Mojito

 

A mojito? Why yes a mojito! There are times when there is nothing more refreshing and at the height of the summer it's likely you need it and your mint plants need trimming. I eyeball a lot of the ingredients for this but I opt for a muddle free one by making a simple syrup with mint, and then have equal measures of that, lime juice and rum. And yes, more mint for the glass with lots of ice and club soda.

Light n' Stormy

It's no secret our love of a good Dark n' Stormy - we've mentioned a couple here but a pitcher version grabbed my attention recently in Better Homes & Garden (can't find the link online to the exact recipe but the ingredients were sweet vermouth, lime juice and ginger beer) but I riffed it a little more. This was for four people and we had the pitcher gone before I even thought of taking a picture. Alas, no picture of the pitcher.

2 cups Sweet Vermouth
1 cup of Goslings Dark Rum
1 cup fresh lime juice (or to your taste - we don't like it too sweet)

1/2 cup Ginger Liqueur (we love Domaine de Canton)
2 12 oz bottles Reeds Ginger Beer
Lime slices
Oodles of ice

Add all the ingredients in a pitcher except the ice and stir. Pour over ice filled glasses.

Apple Pickin' Punch

 

2 oz Goslings dark rum
1/2 oz Goldschlager cinnamon schnapps
1/4 oz St Elizabeth allspice dram
4 oz apple cider
1 tsp lemon juice

The taste of the autumnal equinox right there in the glass.

Cuba Libertine

 

There's many a version of the mojito out there and they're all fine drinks but this one is the best! Know why? I replaced the club soda with sparkling wine (and the white rum with a spiced one!). Drinks are always better with sparkling wine.

2 oz. Sailor Jerry spiced rum
2 tbsp. simple syrup
2 tbsp. fresh lime juice
Bunch of mint leaves
Sparking wine (dry)

Muddle the mint with the syrup and juice, add ice and rum and shake. Pour over ice and top off with sparkling wine. Stir and enjoy.

Hot n' Stormy

Big fans around here for a Dark n' Stormy especially with Fever Tree ginger beer and we're huge fans of one called a Dark n' Stormier with an oz or two of Domaine de Canton added in. But on these cold nights this is a good one (especially if you run out of ginger beer!):

1oz Goslings dark rum
1oz Domaine de Canton
Lime wedge w/ the juice squeezed in
Hot ginger tea

Ginger Gem

A little ginger something for a festive toast during our Christmas tree lighting 'ceremony' tonight.

1 ½ parts spiced rum

½ part Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur

¼ part cinnamon schnapps

1 tsp molasses

Ginger ale/ginger beer

Candied ginger to garnish (or if you’re like us and don’t have any to hand a lemon twist works just as well.)

Shake first three ingredients with ice in cocktail shaker and pour into glass which has had the molasses twirled around the inside. Top off with ginger ale/beer and enjoy.

The molasses might need a little stirring towards the end and it really does give it a nice flavor. You can see the twirl so much better when I tried this with the citrus vodka. Himself approves of this ‘hobby’ of mine because of the trial and error involved. Nothing seems to go to waste around here compared to say, my sewing 'hobby'.

Spear-tini

This has been a while in the making and we’ve gone through a few versions but think we’ve finally settled on a decent spear-tini which is ideal for these fall evenings for the more sophisticated college football viewer in this house (Not that I’m more sophisticated nor a ‘viewer of football’ per se but any excuse to make a Saturday feel like an occasion).

Of course it’s inspired by the garnet and gold of FSU and originally I thought of renaming our pomegranate martini (no doubt had a few last year!) but wanted to get the ‘gold’ in there and couldn’t find a vodka with gold flakes which I know is out there somewhere (We got a wedding present of one so we know it exists!). Instead we tried Goldschlager but the cinnamon flavor jus didn’t do it. This year we started with spiked apple cider but it wasn’t ‘garnet’ enough but we were on the right track. When we used a cranberry/apple cider mix we got the perfect pairing with the cinnamon schnapps. Add some dark or spiced rum and the spear-tini was made.

2 oz dark/spiced rum

1 oz cinnamon schnapps

4-5 oz cranberry/apple cider cocktail.

Stab an apple slice with a spear for garnish.

I even think that this would translate very well heated for some hot spear-tini – say on a chilly day when tailgating. Maybe I’ll find out later in the season!

Spin-juice-u

It’s been a good week - the sun is shining, the temperatures are perfect for enjoying the balcony and the kid is occupied with his many new sets of Ninjago Lego and Pokémon cards (thank you all!); with this in mind we present another fruity rum drink for you. We muddled some sugar with a slice each of orange, lemon and lime, shook it with cachaça and ice and poured it into tall glasses and topped with guava and pineapple juices. Nice.

The kid enjoyed a mocktail of guava and pineapple juices and a few paper umbrellas and plastic monkeys.

*Helps to know a little about Ninjago and spinjitsu for the name. Also helps to drink this while playing Ninjago.

Dark n' Threatening

2-3 oz Goslings dark rum
Juice of half a lime
Lots of ice
Fill rest of tall glass with ginger root beer

The end of summer suddenly has me drinking rum - must be the build up of atmospheric pressure in the Atlantic that made me crave a dark and stormy this week. The weather is hot and humid and it was threatening to rain all week but we've gotten away lightly but this is still as refreshing. For our ginger beer we accidentally picked up a ginger root beer and though (being non-American perhaps?) I'm not a root beer fan, the lime juice and dark rum cut the medicinal taste and let's just say there wasn't any left in the glass. Wonder what it would be like with a dollop of ice cream?

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!