Tag: whisky

Cocktail of the Week: Simple Whiskey Sour

2014-08-16 17.44.34

I’m starting to see a lot of fruit on the citrus trees around town. I’m considering making a map of Davis that highlights all the best spots to glean fruit from people’s yards. All the oranges, limes, and lemons got me thinking about sours. And I had all this whiskey lying around…

The ingredients (minus powdered sugar)
The ingredients (minus powdered sugar)

Simple Whiskey Sour

  • 1 1/2 oz. Whiskey
  • 2 lemons
  • 1 lime
  • 2 tsp powdered sugar

Juice lemon and lime. Combine whiskey, juice, and powdered sugar in a shaker full of ice. Shake. Strain into a old fashioned glass. garnish with lemon wedge or wheel.

2014-08-16 17.44.14

This is not a real whiskey sour, as it lacks egg white and cheats on the simple syrup part. I don’t know if I had a pair of really strong lemons or I didn’t add enough powdered sugar but my drink was sour. Really, really sour. I was unprepared for the sour. Definitely made pucker faces while drinking it. That isn’t to say it wasn’t good, just to say that bar made whiskey sours are a sad, sad, imitation of the almost real thing. Future whiskey sours will probably have a little more sugar in them.

 

Cocktail of the Week: Winter Bourbon Smash

2014-02-02 19.56.54

It rained today. And if you’ve been following the news here in California, you’d know that rain is a pretty big deal right now. Besides alleviating, if only by a very little, the drought the state is experiencing the weather also made actually feel like Winter. To honor the rain, and the mood it established,I decided to make this winter smash that D had mentioned to me earlier this month.

I’d never made a smash before and this isn’t your standard anyway, playing on the rule that a seasonal fruit should be in the drink by using a jam or preserve. But, it did sound delicious and sitting on the couch, sipping this cocktail while comfortably wrapped in a blanket while listening to the rain fall outside was too wonderful an image not to make reality!

The ingredients
The ingredients

Winter Bourbon Smash

  • 1 oz. raspberry jam (any jam or preserve will do)
  • 1 oz. bourbon whisky
  • 1/2 oz. TripleSec
  • 1 to 1 1/2 oz. orange juice
  • splash of club soda

Add 1/2 cup ice, preserves, bourbon, triple sec and orange juice to a shaker and shake vigorously for 15 seconds.  Pour into serving glass with a few ice cubes and top with a splash of club soda. Garnish with orange slice.

PS – Depending on the size of the holes in your cocktail shaker you might have to use a jam that doesn’t have a lot of fruit chunks and seeds in it or be comfortable scooping infused jam out of the shaker after draining out as much of the cocktail as you can.

2014-02-02 19.56.37

Another wonderful drink! The bourbon and raspberry jam complement each other perfectly. The two work on each other smoothing out their rough edges, the bourbon’s bite and the jam’s sweetness, until you are left with something eminently drinkable.

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.

2014-01-05 18.19.18

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.

%d bloggers like this: