Posts Tagged ‘cocktail’
Not quite a dark and stormy – Made from Scratch
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.
You should follow me on Twitter.Sweet Chocolate Lips – A Guilty Pleasure
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.
You should follow me on Twitter.Cranberry Sauce Cocktails
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.
You should follow me on Twitter.Beer Cocktail Competition
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.
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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:
- Muddle a heap of lemon and lime (3/4 of a lemon and half a lime, the more lemon is important)
- Add a splash of sugar syrup
- Add 60 ml of your favourite whisky (I prefer Canadian Club, but Johnnie Black goes a treat)
- Shake over ice
- Strain into a fresh short glass full of ice
- Top up with a little bit of soda water
- Garnish with a cherry and possibly a wedge of lime
Martinis: 8 Random Pieces of Trivia
This is going to come across badly to the purists, but a Martini isn’t a particularly “nice” drink, gin, vodka and especially vermouth are all, straight, generally offensive to the palate. In my time working behind a bar I’ve discovered that the drinkers of Martini’s are a not dissimilar to the drinkers of Champagne. While the drinkers may like the taste, and can definitely distinguish between the quality of the drinks, most of the drinking is about making a statement about who they are. Now, as a barman you can’t let that bother you, and one thing is for certain regarding the Martini, people that drink them love them and those same people tip well.
Tipping here in Australia and New Zealand is not an organised affair as it is in other locales, people are not required to tip and generally don’t unless there is a good reason to. This means that if someone orders a Martini your best smile, wit and banter should be on show, so as to convert this chance into some cold hard cash. If you are still with me, the purpose of this post is not to describe a recipe and process for making a Martini, that is for another time and another post. The purpose is to provide some tips for conversation with your potential tipper. Some of these are unsubstantiated, others may be wives-tales and others may be completely made up by me right here, nonetheless they should work for some good conversation.
- Martin’s aren’t supposed to be shaken, they should be stirred. This is because shaking them bruises the gin working with that, you could shake a vodka martini because you can’t bruise vodka.
- Further to the previous comment, I think it’s probably bullshit – that is the whole bruising of gin.
- There is a study that suggests shaking gin activates more antioxidants in it, and this might be a reason why James Bond is so healthy. (from Wikipedia)
- It’s unlucky to have an even number of olives in a Martini, so you should have 1 or 3. Never 2.
- James Bond likes his martinis dry, very dry, shaken not stirred.
- Hawkeye from MASH liked his martini’s about as dry, stating that the perfect recipe was to pour a glass of cold gin while looking at a picture of the inventor of vermouth. To translate, that’s a cold glass of gin with an olive or 3
- A martini with a cocktail onion is called a Gibson
- Methyphobia is the fear of alcohol
The White Russian
The White Russian, or better (not commonly) known as the Caucasian is a simple drink. Coffee and Milk that get’s you pissed – what’s not to like. The name Caucasian stems from the movie The Big Lebowsky. I want to believe that The Dude has a White Russian in his hand in every scene of the movie, but that just isn’t true, though he has a fair crack mixing a few up when he clearly wasn’t welcome. Anyhow, The Big Lebowsky – great film you should get it out or download it.
Before you get your hands dirty, you should know that the White Russian has a cousin/brother, the Black Russian. We won’t talk about that right now.
The White Russian is a great drink, strong and tasty. Take a short glass, (also know as a rock) fill it up with ice, add 1 nip of Kahlua, 1 nip of vodka and top it up with milk. Stir and serve with a straw. I want to talk a little bit about some other variations of this, some places will put this all into a shaker, shake and then strain it into a glass of new ice. I don’t have a particular abjection to this being shaken, but it should be shaken gently and definitely not strained. Shaking normally breaks the ice and adds some water to the drink, normally this doesn’t hurt a shaken drink but in this case milk and water definitely do not go together.
Another version of this replaces milk with cream, I actually have a suspicion this has happened because of a problem with translation between the US and the rest of the English speaking world. Americans often refer to full cream milk as cream, and if I for example didn’t know that I would read a drink recipe containing this so called “cream” add cream to my White Russian and not get it how it’s meant to be. Anyway, aside from that cream doesn’t go badly and it doesn’t go that well in a Caucasian. I don’t recommend it, but whatever floats your boat. Just remember, this drink is pretty good as it always has been.
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