Cocktails, the libationary art!

Not a drink, just tangentially related and very interesting. I love the hippo bar but not 31m in love. Rich people are crazy!

• 2 oz Gin
• 1/2 oz Orgeat syrup
• 3/4 oz Lemon juice
• Small bar spoon Orange blossom water
• 1 oz Aquafaba

Shake everything with ice. Remove the ice, and shake one more time. Serve, and garnish with nutmeg.

Nice winter feeling with the orgeat, foam, and nutmeg :) I do like orange blossom water, but it can easily be overpowering, so proceed with caution!

In the Thanksgiving spirit I put this drink together, it was pretty good, mostly just a slightly spiced white Russian. 2 oz. Vodka, 1 oz. Kahlua, 2 oz. of pumpkin spiced whipped cream (it was fairly runny and liquidly), Cinnamon powder.

Poured vodka, coffee liquor, and the spiced pumpkin whip cream over ice and stirred to get the whipped cream to mix. Topped with some more pumpkin spice whipped cream and garnished with cinnamon powder.

2 oz. Gin, 1/2 oz. Lemon juice, 1/2 oz. Like juice, 1/2 oz. Simple syrup, 3 dashes of Orange bitters, 1 oz. Cream, 1 egg white, 2 oz. Soda water. Lime peel. Shake all the ingredients expect the soda water, for while a minute. Then add ice and shake again until chilled. Strain into a glass and add the soda water and garnish with a lime peel. Didn't worry about dropping the peel in, it will just sit on the now semi-solid top.

I made this for my wife and one for me. She loved it, but it wasn't for me, to much lemon and lime. The cream, egg white, and soda water made the top half of the drink semi-solid and was fun to drink. Definitely a cool drink to make and try.

Couldn't find any grillos v8 for Thanksgiving, but also just realized v8 is owned by Campbell's so fuck 'em anyway.

The gin was gift somebody gave me a while back. People always raise an eyebrow at the bottle, but it's actually become my favorite.

I don't drink much anymore, but when I do gin is my go to. I feel like there's something unique about the botanical notes in Engine compared to other gins, and it works surprisingly well in a variety of cocktails.

Recipe:

1:1 Gin and Pickle Brine (Preferably Grillos)

Top off with Bloody Mary mixer of your choice. I just grabbed this one from the grocery store, but it made a very tasty drink.

Mix well Garnish with pickle and black pepper

I got this from Food & Wine website, it's better than I expected. Basically a margarita sweetened with sambuca.

2 oz good tequila blanco

1 oz lime juice

3/4 oz sambuca

1/4 oz agave syrup/water (I just put a bare squirt of agave)

I had no expectations. But Tequila and Sambuca are good together, they aren't at all discordant and I can taste both. It would probably be a good beginner sambuca drink, you could adjust it down to half & half with the agave.

I made one of my favorite Trinidadian dishes last night (doubles), and what better pairing than the Queen’s Park swizzle — named after the Queen’s Park Savannah in Port of Spain where carnival takes place. Of course it has angostura, along with black rum and mint. Lovely! I took this recipe from smuggler’s cove.

• 4 mint leaves
• ½ oz lime juice
• ½ oz Smuggler's Cove Demerara Syrup
• 2 oz black blended rum
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters
• 1 mint sprig

Gently muddle the mint leaves with lime juice and syrup in the glass. Add the rum and bitters. Add crushed ice until the glass is three-quarters full, then swizzle. Top with crushed ice to fill the glass, and garnish with a mint sprig.

1oz bourbon

1/2 oz Nixta (corn liqueur, tastes like caramel corn)

1/2oz Ancho Reyes

3/4 oz lemon

Shake together with ice, then add 2 oz pineapple tepache, serve over ice.

Tequila was my first thought but the bourbon is better with the Nixta. It's good.

This was a weekday sip, didn't want it too boozy, it came out great.

1 oz bourbon (Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond)

1 oz lemon

1 oz ginger syrup

Shake together and add

1 oz strawberry kvass (or other fruity sweet soda) and 2 oz topo chico fizzy water

No clear ice, unfortunately someone (ahem, husband) left the freezer door cracked open overnight and it melted partially so it's just one clear ice now, and the little pebble ice too. I'd already put it in the rocks glass but a highball glass with crushed ice and a straw would be my recommendation anyway.

It's pretty damn good. I heard blantons was the best so here we are.

2 oz bourbon

Scant oz lemon, 3/4 oz simple syrup

2 dashes each bitters and tabasco

And I added a squirt of fire tincture (habanero/anatto)

Bourbon sour with a little bit of bite, unremarkable but certainly not bad.

