Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Sour Note

1 part Bourbon
1/2 part simple syrup
1/2 part freshly squeezed lemon juice
I made a batch of simple syrup recently and added some finely grated lemon peel to the pot to give it an extra citrus flavor. Haven't stopped mixing it with everything yet. We were getting back to basics the night we made a whiskey sour with the syrup and freshly squeezed lemon juice and it tasted so good we wondered why we don't order these more often. Actually if we knew a bar person made his/her own simple syrup and squeezed their own fruit we probably would.

 
Vodka sour = short lemonade = perfect start to summer
Make it the same as above just replace the bourbon with vodka. Now go try it with gin, rum, tequila, moonshine, etc...  


Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Bloody Orange-ita


What if you replace triple sec in a margarita with Solerno blood orange liqueur?  Then add some orange juice instead of lime? What do you get?

A bloody nice drink, that's what!




Monday, May 13, 2013

Negroni plus

 
More than pasta or gelato, a Negroni is a taste of Italy for me and it's so easy to make - equal measures of gin, campari and sweet vermouth stirred in a glass of ice with a slice of orange. I had a longing for one recently and it was perfect - all I needed was to drink it standing up at a bar after my evening passegiata.
Of course I had to play around with some other ingredients to make it mine (it's a hard job I do you know) and this is what I we had on hand: 
1 1/2 oz Absolut citron
1 1/2 oz Campari
1 1/2 oz Lillet Blanc (You should always have this in the fridge)
To make it a long drink, add a little soda water (or lavender soda if you just happen to have it in the fridge). Now splash out for a table on the piazza and waiter service. 
 



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Sunday, May 5, 2013

Margarita 102



The last thing you need is another margarita recipe especially so late in the week of cinco de mayo but we realized that for all the cocktails here we have never actually featured one with tequila. Shock! Horror! Pick yourself off the floor because we actually love tequila and himself specializes in margaritas. We’re purists at heart – 100% agave tequila, freshly squeezed lime juice and triple sec in a 4:4:1 ratio with a bunch of crushed ice. 

What we have done to make it uniquely ours though are two things – the first is a salted foam topping. At Christmas I got a molecular mixology kit which has resulted mostly in disappointment (and a lot of washing up) but it did leave us one surprise – a salty foam made with lecithin and in a 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration kind of way we found the salted foam made the perfect topping for a margarita instead of the salted rim. And it looks good.
  

The second thing we do is add half a habanero chili as garnish straight into the drink (if you were very daring you might rub the rim with it) and it infuses the beverage as you sip it. By the time you get to the end it makes your lips buzz and your taste buds sing.
 

This last part is the best bit!



Thursday, May 2, 2013

Tom's Medley

 
Tom knows only a smattering of lines from a few songs and strings them together in a fashion all his own. It gets a sing-song going and takes the party up a notch. We call it “Tom’s Medley’.  He visited us recently and I knew I had to have a cocktail with this name; and I worked with the guidelines of it having Jack Daniels (his favorite tipple) and a smattering of a few other libations so I started with many a barman’s nightmare - the Long Island Ice Tea.

This is what we had. And then we had another one. Doesn’t look pretty but neither did we after a few more…
1 oz Jack Daniels bourbon
¼ oz gin
¼ oz vodka
¼ oz white rum
¼ oz triple sec
¼ oz fresh lime juice
¼ oz orange juice
Splash of cola


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