Showing posts with label cocktail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cocktail. Show all posts

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Muddling Together Memories - Muddled Mulberry Manhattan

Cocktail Hour - Muddled Mulberry Manhattan

When I was in primary school, we went through a phase of silk worms. Every second family had silk worms. I’m actually surprised there wasn’t a massive rise in silk shirts worn in the local area. I’m assuming it started off as a classroom “pet” or lesson or something. My childhood memories are sketchy at best. But I remember two things about that Silk Worm Saga:

  1. Disused washing machines are a great silk worm home
  2. Silk worms love eating mulberry leaves.

Kids would bring in big bags of mulberry leaves to share about for all the other kids with silk worms. This was my first real memory of mulberries. The second memory I have is visiting my grandma when I was around 12 and seeing her arms and legs scratched to pieces and her triumphantly showing us the ice cream containers full of mulberries she’d picked from the bramble growing wild down the back of her yard. Then we’d get to eat some mulberry compote with ice cream. Good times!

So when I was offered some mulberries, I grabbed a few to take home. Despite most of my recollections of mulberries being deeply rooted in my childhood, I thought a more adult offering was required for their use. Muddling a few with some rosemary and boozing it up with rye and vermouth; Manhattan style was where my tastebud’s imagination took me. Instead of bitters, I layered a teaspoon of Laphraoig whisky on top to give it a smokey edge. The resulting cocktail is strong, mildly sweet and intensely berry-flavoured. Garnish with a chocolate cracker or biscotti.


Cocktail Hour - Muddled Mulberry Manhattan
Cocktail Hour - Muddled Mulberry Manhattan
Cocktail Hour - Muddled Mulberry Manhattan

Muddled Mulberry Manhattan

5 mulberries
1 tsp panela sugar (or raw sugar)
4 fresh rosemary leaves
1 1/2 shots (50mL) rye whisky
3/4 shot (30mL)sweet red vermouth
1 tsp Laphraoig whiskey

Chill a martini glass.

In a cocktail shaker, muddle the mulberries, panela and rosemary. Add the rye and vermouth, then top up with ice. Put the lid on and shake until the outside of the container is frosty. 

Strain through the lid, through a tea strainer into the martini glass. Gentle pour the Laphroaig over the top. Enjoy!

Cocktail Hour - Muddled Mulberry Manhattan
Cocktail Hour - Muddled Mulberry Manhattan
Cocktail Hour - Muddled Mulberry Manhattan

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Cocktail Hour - Monthattan, a Muscat Manhattan

Cocktail Hour - Monthattan, a Muscat Manhattan

My friends and I like playing a game called “What’s your favourite cocktail” with bartenders when we go out. And, it’s as simple as it sounds. If you don’t have a hankering for a specific drink, then you let the decision lie in the hands of the bartender by asking them to make you their favourite drink. Since the small bar licence regulations changed, Perth has cultivated some of the best cocktail makers and it makes the game so rewarding! Often, they’ll make you the most amazing concoction, not off their lists…just because they love the creativity of it. Mixing different flavours to create something unique. It’s so much fun! A common question back, to make sure they make you something along your taste lines is – what do you normally drink. Fair enough. Giving an Old Fashioned to a Cosmo drinker is not going to make you popular. I have a few different answers, depending on what style of drink I’m leaning towards that night, but my most common cocktail is the Manhattan. A Manhattan is a mix of Rye Whiskey, sweet vermouth and a cherry. I am a sucker for that cherry. It’s a punchy, strong drink that relies on the quality of the ingredients, because there’s only a few of them. You can’t hide inferiority behind sweet mixers and sugar syrup. Vermouth has an annoyingly short shelf-life. Once opened, it should ideally be used within a few weeks. Which, for the home bar, isn’t really ideal. But, Vermouth is a form of wine spirit, fortified and aromatized with herbals to get it’s flavour and sometimes hide inferior wine (I learnt all this at one of The Classroom's Spirit Faculty's!). In this version, instead of Vermouth, I use a Muscat. Which is also a form of fortified wine but is more of an after dinner drink than an aperitif and relies on raisoned grapes for it's flavours. 
Monty’s Fine Old Muscat is from my favourite winery – Cape Naturaliste, and it does the job here making this Manhattan a Mont-hattan. This Muscat is aged in oak, and the fermentation is stopped using cognac which gives it a delicious smokiness that really plays well with the rye. For the rye, I've gone for Rittenhouse as it's my go-to "top-shelf" rye.