I was out of tequila, so I made a Ti'Punch and sweetened it with triple sec. Tried a proper-ish margarita recipe after. Then I tried a bunch of different rums and settled on Isautier rhum blanc traditionnel (see pic), which tastes about halfway between unaged Jamaican rum and agricole blanc, though agricole works great, too. Both rhum traditionnel and rhum agricole match the mineralic, vegetal notes of tequila and the traditionnel I have is not quite as fruity as the agricoles I have.

my recipe (adjust according to how you like your margaritas/daisies/daiquiris/ti'punches):

• 26ml rum (rhum traditionnel blanc or rhum agricole blanc with ~50% ABV)

• 18ml triple sec (I used 40% de Kuyper)

• 6ml lime juice

• serve on ice and stir

Arguably this is more of a Ti'Punch with triple sec than a rum margarita. This style of rum really wants to be drunken without too much dilution IMO, but feel free to make it more similar to a margarita. For what it's worth, I often drink tequila as a Ti'Punch with tequila instead of rum - I just really like Ti'Punch as a template.

I'm surprised that there isn't an established cocktail for this "margarita with the spirit swapped for agricole" thing, it seems like a very natural substitution to me. It's probably due to limited availability of French rum in latin american and anglophone countries.

Here’s a lovely and pretty simple fall recipe from Death & Co. Perfect for this crisp evening!

• 1 oz Laird's Bonded apple brandy
• 1 oz Busnel VSOP calvados
• ½ oz lemon juice
• ½ oz lime juice
• ¾ oz Death & Co Grenadine
• 4 apple slices

Shake with ice and garnish with fanned apple slices.

What are your plans for Halloween? Any spooky cocktails in the plans? We are having a party (last Halloween party was 2016 and my kids made me promise to have another the next time it fell on a Friday.)

All of these will be batched and in pitchers or bottled, I am not bartending my own party and it's not big enough to hire one.

My planned Mocktails, non alcoholic, or mixers

Friend Zone (strawberry kvass, tonic water, lime)

Welcome to Fall (Seedlip Spice, ginger syrup, fizzy water)

Pineapple Tepache

No-jito

Diet Coke

Coffee

Planned Cocktails

Disco Carajillo - espresso, nitro cold brew, tequila, Galliano

Black Jellybean - cream soda, vodka, sambucca, splash of lime

Plane Crash - bourbon, lemon, Amaro Nonino, Aperol, strawberry syrup and fizzy water.

Other- beer, twisted tea (that was a request) weakly boozy Jello shots, good wine.

I know, another fruity bourbon drink. I have a type ;)

Went to whole foods and they had fresh yuzu, they didn't look amazing so I just got one, but for a yuzu it was juicy (they are mostly seeds) and the flavor is really coming through here. I may go back and buy more. (Did get a yuzu tree so hopefully will have some homegrown in a couple years)

1.5oz bourbon

.5oz Heirloom pineapple amaro

.75oz fresh yuzu juice

2oz fresh pineapple juice

Shaken with ice

I am having the Bar Cima Summer 2023 cocktail:

1 oz. reposado tequila

1/2 oz. mezcal

1/2 oz. passion fruit liqueur

1/4 oz. Ancho Reyes Verde

1/2 oz. fresh pineapple juice

1/2 oz. fresh lime juice

1/2 oz. honey syrup

3 dashes fire tincture (or use Scrappy's Firewater Habanero Tincture)

tajin salt rim

Prepare the glass & shake everything. I forgot the fire tincture and squirted it on top so the opening is very spicy.

I double the pineapple juice as I just made it minutes ago, and always make 2 at a time as I can't measure 1/4 oz, this is very fussy if you make just one, but 2 is easy.

Decided to see what I could make with cream soda. Still have quite a bit of workshopping to do, but my current mix: 6 oz cream soda 1.5 oz spiced rum .5 oz caramel vodka .25 oz drambuie

I found it a pleasant drink for the evening.

Mostly wanted to show off my stunningly clear ice, could see the drink below it!

Just another fruity bourbon sour variation.

1 3/4 oz bourbon

3/4 oz Heirloom pineapple

3/4 oz St Germain

3/4 oz lemon juice

Here’s a lovely summery drink from Death & Co; it’s a fizz take on the Chinese Cocktail from the Savoy cocktail book. A late season warm day called for a celebration!

• 2 oz Appleton Signature (fka V/X) rum
• ¼ oz orange liqueur
• ¼ oz Maraschino liqueur
• ¼ oz grenadine
• ½ oz lemon juice
• ½ oz simple syrup
• 1 dash Angostura bitters
• 1 egg white

Dry shake, then shake with ice. Double strain into a Collins glass with fresh ice and garnish with an orange wedge. I used aquafaba instead of egg white and didn’t have an orange (sue me!!).

