Category: cocktails

Cocktail of the Week: Honey Bourbon Toddy

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I could only avoid making the Hot Toddy for so long. This is the Quintessential cold weather cocktail. Sure, there’s Irish Coffee but it doesn’t have the universality of the Hot Toddy. Irish Coffee is something you drink after eating or when you first wake up (Hey, Lushes! How ya doing?) the Hot Toddy can be enjoyed any time of day and with or without a meal. It’s warmth and love distilled into a cup.

The ingredients
The ingredients

Honey Bourbon Toddy

  • 3 oz. bourbon
  • 1 oz. honey
  • 1/2 cup of hot water
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • lemon peel

Stir honey and water until honey dissolves. Add bourbon. Pour into a toddy cup or mug. Twist a strip of lemon peel over each drink, then add to glass. Stir with a cinnamon stick and serve.

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Oh, wow. This was an amazing cocktail and just perfect for the overcast and windy day that I made it on. The warmth of the water and alcohol and the sweetness of the honey feels amazing when it goes down your throat. D didn’t want to have a cocktail but once she had a sip of mine she changed her mind! She was surprised at how warming the drink was and after finishing declared *this* version of the Hot Toddy her new favorite cocktail. I can’t disagree with her. This was really, really good and the perfect cocktail for a cold, cold night.

Cocktail of the Week: Martini

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As promised this week’s cocktail is the classic Martini. Being a classic one this martini is made using gin. Vodka martinis are good but they’re not a real martini. On top of that gin martinis taste a better than vodka ones. Yes, I said that. Wanna fight about it? Anyway let’s get to it!

There are numerous ways to serving a Martini, too many to go into here. You can splash in a little olive brine (Dirty Martini), you can replace the gin with vodka (Vodka Martini), you can use both gin, vodka, and a little Kina Lillet (Vesper Martini), and a thousand other variations that aren’t really martinis just cocktail served in a martini glass (appletini’s cherrytini’s, etc., etc.) You can even serve it over ice in an old fashioned glass. I went with an older recipe for the drink, common in the mid 20th century, that calls for more vermouth than is now used.

The ingredients
The ingredients

Martini

  • 3 oz. Gin
  • 1 oz. dry vermouth
  • lemon peel or olive (garnish)

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. Add garnish.

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I didn’t know how to squeeze oil from a lemon peel. What I did instead was to pour the gin and vermouth through a sieve full of lemon zest. It seemed to impart a little of the lemony freshness into the drink. I’m not going to surprise anyone when I say this is a great cocktail. Simple, delicious, refreshing. All of that while imparting a sense of class and sophistication. Or that could just be me…

Cocktail of the Week: Maiden’s Prayer

2013-10-20 20.07.12

There was no Cocktail last week. I can’t recall exactly why now. I’m going to assume it was because D and I were very busy and/or I didn’t have time to do any research or go to the store and expand our home bar. I’m back this week with a drink I had never heard of containing a liquor I have never imbibed before. The cocktail is the Maiden’s Prayer and the liquor is Cointreau, a French orange liquor. We were gifted the bottle when friends of ours were moving across the country (literally, they drove from California to Florida) and didn’t want to drag along extras like wine and booze. The bottle has been sitting on the bar because we already had a bottle of Triple Sec and I’d never used the stuff before. D wanted to try it though and so she did some searching around and found this recipe!

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Maiden’s Prayer

  • Gin 1 1/2 oz.
  • Cointreau 1 oz.
  • Orange juice 1 oz.
  • Lemon Juice 1 oz.

Combine all ingredients into a shaker with ice. Shake. Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon/orange twist.

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These were good! Not really what I’d call Fall cocktails… The Cointreau blends perfectly with the juices and the gin is a good compliment. They were boozier than I expected or maybe the juices just didn’t mask the alcohol as much. D says that I’m a real sweetheart for making her lots of girly drinks. Whatever. A cocktail is a cocktail and so far they’ve all been really good. I’m not so insecure with my masculinity that I can’t enjoy booze mixed with fruit juice!

Art shot!
Art shot!

The fact that next week’s cocktail is going to be a Martini is completed unrelated!

Cocktail of the Week: Gimlet

2013-10-06 20.06.02

I spent the weekend in the hills above Santa Cruz, away from people, civilization, the internet and my mini bar. D had suggested last week that I make Snakebites for the weekly cocktail and I was fine with that. Today, D thought that perhaps Snakebites don’t count as a cocktail. I figured it two or more alcoholic beverages mixed together qualifies as a cocktail but she wasn’t so sure. Showing an excess of caution and not wanting to offend Ninkasi, Bacchus, Sucellus, Yi-ti or any other God of booze I scrambled together an actual cocktail!

The ingredients

Gimlet

  • Gin 1 1/2 oz.
  • Lime juice 1 oz.
  • Powdered sugar 1 tsp.

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail or martini glass.

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Gimlets aren’t bad but if I had gin and limes lying around I’d probably have some tonic too… And I’d just make myself a Gin and Tonic before making one of these. If I DIDN’T though and I didn’t feel like going the three blocks to the store to get some I’d make these. I like gin and I like lime juice. There really isn’t anything not to like in a Gimlet. Simple, clean, refreshing. D said that they were a lot like a Lemon Drop but lime-y and I’d have to agree with that. This is also one of the few cocktails that hasn’t immediately knocked D flat-out… That’s a pretty big plus in my book. It’s nice to have a drink with your wife and not have her fall asleep immediately afterwards.

Why not have another picture?

One of the things I’ve noticed is how simple most of these recipes are. A shot glass of this and a shot glass of that stirred or shaken together and thrown in a cup. If you have the time or inclination throw a lime wedge in there as garnish and enjoy. This makes a lot of sense, cocktails have to be quick, a bartender has to make it and get it to the patron in under a minute if they can. Much like cooking before I tried it myself these things look a lot more intimidating and complex from the outside looking in. But, once you’re inside you sorta wonder what the deal was all along? Of course, now at fancy bars and restaurants you have bartenders concocting up drinks with four to eight(?) liquors in them over the course of five or more minutes… It sounds impressive to the uninformed but it really seems to defeat the purpose, it takes too long and the the taste is a mish-mash of too many things vying for your taste buds attention. You end up with a really pricey drink that isn’t all that great.

 

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