Bouquet Fizz

Ok, I’m back and I know I haven’t posted anything in a while but you know how it goes, we all get a little busy. But don’t worry I have something I really think you’ll like. I’ve been working on a new drink for a little while now and it’s taken quite a few turns and I’ve had to burn through quite a few drinks but I think I have it. I call it the Bouquet Fizz and man is it refreshing. It’s a perfect warm weather drink that literally anyone can enjoy. 

Get This:

1 ½ oz Broker’s Gin

½ oz St. Germain Elderflower

½ Crème de Yevette or Creme de Violette

¾ oz Hibiscus Simple Syrup (See Below)

1 oz Lime Juice

2-3 dashes Scrappys Lavender Bitters

Soda Water

Lemon Zest for Garnish

For the Hibiscus Syrup you’ll need 1 cup of water, 1 cup superfine sugar, and ¼ cup dried hibiscus pedals. Combine it all over medium high heat until sugar dissolves then allow it to cool. If you’re worried about finding dried hibiscus don’t be. It’s much easier than you may think. I found them on Amazon, and you get a lot for your money.

Do This:

Combine all ingredients into an ice filled cocktail shaker, shake and double strain into a Collins glass filled with fresh ice. Top it off with a splash of soda water and garnish with a large piece of lemon zest.

What you’re left with is a drink that’s a little sweet, a little tart, and very floral, it’s an incredible drink that you can sip on while soaking up some sun. At first when I was making the drink I was using far too much elderflower and simple syrup, I really wanted that floral note to stick out but it was way too sweet. I was also using lemon juice instead of lime juice and it just wasn’t quite right. So I dialed back the elderflower and simple syrup and went to lime juice.  Well thankfully I nailed it, the hibiscus and lime pair perfectly and this cocktail is one that I’ll have often this summer.

Pisco Sour

This is a drink that I’ve been looking to make for quite some time now, but the list is so long that it just took a while to get to. However the lucky day finally came and I have to say I couldn’t be happier that it did. By now you know I’m going to give you a little background before I go right into the recipe. Pisco is actually a grape brandy, it’s not rum and it’s not tequila although it does seen to have hints of both. Brandy is distilled wine although other fermented fruits can be distilled but these are often referred to as eau-de-vie the most common being apricot. Pisco is distilled with various grapes that come from throughout Peru. Peruvian Pisco is the most popular although Chile also produces there own Pisco. As to the name Pisco it is greatly disputed. Some say it comes from the town of Pisco in Peru, or that is comes from the Mapudungun word pishku meaning boiled in a pot, a language spoken in south central Chile. I don’t really care where it comes from, all I know is that it’s amazing and you need to get on it.

What you’ll need:

2 oz Pisco (I use Tacama Demonio De Los Andes, {Demon of the Andes})

¾ oz Fresh Squeezed Lime Juice

¾ oz Simple Syrup

1 egg white

Angostura Bitters (In a dropper bottle if you have one)

Whole Nutmeg

What you’ll need to do:

Combine all ingredients except bitter and nutmeg in a shaker, dry shake (without ice) vigorously for at least 10 seconds. Add the good ice and shake again, and again vigorously. Double strain into a chilled cocktail glass, now the drink should have a great frothy layer on top and you want this. Using your dropper place several small drops of bitters around the top of the drink and using a toothpick drag the tip of the toothpick through each drop in whatever pattern you see fit. Feel free to use my examples they’re easy and they work. Now some freshly grated nutmeg over the top and it’s ready to go. If you don't have a dropper bottle for the bitters just put 2 dashes in before you shake and garnish with the nutmeg still amazing. If you're looking for a place to buy a few dropper bottles, they're very cheap, follow the link to Specialty Bottles in my resources section.

Let me know what you think!

This one has the nutmeg already.

This is way easier than it looks trust me.

Kingston Club

This is a great recipe that I found on Jeffrey Mongenthaler’s website that I had to share with everyone. I have a link to his website on the blog and if you haven’t checked it out yet you need to. This guy is a genius I’ve used so many of his recipes and they’ve all turned out amazing.

1 ½ oz Drambuie

1 ½ oz Pineapple Juice

¾ oz Fresh Squeezed Lime juice

1 tsp. Fernet Branca

2 dashes Angostura

Soda Water

Combine all the ingredients in an ice filled shaker except soda water, remember use good ice. Shake vigorously but briefly, strain into a chilled Collins glass filled with fresh ice. Top with soda water and garnish with a large piece of orange zest.

