13 posts tagged “drinks”
People that know me know that I love gin.
We had a rocky start, gin and I. It's got a unique flavor that can be kind of off putting at first.
Annie describes it as "pine flavored rubbing alcohol".
My love affair with gin started around last Thanksgiving. We had a grand time; gin and I. Ever since it's been a whirlwind romance.
My love affair with fruit started back when I was a kid. I love fruit. I'd eat fruit over many a sweet, sugary treat almost any time.
So when I saw a bottle of "pear infused" gin at the store I couldn't help but try it.
Now then. I find most booze palatable. I don't like beer, too bitter. Wine is blah, also bitter.
Tastes like sour grape juice.
But this stuff...this Wet by Beefeater....
I tried it out in my standard martini recipe:
2.5 oz gin
1/4 oz vermouth
stirred
strained
garnished with a lemon peel
I use this recipe for all gins, great and small. Bombay right down to the grocery store brand.
Wet by Beefeater though...
Blech.
Is this even gin?
It's terrible.
Where is the distinctive gin flavor?
Nowhere to be found.
It's tastes vaguely antiseptic.
I'm glad this bottle was on sale for less than $10 because I would have bought it for regular cost (gin+fruit should = yummy).
I'm going to go ahead and place this in the back of my cabinet; right next to that bottle of white chocolate liqueur that tastes like chalk that somebody gave me for Christmas.
Somethings are just craveable. You see them and are drawn to them without explanation. I had one of those moments today...
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I do not intake caffeine on a regular basis. I don't drink coffee, I avoid sodas that have caffeine and don't drink much tea these days. It's not out of any religious or moral conviction that I don't do caffeine; I abstain in order to have it be more effective when I need that boost.
But something has been changing inside of me as of late.
Despite my caffeine prohibition I've been drawn to coffee recently. There is something about the smell that is so enticing. The wafting aroma of whatever they brew at work is so tempting I've contemplated stealing sips from unattended cups in the kitchen.
Today I said allowed the idea of taking up coffee drinking in the upcoming year to rear its head.
I could treat it like I do making cocktails. Experimenting with flavors and mixes. Looking for that one most delicious cup of joe that jump start your brain and excite the taste buds.
I started thinking about coffee pots and how, if I was to do undertake this mission I should do it right. I'd need the right tools for the job, no corner cutting. I thought about a coffee pot I had seen in a picture once. It looked like a science experiment, it looked modern, clean and simple. And then it hit me: it looked like an Erlenmeyer flask. (I was shocked to learn that I remembered something from high school chemistry. The specific name of a piece of equipment no less.) So I googled "coffee pot + Erlenmeyer" and boom; craveable.
Invented in the 1940's the Chemex Coffee Maker...
Yes, this is the coffee maker for me. Now to just get over that whole "no caffeine" thing....still holds an alluring power over coffee purists and design geeks. Its success launched its inventor, Dr. Peter Schlumbohm, into the arms of the design establishment (the coffee maker has been a part of the MOMA’s design collection since 1944, just three years after Schlumbohm patented it), and in the early years of World War II, it was considered a patriotic alternative to products made from metals and plastics (which were essential to the war effort). A Time Magazine article from November 1946 quotes the ebullient inventor as saying, “with the Chemex, even a moron can make good coffee.”
Gourmet Magazine, June 2006
What's your favorite thing about Monday?
My favorite thing about this Monday is the one of my new go to cocktails; Corpse Reviver #2.
Lore says it is named as such due to its abilities to help one recover from a hangover. While I've never tried it as a hair of the dog remedy I will attest to it's ability to cause a hangover.
When I first made this for friends over the holidays I was a little apprehensive; my now almost empty bottle of Lillet was heretofore untested and I was unsure what to expect. The results were favorable all around, a light citrus flavored drink with just a hint of anise flavor in the background.
Pour all ingredients in to a cocktail shaker with ice, shake vigorously (you are waking the flavors up, not lulling them to sleep), strain and garnish with a strip of lemon peel.1oz. Lillet Blanc
1oz dry gin
1oz Cointreau (or triple sec if you're out of Cointreau like I am)
1oz lemon juice
Several drops of Absinthe*
*Different versions of this recipe call for different amounts of Absinthe; I've found several drops to be just the right amount. If Absinthe isn't handy I would assume that Pastis or Herbsaint will do.