As a side note - the only martini glass I own is a novelty plastic one I got when I went to see Wicked the musical! Hence the disco photos!


Cocktail Hour - Monthattan, a Muscat Manhattan
Cocktail Hour - Monthattan, a Muscat Manhattan
Cocktail Hour - Monthattan, a Muscat Manhattan
Cocktail Hour - Monthattan, a Muscat Manhattan



Monthattan

1 1/2 shots rye whiskey
1 shot Monty's Fine Old Muscat
2-3 dashes Angosturra bitters
maraschino cherry
Ice

Fill a shaker with ice. Add the rye, muscat and bitters. Add the lid, shake then strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a cherry (and eat another couple whilst you make it!)

As another side note - this drinks really well with spiced nuts as pictured. But possibly even better with Chilli Lindt Chocolate.


Cocktail Hour - Monthattan, a Muscat Manhattan
Cocktail Hour - Monthattan, a Muscat Manhattan
Cocktail Hour - Monthattan, a Muscat Manhattan
Cocktail Hour - Monthattan, a Muscat Manhattan
Cocktail Hour - Monthattan, a Muscat Manhattan
Cocktail Hour - Monthattan, a Muscat Manhattan
Cocktail Hour - Monthattan, a Muscat Manhattan

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Christmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider


Christmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider
Christmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider


This mulled apple cider is all Lance’s design. Traditionally we’ve made a mulled wine for Christmas in July, but having had mulled cider a few times over the last couple of winters, and loving it, Lance decided he wanted to give that a go. He wanted it to be a delicious cloudy cider and achieved this by adding apple puree. The spices are the same traditional mulled wine spices, but with more emphasis on the ginger and vanilla. I used homemade vanilla vodka, but use whatever you have at hand. Or, in a pinch, you can use vanilla extract (or add a vanilla bean in the mulling spices). Choose a drier style cider so it's not overpoweringly sweet.


I like this as the first drink of the night. It’s quite sweet, but it is a very warming welcome in to your home for a Christmas in July party. If you reheat it or make it in the slow cooker and keep it warm, it also makes a good end-of-the-night, most people have gone home, sit on-the-couch warming your hands in a mug and chat til 4am drink.

Christmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider



Christmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider
 Christmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple CiderChristmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider
Christmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider

Christmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider

Christmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider
 Christmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider



Mulled Cloudy Apple Cider

(serves 8-10 depending on glass size)
1 pink lady apple (or granny smith), peeled, cored and finely diced
90mL vanilla vodka (3 shots)
1 cup + 2 tbsp sugar (divided)
juice and peel 1 lemon
juice and peel 2 oranges
2 cinnamon sticks
5 cloves
2 bay leaves
thumb size piece of ginger, peeled and sliced
1 tsp whole allspice berries
8x 330mL bottles apple cider


Put the apple pieces, vanilla vodka, citrus juices and sugar into a small pot and bring to the boil. Simmer for 20 minutes until the apple has completely softened. Carefully blend this mixture to a puree in your blender. You can leave it to cool first if you want it to be safer to blend.


In a large pot, add I cup sugar, peel, cinnamon sticks, cloves, bay leaves, ginger, all spice berries and one bottle of cider. Stir over a medium-high heat until the sugar dissolves, then simmer on low until the mixture becomes syrupy and all of the spices infuse – around 20 minutes. Stir through the puree and remaining apple cider and keep on the low heat until the drink is warm. Serve in mugs, with cinnamon sticks for swizzle sticks. Try avoiding the spices when ladeling into mugs.

For an extra kick, try adding a shot of spiced rum such as Coruba or Captain Morgan!

This can also be made in a slow cooker. Follow the above stages with the insert on burners and at the stage of adding the puree and extra cider, put the insert into the slow cooker and leave it on low for the duration of the party to keep it warm.


Christmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider
Christmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider
Christmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider
Christmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider
Christmas in July - Cloudy Mulled Apple Cider

Monday, July 7, 2014

Christmas in July - Chocolate Peppermint Coquito

Christmas in July - Chocolate Peppermint Coquito
Christmas in July - Chocolate Peppermint Coquito


As part of Christmas in July, Lance and I offered a mulled cider that we served as people arrived. A nice warm mug of spicy deliciousness welcoming them in from the cold. Stay tuned for that recipe! Then with dessert I served this chocolate peppermint coquito and my sister in law made egg-nog. Traditional Puerto Rican coquito is sort of a rummy coconut egg-nog. This chocolate version is barely adapted from Always Order Dessert's recipe for a chocolate coquito. I made mine minty as peppermint is such a "Christmas" flavour and it's impossible to find candy canes this time of year. They would make awesome swizzle sticks if you make this for your December Christmas. You could use Creme de Menthe instead of a peppermint extract but it would add extra sweetness and it would be the only reason for me buying a whole bottle of Creme de Menthe. The only other change is that I used unsweetened coconut cream instead of the sweetened version, I don't really drink super-sweet drinks.

The end result is a sort of more grown-up version of a peppermint Baileys. Perfect for sipping on the rocks and dunking your gingerbread into. I served them in cute little red shot glasses to add to the festivities (and take away from dishes).

This makes a little over a litre and lasts in the fridge for around 2 weeks.


Christmas in July - Chocolate Peppermint Coquito


Chocolate Peppermint Coquito


1 can coconut milk
100g dark chocolate (I used Lindt 85%)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 can coconut cream
2 cups rum (I used Havana Club Anejo)
1/4 - 1/2 tsp peppermint extract
2 cinnamon sticks
2 tsp vanilla extract

In a small pot, add the coconut milk and roughly chopped dark chocolate and place over a low heat. Stir to melt the chocolate and form a ganache. When completely amalgamated, set aside to cool to room temperature.

When cool, place the coconut cream, sweetened condensed milk and rum in the blender, blend to combine. Add the chocolate ganache and vanilla extract. Blend well to combine. Add 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract, mix then taste to see if it needs extra.

Pour into glass bottles with lids (like leftover rum bottles), add a cinnamon stick and pop in the fridge until it's really cold. Serve dusted with cinnamon if you'd like.


Christmas in July - Chocolate Peppermint Coquito
Christmas in July - Chocolate Peppermint Coquito
Christmas in July - Chocolate Peppermint Coquito
Christmas in July - Chocolate Peppermint Coquito
Christmas in July - Chocolate Peppermint Coquito
Christmas in July - Chocolate Peppermint Coquito


Friday, June 20, 2014

Relax, It's World Gin Day - Hendricks and Chamomile Cocktail


 
So apparently last weekend hosted World Gin Day! Now, I am a huge fan of gin, so I don’t need a specific reason to drink gin. Or cook with it. But especially drink it. By far, one of my favourite gins is Hendrick’s. It has such a unique, sweet cucumber and floral flavour that depending on how you mix it, is either subtle or strong. On  Tuesday, I went to another of The Classroom Bar’s Spirit Faculty events. Every month they feature an expert walking you through a spirit type and pair it with some awesome snackage. This one was all about the wonderful world of Hendricks. So much fun!

But for those of you who didn't go out and about for World Gin Day, then maybe you should give this cocktail a shot. This is a warm cocktail, using chamomile tea. Elegant and fun all at once. The recipe was adapted from the Treme Cookbook which also features the cold version of the same cocktail – and similarly, you can make this with chilled chamomile. The original used Earl Grey tea, but try as I might, I just don’t really like it much. I find the bergamot takes over too much and is overwhelmingly bitter
. Chamomile is a perfect floral companion to the Hendricks as it's one of it's botanicals. It's also naturally relaxing and caffeine free. Chuck on some jazz, whip up the cream and sit back and toast to World Gin Day.


Cucumber Simple Syrup
½ cup sugar
1 large cucumber

Peel the cucumber and blend it until it liquefies. Strain through a fine mesh sieve into a small saucepan. Add the sugar and bring to a slow boil, stirring here and there to dissolve the sugar. Simmer over a low heat for 5 minutes or so until it becomes a bit syrupy. Pour into a clean glass jar, cover and refrigerate to cool.

Hendricks and Chamomile
½ shot cucumber Simple Syrup (15-20mL)
2 shots Hendricks gin (60mL)
2 shots Chamomile tea (60mL)
100mL whipping cream
4 drops rosewater

Put the chamomile tea on to brew.

Whip the cream and rosewater together until soft peaks form.

Pour the Hendricks and cucumber syrup into a mug, stir. Add the hot chamomile tea and stir again. Top with whipped cream