Tag: lemons

Cocktail of the Week: Grandpa Burkart’s Margaritas

2014-01-26 18.42.55 D’s grandpa makes good margaritas. Funny story, the first time I met him he offered me a drink and I wanted to make a good impression so I said “sure” and he made himself and me a Bloody Mary. I thought, “Cool, I can drink tomato juice with some vodka in it. Easy.” That was before I drank any of it though and found out that really, it was mostly vodka and hot sauce with a splash of tomato juice in it. Grandpa Burkart had three of them and wasn’t even phased. I ceded at two and then handed the keys to D because she’d be having to drive… His margaritas are just as strong, made of equal parts lemon juice, tequila, and triple sec. They do taste great though…

The ingredients
The ingredients

Margaritas

  • 1 part fresh squeezed lemon juice (I used Meyers)
  • 1 part tequila
  • 1 part triple sec

Combine equal parts lemon juice, tequila, and triple sec in a container. Shake. Store in freezer for at least three hours. Serve in margarita or martini glasses with salt or sugar-lined rims.

The mix
The mix
After sitting in the freezer for 24 hours
After sitting in the freezer for 24 hours

2014-01-26 18.43.12Grandpa Burkart knows how to make a margarita! Despite not having any lime juice (the ones in the pictures are just for display), simple syrup, or any of the other things you sometimes see in recipes these are still the best margaritas I’ve ever had. If you want something a little dryer you can use regular lemons instead of Meyers. Just be careful as these pack quite the wallop, though you wouldn’t know it from the taste!

 

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: Shandy

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Seems the Shandy gets a bad rap.  Before making them I thought this might have something to do with the low regard in which people hold mainstream American beer. Also, the low regard mainstream beer has of itself… The cocktail has a long history in the UK and Germany (where it is known as the Radler). But, on this side of the Atlantic I’ve never heard anyone order it or seen anyone drink it.The most common recipe for the cocktail is really simple: equal parts beer and soda, usually a ginger ale or lemon/lime soda. That’s fine but I wanted to class the drink up a little and I didn’t have any Sprite or 7Up. I did some looking around the internet and found a few alternative recipes and using them as a guide and a little experimentation I came up with this.

The ingredients
The ingredients

Shandy

  • 8 oz. blonde beer (I used a lager from the local brewery)
  • 4 oz. ginger ale (I had ginger beer so I used that)
  • 2 oz. fresh lemon juice
  • lemon slices for garnish

Pour into glass and stir.

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Turns out, It looks as tastes as good as it look…

These were a disappointment. D couldn’t finish her’s; she said it tasted too much like beer. I thought mine tasted like ginger beer with lemon in it. Perhaps I could have used more beer? Perhaps I should have just gone with the traditional recipe and used ginger ale or Sprite? Or maybe I needed a different beer? I don’t know… I like to have my cocktails be a little escape from the day and the Shandy didn’t offer that. It’s a mediocre beer or a mediocre soda. Why drink that when you can have a superb beer or a superb soda? Or better, a superb cocktail?

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