I love key lime pie. It's my favorite kind right up there with apple pie and cookies & cream pie. The bar I work at pre-pandemic had in-house made key lime pie and I'm pretty sure I ordered a slice for me and my husband like every other time we hung out there. Unfortunately, we now have a very limited menu because we're operating with a smaller staff size and limited hours. The key lime pie was not one of the items that made the cut.
But, I was cleaning out my desk of old notebooks and I came across my old bar notebook. At the bar I work at, you're not supposed to be on your phone or messing around if you're on the clock and that includes when you're slow. Obviously, if you're there by yourself, who's gonna stop you?
But back when I first became a bartender, I decided to use the slow days to become a better bartender by researching stuff about being a bartender. I used the notebook to take notes on the beers we had on tap, write down information about different liquors and different brands and types of certain liquors, and to record the different types of cocktails I came up with until one day it got full and it was resigned to the back of my bookshelf.
I was looking through it for shits and giggles and I found this key lime pie shooter that I made up for a customer one day during a day shift. This guy came in with his partner and this other couple, sat at the bar, and was like, "I have a weird request."
I feel like I hear this maybe twice a month as a bartender, and they're always not as weird as the person thinks it is. Really the only exception I've met to this was the guy who wanted Bloody Mary mix in his PBR. That's still weird to me, but I also don't like Bloody Mary's so you do you boo.
Anyways, he wanted a key lime pie shot for him and the other three people with him. Now we don't have a key lime pie shot in our system, but they had been the first customers I'd had all day so I was determined to figure out how to make it.
Fun fact: when a bartender doesn't know how to make something you want, they google it behind the bar and figure it out, even if it means making a few tweaks to match the ingredients that specific bar has.
We didn't have like 45% of the stuff needed to make the key lime pie shots I found through google, but I did look at enough recipes to come up with my own.
Now, this is not the shot you drink if you are looking for something to get fucked up on as one shot is only about .60 oz of rum, but they're super tasty and just fun if you're looking for a fun way to end a meal.
I won't keep you waiting any longer. Here's my farewell to summer!
Key Lime Pie Shooters
Makes four 1.5oz shots or two 3oz shooters
Ingredients
Graham Cracker or Honey Teddy Grahams
2.5 oz rum
1.25 oz lime juice
1.25 oz simple syrup
1 oz half & half
Whipped Cream
Crush up the graham crackers or teddy grahams into a fine powder. Either slide a lime wedge around the top of the glass or dip the rim of the glass into water and then dip the glass into the graham cracker powder to rim the glass.
Add all of the other ingredients into a shaker tin with ice. Shake vigorously. Strain into four shot glasses and top with whipped cream.
Bottoms up!
Pro tip: Drink these almost immediately after topping with whipped cream because if you let it sit for too long, the lime juice and the half and half with separate.
Take a shot for the last day of summer and toast to how amazing key lime pie is.
Cheers,
Kristaleagh