A collection of non alcoholic cocktails from Punch, that site has good content for a free website, I have been surprised by it several times. I'll put the link in the non-alcoholic pinned thread too.

#Notes

The impatience problem (and the fix)

The Gift of Strawberries recipe wants a day to steep before you can even begin curdling the milk. I didn’t have a day. I had an iSi siphon. Dave Arnold wrote about rapid infusions in his book, Liquid Intelligence, where you pressurise the spirit in an iSi whipper and the thing you want to infuse. This process takes minutes, not days. A small detour that I suspect still lands in the same neighbourhood. The result was a deep ruby spirit with a clear, honest strawberry note. 

The filter problem (and the fix)

I’ve made a fair few milk punches. Cheesecloth and I have history. Mostly bad. It siphons whey onto the bench and leaves me mopping at midnight. Lately I’ve been clarifying with milk or coconut milk powder and running the lot through a coffee filter; it’s tidy and, after ten minutes, you usually see that first ribbon of crystal-clear liquid.

This recipe calls for a nut-milk bag. I tried. Twice. Still cloudy. I couldn't see this process taking any shorter than a few days, so I took the stubborn remainder and fed it through a coffee filter. That did the trick. For me, it was flow first, clarity second: the nut-milk bag wouldn’t move; the paper cone did.

Syrup choices (and lessons)

The spec wants a rich strawberry syrup built on cane sugar at 1.5:1. I went with plain white granulated sugar because there was a mountain of it in my pantry. I can live with a tiny loss of complexity at this ratio. I measured a cup of sugar and this is where I lost the run of myself and added "a lot" of sliced strawberries. Now I have an ocean of syrup. Use your head where I didn’t: scale the fruit to what you actually need. (If you follow the original method, it’s a quick simmer, strain, bottle.) 

There’s a small reward for the over-eager: the strawberry "refuse" from the syrup is basically jam. Sweet jams aren't my thing, but it would be happy on a warm scone with a dollop of cream.

Strawberry tops, tarragon, and the dust

The garnish asks for strawberry-top dust with tarragon. "Tops" is a vague word, and could mean the leafy tops or the white top of the fruit. I dehydrated the lot and found the green leaves flavourless, so I left them out and leaned on the tarragon and white tops. The herb matters here. It cuts the sweet with a cool anise line and frames the drink. In future I would even go a little more tarragon than dried strawberries.

My scaled batch (to 350 ml tequila)

I scaled things down. I live in one of those countries where alcohol is aggressively taxed, and a whole bottle of tequila is a risky investment. Also my fridge is already overflowing with past cocktail experiments.

These are my working numbers:

• Strawberry-infused tequila: 350 ml
• Blanc vermouth (I used Dolin): 175 ml
• Italicus bergamot liqueur: 117 ml
• Rich strawberry syrup: 117 ml
• Lime juice: 175 ml
• Whole milk (for clarification): 350 ml

Taste

Natural strawberry, not candy. The tequila’s edges round off; that raw agave rasp drops away which has been my experience in other tequila milk punches. It reads as a clean, modern milk punch—fruity, structured, not sticky or overly sweet. Clear in the bottle, becomes cloudy after you shake it to serve. The white balance is off on my phone camera, and in reality it is much redder than it appears here.

What I’d change next time

I bent the road with the siphon and the filters. It worked, and the drink is good. Bar-order good. But I’d like to run it by the book once: a full 24-hour room-temp infusion and a patient strain to see if the strawberry reads any different. I’d also scale the syrup like an adult, because now I have enough to sweeten a small harbour.

Credits & source

• The gift of strawberries by Tone Arasa: https://punchdrink.com/recipes/gift-of-strawberries/

• Dave Arnold's Liquid Intelligence: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20707970-liquid-intelligence

  

With my husband hand modeling.

And over ice, it's still about 32C here, a coupe would be warm in seconds.

2 parts cognac 1 part Galliano 1 part lemon

Tart and delicious. Surprised it's so tart, honestly, I think of Galliano as cloyingly sweet but it is kind of hiding here, just slightly modifying the cognac sour.

Featuring my horrifying tile countertop and some tepache setting up in the blue pitcher.

I adjusted the recipe a little

2 oz cognac (ABK6

1 oz lemon juice

1/4 oz Amaretto Adratico

1/4 oz orgeat

1/4 oz simple syrup

1 egg white

And yes 1/3 oz bitters.

Dry shake, then shake with ice, everything but the bitters. Pour into chilled coupe Then carefully pour the bitters right in the middle of the drink to get the pink line.

https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/3739/thin-pink-line