Category: food

Cocktail of the Week: Southern Godfather

2014-01-05 18.19.05

What a crazy holiday season! D and I have been attending so many parties, events, and get togethers that making cocktails at home was superfluous! With the New Year in swing though our social calendar has cleared up and making cocktails at home makes sense again. I’m starting the 2014 with a variation of the Godfather, a scotch whisky cocktail. I don’t have any scotch whisky, and I’m not really a fan of scotch whisky it tastes too much like peat smells, or what I imagine much of the moors of Scotland smell like. Instead I’m using good ol’ American bourbon!

I need more Amaretto!
The ingredients

Southern Godfather

  • 1 1/2 oz. Whisky bourbon
  • 3/4 oz. Amaretto

Build over ice in a rocks glass. Stir to combine.
*Add splash of cream to the drink to make it a Godson.

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I was initially excited about this cocktail. Bourbon and Amaretto are two of my favorite liquors. I was hopeful that they’d be two great tastes that taste great together! But, it didn’t turn out that way. These were two great tastes that had me pursing my lips… I tried to salvage the drink by adding some milk, turning it into a Godson and the cream did make it more palatable. It also left me thinking of how better the cocktail would have been if it had been a completely different cocktail.

Cocktail of the Week: Un Boheme

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D’s really wanted to try St. Germain, an elderflower liquor. It wasn’t easy to find though! The regular grocery stores here didn’t care it and the first two liquor stores I went to didn’t either. I finally found it at this shady, dirty, but surprisingly well stocked liquor store in town. Now that I have it I had to figure out what to make with it. This turned out to be easier than I thought because a lot of people we know seem to love the stuff. A few emails later I had the start of a nice selection. First up, is this mix of citrus, gin, and St. Germain.

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The ingredients

Un Boheme

  • 1 ½ oz gin
  • 1 oz St~Germain
  • 3 oz fresh grapefruit juice
  • 1 oz fresh lemon juice
  • ¼ oz simple syrup

Combine the gin, grapefruit juice, lemon juice and simple syrup a shaker. Shake with ice and strain into glass. Garnish with grapefruit twist.

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Wow! This was a fantastic cocktail: Citrusy, elderflowery, sweet and easy. I don’t think “elderflowery” is a word but the grapefruit and St~Germain complement each other perfectly. Turns out my friends know a thing or two about cocktails! I was a little leery about St~Germain without having tried it before but now? Now, I’m really looking forward to trying the rest of these recipes…

 

Cocktail of the Week: Red Apple & Bourbon Fizz

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As we move further into Fall I find myself flipping through my cocktail book looking for drinks that fit with the season. There are 1000s of cocktails but so many of them seem better suited for Spring and Summer. So I find myself flipping through my cocktail book again and again hoping to stumble upon a warm or hot cocktail, one that isn’t iced or chilled, or one that uses seasonal fruits. Mostly without any success. I do have one more cocktail recipe from a cookbook I’ve previously mentioned, Fresh from the Market. And that’s the cocktail we’re making this week! It’s also the perfect drink for Fall as it places apples center stage!

The ingredients
The ingredients

Red Apple & Bourbon Fizz

  • 2 oz. Bourbon
  • 1 oz. Apple Juice
  • 1 oz. apple syrup
  • 3/4 oz. lemon juicw
  • splash of ginger ale
  • 2 thin apples slices

Combine the bourbon, apple juice, apple syrup and lemon juice in a shaker. Shake with ice and strain over fresh ice in a highball glass. Top with a splash of ginger ale and garnish with the apple slices.

2013-11-23 18.48.02This is a delicious cocktail! A perfect blend of sweet apple and bourbon! As soon as D had finished hers she wanted another one. Cool, crisp, and clean going down the cocktails warms its way down into your core. Bonus: turns out the sliced apples that garnish the drink taste delicious after soaking in your drink.

 

Beer Review: New Belgium’s Coconut Curry Hefeweizen

2013-11-20 20.13.01

From the bottle:

The list of spices in this coconut curry hefeweizen is almost as long as the list of awards bestowed on homebrewer, Remi Bonnart. Together, we brewed up a traditional German-style wheat beer whose fruity esters and spicy phenols pair perfectly with the spicy and fruity character of curry spices. Pour yourself a plateful.

From New Belgium’s website:

The aroma is bold and big with coconut and curry tones and a hint of banana from the hefe yeast. With a vast spice list of cinnamon, coriander, fenugreek, ginger, kaffir lime, and cayenne pepper this beer carries a bit of heat but the alcohol soothes the finish. Coconut Curry Hefe will leave an inquisitive smile on the drinker’s mug.

From my notes:

Lovely opaque strawberry blonde color with a white, large bubbled head and nice lacing. Malt and spices on the nose with a hint of coconut and citrus. Coconut milk comes through in the taste as well as several spices. Things are getting complicated here… A little bitter on the finish.

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I’m not sure if I understand all that was going on with this beer. Both the smell and taste were very complicated and messy, it got hard to tell what I was tasting… Different. Not different bad. But, I don’t know if I could say different good either. This beer tastes almost too like Thai curry to be enjoyable. I’m glad I tried it but I don’t know if I’ll ever want to drink it again.

Rating (out of 5):

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