 Finally, my first entry of the year for a Home Bar Awards contest. February’s contest theme is #freezethebeets, so I did. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to fit this one in, but I just got back from vacation and I’m not ready to give up the tropical drinks just yet. This is a pretty simple riff on a Hemingway Daiquiri, and it makes a surprisingly sweet, refreshing and slightly peppery blended cocktail. This uses all of the same components as the original Daiquiri; juice, rum, Luxardo, lime, and ice. Since I had to use beets, and beet juice is surprisingly sweet, I upped the regular amount of lime juice just a bit to add some acidity and balance. I also used some coconut rum just to add a little contrasting flavor to the earthiness of the beets. I preferred this blended with a little less ice than is traditional used in a Hemingway Daiquiri, but you do you.  For Whom The Beet Tolls
3.5 oz. Kōloa Kaua’i Coconut Rum 2 oz. beet juice 1.5 oz. Luxardo Liqueur 1.25 oz. lime juice Garnish with candied beet roses Combine all Ingredients in a blender, throw in a handful or two of ice and blend until smooth. Cheers!
0 Comments
 This post is sponsored by Basic Invites, and any opinions or reviews expressed are my own. If you didn’t already know already I’ll take any excuse to make a cocktail and throw a party. So, when Basic Invites asked me if I would be interested in writing a post about their graduation announcements I had the perfect event in mind. I’m sure I’m not the only one with an upcoming graduation in my future, and what better way to celebrate getting my first born through Kindergarten alive then a party! Basic Invites has so many graduation party invitations, there’s really something for everyone even my kinder-grad. You can customize you invites with their almost unlimited color options including over forty different colored envelopes. I love that I was able to order samples of my customized invites so I could see how they look printed with my photos, color and paper choices. If you’re also looking for invitations for an upcoming graduation Basic Invites is offering 15% off your order right now with the coupon code: 15FF51.  I figure celebrating making it through kindergarten is as much for the parents as it is for the kindergartener, it can be a pretty steep learning curve for everyone involved. A champagne cocktail is my go-to, it’s easy, delicious and what better way is there to celebrate. Since a mocktail, (or as we call them in my house cocky-tails) was also in order I based both drinks on a Shirley Temple. The champagne cocktail is an elevated version that draws inspiration from the flavors, while the mocktail uses higher quality ingredients to create an alcohol free drink both kids and adult will enjoy.  Shirleys All Grown up 3 oz. Champagne .25 oz. Cointreau .25 oz. Luxardo Liqueur Maraschino cherry for garnish Place the cherry in the bottom of a champagne flute, add cointreau and Luxardo to the bottom of the glass. Pour Champagne over the top until glass is full, enjoy!  Shirley Temple Black
3 oz. Ginger beer Grenadine .25 lime This is easy. Rim plastic stemless Champagne flute with sprinkles. Pour as much or as little Grenadine syrup as your comfortable with into the bottom of the glass, squeeze a bit of lime juice on top and fill with chilled Ginger beer. Cheers!  Highclere Castle Gin was nice enough to gift me with a bottle of their London Dry Gin, and I couldn’t wait to make a cocktail with it! All of the botanicals used in the creation of this gin are from the Highclere Castle estate grounds aka Downton Abby and it’s distilled in Englands oldest gin distillery. Inspired by the lavender grown on the estate and used in the making of the gin and of course the perennially English tradition of tea the High(clere) Tea clarified milk punch was born. This is a super smooth cocktail with a beautiful color, and a soft mouth feel. The tea offers a surprising astringency, while the floral notes complement the gin nicely. I considered making a lavender dram in order to bolster the ABV of this cocktail, but ultimately I think using the milk as a vehicle for the lavender prevents it from over whelming the delicate flavor of the jasmine. This ends up being a pretty low abv cocktail, which is good because this batch is party sized.  High(clere) Tea
