My Aching Head

Having just bought a shiny new bottle of Maraska Maraschino Liqueur I quickly set to making a tasty libation containing it. My first stop was Google, which brought me this post from Kaiser Penguin which discusses the best ratio of Maraschino to Gin which I didn’t read until after making my first attempt. Now, it wasn’t even that close attempt due to the fact I had no lemon juice and I made do with lime instead. So the recipe was:

• 2 oz Tanqueray Gin
• 1 oz Maraschino Liqueur
• 1 oz Lime Juice
• .5 oz Simple Syrup

This recipe ended up extremely tart, so I added a few dashes of Angostura Bitters which managed to temper it quite nicely. My next attempt will definitely cut back on the Maraschino to a ratio more like Gary Regan’s in The Joy of Mixology which hopefully will make for much easier drinking.

For this month’s Mixology Monday the theme is “Spice,” in the announcement Craig’s definition of spice piqued my interest, “Salt? Go for it.” This challenge coupled with one of my Mexican friend’s favourite drink swhich he described to me as, Tequila, salt and Coke. I got cracking, doing a quick search on Google gave it a name, the Batanga. It all fell into place when the bottle of Mezcal Tequila that I bought had a little sachet of spices and sea salt. According to another brief search apparently this spicey concoction is traditionally imbibed alongside Mezcal. The resulting drink, lime juice, tequila, spicey sea salt and coke, garnished with a lime wedge is very tasty, certainly interesting and quite unique.

The theme for MxMo this month is Made from Scratch having never really delved into the homemade ingredients side of things before I wanted to start with something basic. I recalled seeing a post from Stevi at Two At The Most for a recipe of ginger syrup, so I got to work. I actually wanted the syrup to be a little bit more gingerbread-like so I also added a bit of ground cinnamon. That’s what you can see floating in the drink in the photo.

Now it seems like quite an easy thing to make, but I managed to forget it was on the stove and let it reduce down to a very thick treacle like substance. Adding some more water brought the consistency back but the flavour was a little bit more bitter than it probably should have been.

I then decided on some sort of rum based cocktail. I’m not entirely sure what to call it but here is the recipe

• 3/4 oz Mt Gay rum
• 3/4 oz Bombay Sapphire
• Half a lime of lime juice
• 3/4 oz homemade ginger syrup

Shake and strain over ice. Top up with soda.

Entertainingly enough the syrup wasn’t the only thing homemade used while making this, I dropped (and broke) the only boston in the house so I had to use a coffee mug as the other side of the shaker.

As part of Mixology Monday (hosted by Steve at Two At The Most), I’m proffering this cocktail recipe. Some people may hardly call it a cocktail, but that’s the beauty of it. It’s simple, girly, oh so tasty, and not something you would tell your mates you were drinking, making this the guiltiest of pleasures.

• 10ml White creme de cacao
• 10ml Dark creme de cacao
• 10ml Cointreau
• 45ml Baileys
• 100ml Milk
• 1 good squirt of Hershey’s Chocolate Sauce

Shake with ice and serve in a chocolate (Hershey’s) coated cocktail glass. Sprinkle chocolate on the milky froth.

Last night I worked in the Boiler Room for the first time in quite some time. A few things there have changed, apart from the management changes they have started serving a few light snacks, like cheese boards. Anyway, when I got there reacquainted myself with the surroundings and spotted a tub of cranberry sauce in the fridge. It was clear, I had to make some drinks with cranberry sauce.

While they aren’t necessarily that original, both of these drinks were met with much enjoyment.

Old Fashioned Christmas Lunch

• Wedge of orange
• Wedge of lemon
• Bar spoon of cranberry sauce
• 2 nips of Wild Turkey bourbon

Muddle fruit and cranberry sauce, stir the bourbon with ice. Strain and serve over fresh ice. Garnish with a wedge of orange.

Saucy Cosmo

• Bar spoon of cranberry sauce
• 10 ml of lime juice
• 1/2 nip of Gran Marnier
• 1 1/2 nips of Tanqueray Gin
• 80ml of Apple Juice

Shake contents over ice and serve in a chilled cocktail glass.

I’ve been brewing over having a cocktail competition here on my blog for a while now and recently while I was in Melbourne decided what it should be. I’m announcing the My Aching Head Beer Cocktail Competition, so head on over to the page and get your entries in.

I’m keen to add some new exciting drinks to the drinking repertoire.

As with most any drink or food recipe, it’s easy to jump on the net and lookup the recipe for pretty much any drink on the net, usually Wikipedia has a pretty good answer (as it does with most things.) But what happens to me, is I do that, lookup the recipe and then when I go to put the concoction together I’ve forgotten what was in it so I make something with the general gist of it. This recipe for the age old Whisky sours is exactly one of these. Now before I go on, I’m calling it a Whisky sours because I prefer Canadian and Scotch rather than American or Irish (with an e.)

Anyway, here’s the recipe:

1. Muddle a heap of lemon and lime (3/4 of a lemon and half a lime, the more lemon is important)
2. Add a splash of sugar syrup
3. Add 60 ml of your favourite whisky (I prefer Canadian Club, but Johnnie Black goes a treat)
4. Shake over ice
5. Strain into a fresh short glass full of ice
6. Top up with a little bit of soda water
7. Garnish with a cherry and possibly a wedge of lime