Particular mixture of spice and ale (8)
I believe the answer is:
especial
'particular' is the definition.
(I know that particular can be written as especial)
'mixture of spice and ale' is the wordplay.
'mixture of' indicates anagramming the letters (I've seen this in other clues).
'and' says to put letters next to each other.
'spice' put after 'ale' is 'alespice'.
'alespice' is an anagram of 'ESPECIAL'.
(Other definitions for especial that I've seen before include "Spice ale wrongly and be particular" , "CIE pleas can turn out to be distinctive" , "particularly good" , "Exclusive" , "Exceptional" .)