It's a phrase heard often around Oceanaire Estates. When ever something happens that is, in my estimation, beyond belief it's among the first things I say.
Some of tales are too dirty or mean to ever see the light of day, I write them and save them as private for perusal and dispute settlement later on. Some end up being extended TXT or email conversations with my friends and still others are so LOL-tacular that I save them for face to face meetings.
The story I'm about to tell started late last year.
After hearing from Steve Betz about the wonderfulness of a magazine called Imbibe and buying a few issues from the newsstand I decided to subscribe. I bought a subscription for myself and gave a gift subscription to a friend.
That is where the trouble started. She got her issue before I got mine. Not a big deal really, couple of days delay due to the holidays I thought.
About a week went by, still no Imbibe in my mail box.
It's the new year and I still don't have my magazine. The holidays are over, there isn't really a reason for it to be this late. Everyday when I come home from work I comb through the mail and ask "has my new issue of Imbibe come yet?"
Yesterday I decided I had spent enough time waiting. I decided to send a letter to the magazine hoping they would send me a replacement issue but not expecting it.
I thought I would get some sort of canned response saying something along the lines of "we're sorry for the inconvenience but this time we can only extend your subscription one issue."
Instead I got a reply from an acutal person.
Hi Gene,
Thank you for your e-mail and for sharing Imbibe. I'm sorry to hear you have not received your latest issue. The address I have on file matches what you have below, so I will mail you a replacement copy right away.
I will also file a complaint with the USPS and follow up with you when our next issue is mailed to make sure you receive it. Thanks for your patience.
Cheers,
Siobhan
In recounting this story over dinner tonight I had the following conversation (the punctuation and spelling is meant to show the pronunciation):
"You mean that I. M. Bib L? It's been in my room for weeks."
"You mean the magazine I come home and ask after every day?"
"Yeah."
"This is so going on my blog."
There are two things I like to drink: tropical, umbrella style drinks and gin.
Usually when you think of umbrella drinks you think of rum, not gin. Gin is complex, full of interesting flavors, I've heard it described as "adult".
Thankfully I've found a couple recipes that mix the two! I'm a couple ingredients short of a Singapore Sling but in the interim I've found another recipe that mixes my favorites.
The Honolulu
3 measures gin
1 measure pineapple juice
1 measure orange juice
1/2 measure lemon juice*
1/2 measure simple syrup*
1/2 teaspoon grenadine
Pour all ingredients into a shaker with ice. Shake until frost forms on shaker. Strain into large martini glass. Enjoy.
* The recipe calls for one measure of lemon juice but no simple syrup I found the drink a little too bitter so I decided to cut the lemon juice in half and add some syrup for sweetness. Your milage may vary.
I leveled up on my bartending skillz tonight. This drink calls for ingredients in measures, not ounces, parts or CL's. It turns out that a measure is a the equivalent of 1.5 ounces or the larger side of a jigger. I did not know that before tonight. Yay for me!
It all started in April with a coincidence.
I was at a dinner party and was served a yummy cocktail made with limoncello, I've blogged about that cocktail in past, here.
At the same time Erin at Erin Cooks was making her own limoncello.
So I thought I would try my hand at making some.
I even Twittered about it, "After having a delicious limincello cocktail lastnight and reading about @girlieerin making some. I'm totally making my own limoncello this summer." #
Within two days I was peeling lemons with a vegetable peeler. For some reason I remember thinking it would be easy to peel lemons and only get the yellow skin without getting any of the white pithy part of it.
More than an hour later my fingers and forearms told a different story.
I used the same recipe as Erin who used the same one as Giada.
10 lemons
1 (750-ml) bottle vodka
3 1/2 cups water
2 1/2 cups sugar
After I let the lemon peels steep in the vodka for a a while I added the simple syrup mixture to the vodka and lemons and let it sit for a week before straining out the peels and bottling the final result.
The final result was a little sweet but overall very enjoyable to drink, mixed or on ice like I had tonight after dinner.
