either of these kids are going to get out of this world dominated by the dead with their childhood naivety intact.

Both of them, in their own way, have to grow up and leave the ‘sweetness’ behind.

With this overarching theme from Telltale’s The Walking Dead as inspiration, I took this lovely recipe from Benjamin Poole at the Bluebird Cocktail Room for the Sweet Pea, and made a couple of twists of my own. I replaced the vodka with gin for a slightly earthier flavour, and adding a little elderflower liqueur to bring out those floral notes while reducing the simple syrup proportion to half an ounce and removing the Lillet Blanc entirely.

It retains the interesting green flavours of the snow peas, but it’s a little drier than the original, resulting in a Sweet Pea that ain’t quite so sweet any more: perfect for a Clementine that has left her “give-a-shit” meter at a permanent zero.

Here’s a few variations if the above doesn’t tickle you:

Variations

Goofball

• 1.5 oz vodka
• 0.5 oz snow pea simple syrup
• 0.75 oz lime juice
• 0.25 oz elderflower liqueur

Oh My Darling

• 1.5 oz gin
• 0.5 oz triple sec
• 0.75 oz lemon juice
• 0.25 oz elderflower liqueur

Not So Sweetpea (simple version)

• 1.5oz gin
• 0.5 oz simple syrup
• 0.75 oz lemon juice
• 0.25 oz elderflower cordial

Muddle with mint before shaking.

Hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I did making it! To keep up to date with all my creations (and some additional content), follow me on Instagram.