2.5 cup water 6 oz. Jasmine Tea 85 g. Granulated sugar 1 cup Highclere Castle London Dry Gin 2.5oz. lemon juice 1 cup lavender milk Boil water to 190 degrees, an electric kettle is easiest, add tea and steep for three minutes. Strain tea and add sugar, gin, lemon juice and stir until dissolved. Let cool to room temperature. Once cooled, pour the mixture into the lavender milk (see recipe below) and allow to sit on the counter for at least an hour. It’s supposed to curdle, don’t worry. Using a fine sieve and a coffee filter, allow the milk and tea mixture to filter, it should take roughly 30 minutes to an hour. Once filtered your punch should be crystal clear, seal and chill. You can keep this in your fridge for a while. Lavender Milk 2 tbsp lavender buds 1 cup whole milk Bring milk to a simmer in a small pot, add lavender and simmer for three minutes. Strain out lavender and allow to cool completely. Serve your clarified milk punch chilled and enjoy. Cheers!  I know it’s Valentines Day, but I have more important things to discuss. Margarita Day is coming, February 22nd, mark your calendars people! In addition, this also happens to be the first anniversary (technically its tomorrow…) of the first cocktail that I made for my blog. So I thought it would be fun to revisit that recipe and see how far I’ve come, it isn’t pretty but if you want to check out that first post you can see it here. The original recipe has some crazy long name like Grapefruit Paloma Beer-garit Meet-Cute. So many bad decisions were made, don’t worry I’m better now. The concept behind this cocktail was to make something fruity without using any actual fruit, which I almost achieved except for the lime juice, oops. I gave this recipe a little revamp, and a less confusing name. I traded the lime juice for citric acid and lime bitters, used a different grapefruit pale ale, and cut down on the sweetener (yuk it was bad). Voila! A very tasty, totally fruit free Beer-garita.  Grapefruit Gummi Beer-garita!
1.5 oz. Espolón Tequila Blanco .5 oz. El Silencio Mezcal .75 oz. Agave Syrup 1/2 tsp. Citric Acid 4-8 dashes Scrappy’s Lime Bitters 8 oz. Pale Rider Grapefruit Citrus Pale Ale Grapefruit gummi’s for garnish Combine all ingredients, except the beer, in a mixing glass and stir until mixed and dissolved. Fill a beer glass, or the can if you’re feeling fancy, with crushed ice. Pour contents of the mixing glass into ice filled glass and top with beer. Garnish with grapefruit gummi’s and enjoy. Cheers!  While last weeks cocktail was a riff on a classic dessert, this weeks cocktail is a bit more subtle. This cocktail was designed to compliment a sweet dessert. It’s a little bit sweet, a little bit sour with a velvety mouth feel and a hint of coffee flavor which is mirrored by a sprinkling of crystallized coffee on top to give a beautiful aroma. The Chromatic crystalized coffee is the inspiration for this cocktail, as soon as I saw this product I knew I wanted to incorporate it into a drink recipe. I’m still working on a way to actually put it in a drink, but its lovely as a garnish. This cocktail is a first for me on two fronts. First, I finally bought a bottle of Monkey 47 Schwarzwald Dry Gin, and have never been happier it’s that good. Secondly, this is my first foray with Sloe Gin, it’s one of those things where I sort of knew what it was supposed to be but had never actually tasted any…? Well, check that one off my list. I love a good apertivo and the Cinque has more of a bitter asparagus taste then the sweetness of a traditional Aperol style apertivo, which helps to balance the Sloe Gin. I originally tried this without the sour element but it was too sweet and one-dimensional. The end result is a pretty tasty and sophisticated cocktail.  Coe Avenue Sour
1.5 oz. Sipsmith’s Sloe Gin .75 oz. Monkey 47 Schwarzwald Dry Gin .5 oz. lemon juice .25 Mr. Black coffee liqueur .25 Cinque Apertivo 1 egg white Garish with Chromatic crystalized coffee Combine all ingredients in a shaker, dry shake for a minute and thirty seconds, add ice and continue to shake for an additional thirty seconds or until chilled. Pour into a chilled Nick and Nora glass and garnish with a sprinkle of crystalized coffee. Enjoy. Cheers! |