I've only got half a bottle left and when I'm done with that I plan to make a new batch with a new recipe.
Tonight I'm trying classic dry martini and comparing gins.
Hendricks vs. Bombay.
For those that wish to experiment themselves this is the recipe I'm using (from the IBA):
5.5 cl Gin (that's 1.8 ounces, I'm rounding up to 2)
1.5 cl Dry Vermouth (that's 1/2 an ounce)
Pour all ingredients into mixing glass with ice cubes. Stir well Strain in chilled
martini cocktail glass. Squeeze oil from lemon peel onto the drink, or garnish with olive.
I've heard reports form my father in law that Bombay is the superior gin as far as drinking goes but I don't think that is going over very well with the martini mixing.
I'm on martini number three, my second with Hendricks.
I think the Hendricks so much smoother and much tastier, I have to remember to try it out solo without the vermouth later on.
I'm starting to think that blogging about this in the state I'm in isn't the best idea.
Today was The Mother-In Law's birthday. We celebrated with dinner at pretty decent restaurant in downtown SLO.
I looked over the drink menu and didn't really see anything that appealed to me so I thought I'd go off menu and order something different. When the waiter appeared I order a Chelsea Sidecar, he looked confident as he wrote it down but everyone at the table looked at me and said "what?"
When the waiter left I explained what the drink was and they thought it sounded kind of weird.
A couple minutes later the waiter appeared and informed me that the bartender had no idea what a Chelsea sidecar was and asked if I could explain.
I did and when he left everyone at the table was impressed that I had stumped the bartender, which is a pretty cool feeling but probably not that hard considering how many possible drinks there are out there.
When it arrived I sipped and fell in love.
Usually I'm not a gin drinker; the gin drinker in the house buys the cheapest stuff because "you can't tell the difference" and I've never gotten around to buying a goodish bottle because I never saw the need.
Until now.
Steve Betz, thank you, thank you, thank you one thousand times.
For the uninitiated a Chelsea Sidecar is (at least in the traditional sense, which is how I'm sure the bartender made mine but there are other recipes):
- One part gin
- One part triple sec (or Cointreau or Grand Marnier)
- One part lemon juice
Shake, strain and serve
A few months back The Wife and I were at breakfast with my Ex-Office Wife and her husband. It was kind of a hippy dippy place, a cross between a greasy spoon diner and a health food joint.
They had just run out of OJ and suggested Aloe Vera juice as a replacement.
I was apprehensive at first but as soon as I tasted it I was in love.
Light, refreshing, pulpy like OJ but not too pulpy.
It was delicious.
We've been dreaming about it since that day but in San Luis Obispo it's $5 a bottle where as in San Diego it is often less than half that. This weekend we were in town for Comic Con and of course we made a stop at an Asian market to pick up a few bottles to hold us over until our next trip.
On the long drive back up to SLO we had a talk about using it as a mixer in drinks but neither of us could decide on what drink it would go best in.
Then today inspiration hit me: Aloe Vera Mojitos.
Sunburn jokes came from all corners, TXT, Twitter and around the house.
Was I deterred?
Of course not!
I tried out a couple versions of the drink before getting it right, the result is a Mojito with the flavor of Aloe Vera juice.
Recipe:
- In a glass add mint leaves, 1oz of lime juice and 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar.
- Muddle the mint, sugar and lime until the sugar is dissolved.
- Add ice.
- Add 3/4 oz. of simple syrup
- Add 1 or 1 1/2 oz. of white rum
- Add 3 oz. of Aloe Vera juice
- Top up with Club Soda
- Lightly stir and serve with or without straw.
For
a non-alcoholic version obviously you can just leave out the rum but I
found replacing the rum with mango syrup makes for a delicious drink.
I don't have a name for this drink outside of "Limoncello Cocktail"; that's what the guy who showed me how to make it called it. Sounds good enough, right?
Anyway here's how you make it:
4oz Limoncello (I made my own, I thought I blogged about it but it seems I only Twittered about it. Here).
1/2 oz Heavy Cream
5-6 Mint Sprigs
Combine all the ingredients together in a cocktail shaker, shake, strain and enjoy.
