The Brazilian One

I can’t talk about a caipirinha without talking about my Catalan friend Anna who introduced me to them in the summer of 1994 in Siena, Italy. Apparently, they were all the rage in Barcelona that year because Ronaldo, the Brazilian soccer player, was all the rage with Barça. Anna introduced a barman to them and it was our drink of choice there – when we weren’t drinking wine that is.

It is made with cachaça rum and limes muddled with sugar and poured over ice. It’s not summer if we don’t have one or two of these.

Cheers to a great Labor Day weekend!

Flibberty Gimlet

We got a present last year of a bottle of Absolut Citron and have at last found the perfect drink to make from it – riffing the French gimlet recipe found here

2 parts Absolut Citron

1 part St. Germain elderflower liqueur (Patron saint of tasty according to Baly)

Half part freshly squeezed lime juice

This drink is hands down our favorite of the summer and makes us into flibberty gibbets. Speaking of which – we’re all going to the Sound of Music sing-a-long again tomorrow and looking forward to singing our little hearts out. We're being a little more adventurous with dressing up this year so I'll be sure to take some photos but as a sort of preview I made a t-shirt with the flibberty gibbet label especially for Eamon to wear – think he’ll prefer it to lederhosen or a nun costume.

White Poinsettia

Last year my sister, Siobhan, introduced me to a cocktail called Poinsettia and I served it a few times over the holiday season and it always went down very well. A little too well in fact when you’re drinking it and trying to get dinner on the Thanksgiving table. I believe I even served it here.

Here’s the recipe (direct from Europe with metric units!)

125 ml Cointreau
500 ml Ocean Breeze Cranberry Juice
1 bottle of Prosecco

Mix together (it’s best if the juice and Prosecco are well chilled) and pour into champagne flutes over some frozen cranberries. Easy peezy lemon squeezy.

Some time over the summer I replaced the red cranberry juice with a white one (we had lots left over after this cocktail) and it took the Christmas out of it if you know what I mean. I served it poolside and again it went down well. Some frozen raspberries would have been great in this. While this cocktail is great to serve company, I doubt myself and himself would have trouble drinking it all to ourselves.

Pastis

Sometimes all that's needed is a simple pastis with water, the latest bicycle magazine and the evening to yourself.