Sam Heughan found a heartfelt way to toast his Outlander “family” as the cast and crew gathered to say goodbye to the beloved series.
The actor, 45, has long been passionate about good spirits, thanks to his award-winning whisky and gin line, Sassenach Spirits. Now, he’s sharing that love more widely in his new book The Cocktail Diaries, released on Sept. 23. The collection features recipes created or cherished by Heughan himself, including the one he served at the Outlander wrap party in Scotland.
For the occasion, he crafted Sam’s Garden Appletini, made with crabapples grown in his own yard.
“The reason I made it [Sam’s Garden Appletini] was that obviously I had my extended family, let’s call them, you know, friends and family from Outlander coming around to my house, and I have this apple tree in my garden that has lots of these crabapples, which are extremely sour,” he told PEOPLE.
Heughan noted in the book that his trees had never borne fruit before, writing: “Maybe they knew I’d come to the end of my journey with Outlander.”
Though the apples weren’t great to eat, he wanted to make use of them. “Using the Sassenach gin, one of the botanicals we use in the gin is these green apples. So I thought this would work.”
It did — and the cocktail was a hit.
“They all like a tipple,” Heughan joked. “But also yeah, it just felt nice to create something from my garden. It was a really nice moment to share with everyone that I have been working with — it was cast and crew that were there — and just to [celebrate] an amazing journey we’ve all been on for the past 11 years.”
The party didn’t stop there. “We did finish the bottle that I created and had many other cocktails as well. I think by the end of the night I started making Tommy’s margaritas.”
The evening even turned playful when the leftover crabapples sparked a full-on apple fight. “It was probably Richard Rankin or Sophie [Skelton], one of the two,” Heughan admitted. “It escalated pretty quickly; I think everyone was involved. It was a really wonderful way to end the summer as well.”
Outlander will officially wrap with its eighth and final season, premiering on Starz in early 2026.
In his book, Heughan goes deeper into his recipe, explaining that he infused a bottle of gin and a bottle of vodka with 10 chopped apples for a few days, then strained the liquid. “Once strained, it had this beautiful pale green colour that I stirred some vermouth into and it went down a storm at the party.”
The taste, he says, was unforgettable. “A crisp, clean apple” with “a burnt butter or buttery kind of creaminess to it as well.”
And while the cocktail worked beautifully for a farewell party, Heughan thinks it’s also perfect for romance. “If you want to impress your partner that you’ve gone through this effort, you’ve gone out and bought apples or picked them off a tree and you’ve been making this for a couple of days… it’s really cool, but it’s also really easy to make. So, if you’re worried about cooking them dinner you want to make a really easy cocktail but make it feel very special, I think that this is the one for your date night.”