Tag: gin

Cocktail of the Week: Gin Hound

2014-05-04 19.30.45

You think with it being Cindo de Mayo, the cocktail of the week would be some sort of margarita. And, if I had spent any time thinking about the date or Cinco de Mayo at all it very well might have been. But, I didn’t. So, if you’re looking for the perfect pairing for your Cinco de Mayo party you’re just out of luck and will have to serve your guests Corona or Pacifico. Or you could click here. This week’s cocktail is a strong riff on the Greyhound.

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The ingredients

Gin Hound

  • 2 oz. gin
  • 1/2 oz sweet vermouth
  • 3 oz. grapefruit juice
  • 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice

Combine lemon juice and grapefruit juice in a shaker full of ice. Add gin, vermouth to shaker. Shake well. Pour over ice.

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I really recommend that the first time you drink this you do so on the rocks. This is a boozy beverage! It tastes great though. Clean, refreshing. If you use good gin you might even miss the fact that there is alcohol in this drink! Maybe I can get D to sit out on the back porch with me while I sip at this and watch the dogs play in the yard?

Cocktail of the Week: Gin and Sin

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I’m not quite sure how I stumbled upon this cocktail. I think I was looking for cocktails that had cranberry juice in them. Of course, that is a lot of cocktails, but this one had gin and fruit juice and I was hopeful!

The ingredients
The ingredients

Gin and Sin

  • 1 1/2 oz. Gin
  • 1 oz. Orange juice
  • 1 oz. Lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp. Grenadine or Cranberry juice
  • Fresh cranberries

In a shaker half-filled with ice cubes, combine all of the ingredients. Shake well. Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a few cranberries.

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But, either I made it wrong or it’s just not that good. D thought it tasted like cough syrup. I thought it was much too sour. Maybe the lemons were too tart? Maybe the orange was sour? I don’t know, but this was the first time I’ve made a cocktail and not liked the end result. When I try it again, I will use a sweet lemon and use less of its juice, more orange juice and maybe some cranberry simple syrup, something with a lot more sweet in it, than just juice or a splash of grenadine.

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: 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…

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