Is TikTok's Spicy Rosé Actually Good?
Or is there a better way to make a sweet and spicy summer cocktail?
There are very few TikTok trends that I'm willing to try for myself. No matter how "easy" and "convenient" one recipe or another claims to be, if I don't already have those ingredients right in front of me, that's not easy enough for my taste. But when a recipe composed of two of my personal kitchen staples popped up on everyone's For You Page, I finally had to give in. Those two ingredients? Rosé and jalapeños.
The combination comes from TikToker @allyssainthekitchen, who dropped a jalapeño into a glass of rosé during a livestream when dared to by one of her followers, Newsweek reports. She ended up liking it (it's now a staple on her page) and soon the trend took off with others, too.
@allyssainthekitchen Kicking off the weekend 🙌
When I first heard about it, even as a lover of both wine and peppers, I couldn't even imagine how it would taste, but my instinct was that there's no way it could be good. I texted the combo to my trusty longtime bartender friend Morgana Bacon, who simply replied, "Ew. My first thought is ew." Well, there was only one way to find out.
What does spicy rosé taste like?
For this particular experiment I used La Vieille Ferme rosé (my go-to) and fresh jalapeño (not pickled). I ended up using five slices of jalapeño total, four to drop in the wine and one as a garnish to get some of that kick onto the rim of my wine glass. On the first sip, I didn't taste much of a difference, though the smell of the fresh pepper did perk up my nostrils. The longer the drink sat, the more the spice started to seep into the wine, and the more I started to enjoy it. As Allyssa mentions on her TikTok page, it's similar to the taste of a spicy margarita, though much less aggressive.
The key to this combination is the subtlety that comes from simply dropping in the pepper—there's no muddling, and as opposed to a pickled jalapeño, there are no juices immediately mingling with the wine. This is all pure infusion, baby. And that infusion goes both ways. The remaining wine-soaked jalapeños are a spicy bite with a bit of sweetness, something that would make an excellent garnish on a completely separate cocktail altogether.
The best way to make a jalapeño and rosé cocktail
If you really want to maximize the flavor of your spicy rosé but are hesitant to try what I am now dubbing the "drop and slurp" method, Bacon has a few bartender-approved alternatives.
First is one that @allyssainthekitchen herself recently tried: make it a spicy frosé. For Allyssa's recipe, you must pre-plop—yes, that's a technical term—a few slices of jalapeño into a bottle of rosé to really infuse. You'll also need:
- frozen strawberries
- hot honey
- lime
- ice
- tequila (if you want a little extra kick)
Pour all the ingredients into a blender, and feel free to experiment with whatever ratios taste best to you—just remember to strain the rosé to avoid any jalapeño slices being blended into the mix as well (at that point you're basically just making cold, boozy salsa, which honestly might be amazing).
Another option is to make a twist on a mojito. Liquor.com has a great recipe for the classic cocktail, and to channel spicy rosé, all you need to do is swap in muddled jalapeño for the muddled mint and top with a sparkling rosé instead of club soda. Remember those delicious wine-infused jalapeño slices I mentioned earlier? Use those to rim the glass, leave on as a pinwheel garnish, and you've got yourself a spicy yet refreshing summer cocktail that just might be the next big thing on TikTok.