Enjoy this one, I know you will and you wont be able to stop at just enjoying one.

How Not To Make A Margarita

Ok so if you want a bad Margarita try this one I found.

Blue Margarita


Oh and did anyone else notice that they say to garnish with a slice a star fruit yet in the picture they use star anise. Talk about disgustingly sweet, very funny.

Ice, Ice Baby!

All right so here it is my post that will be completely dedicated to ice. That’s right ice, it’s something that gets overlooked by those of us at home but it never gets overlooked at your favorite bar, at least for your sake I hope it doesn’t and if it does you need a new favorite bar. Ice can make or break a drink you’ve ordered, the same drink can go from an instant favorite to a total bust just because of ice. I know there are many skeptics out there but hopefully once you’ve read this post you’ll agree that ice is one of the most important elements of your cocktail.

Lets start with the obvious here, what’s the reason we use ice to begin with? The answer is very simple it’s because it’s cold and not just cold it’s very cold, it’s frozen for crying out loud. And if you’re anything like me, which if you’re reading this you are, you want a cold drink. When I order or make a drink I want it to be cold, it tastes better that way and it’s just far more refreshing that way. I can’t get that ultra cold drink I want unless I have the ice I need to do so. At this point you might be thinking, “Well I have an ice machine and that’s good enough for me”. Ok I understand where you’re coming from but having great ice is so much easier than you might think. Lets start with showing you a few examples of some great ice that’s easy to make at home.

Now that you see what I have here you might be thinking why is this ice so much better than what I’m using already. I’ll tell you why, it’s about mass, and yes sometimes size does matter and this is one of those instances. The ice I have pictured here is large, solid pieces of very hard and very cold ice. It’s nothing like what comes out of the ice machine. The ice out of the machine is small and full of air, all the machine is designed to do is make ice as fast as possible, which it does, and to do so the water it uses is filled with air. The ice I have made very easily has far less air than anything coming from your ice machine. The more air in the ice the faster the ice melts, I’m sure you can all see the science in that. You don’t want ice to melt too fast that dilutes your drink and can completely change the way it tastes. It goes the same way no matter what you’re drinking, you could have a Hendrix Martini or a Gimlet one served straight up one served on the rocks, if bad ice was used you’re getting bad results. Typically a Martini is stirred, bad ice means more dilution while it’s being stirred. A Gimlet is shaken, bad ice in bad drink out, plus even if you strained the Gimlet into fresh ice, which I pray so hard that you did, you’re more than likely using the same bad ice you used to shake it with. I really hope you can see where I’m going with this. We’re about to go through several fun and easy ways to make great ice, it will not only make a better cocktail it will make a better-looking cocktail. You know how much looks mean when it comes to food or drink. If we like the way it looks we’re going to like the way it tastes and it’s so true.

This ice is super easy to make, believe it or not the mold I used is one of those aluminum foil baking tins that you can buy in the grocery store. The ones many people use to make small loafs of bread. This is great for several reasons first you can make as many or as few as you want and all you need is a cheap ice pick and when you’re ready to serve you start chipping away at the block of ice until you get a piece that fits nicely inside your glass, this piece of ice will last for a very long time and because it’s so dense will stay very cold. The second great use for a piece of ice this big is crushed ice, you can get the perfect consistency of crushed ice with this just put the block either in a Lewis bag or if you don’t have one a Ziploc bag and go to work with a muddler. Crush until you’ve reached desired consistency.

Now these pieces of ice are also the one-piece variety, one piece in the glass is all you need, these are more ascetically pleasing pieces of ice. The round mold is super easy. It’s just two pieces of silicone you put together and fill with water. You can get them at muji.us for about $11.00. The large square mold you can pick up on amazon.com. The mold is six blocks of the same size the brand is Tovolo. The pieces of ice that look like plugs, and yes that’s what I call them, are just small 5 oz Dixie cups that I use. A little tip here, don’t let these ones freeze all the way through before taking them out of the cup, otherwise they wont come out right.

Finally these small square cubes, these are perfect for mixing, shaking and serving. These are my go to all purpose ice cubes that are so easy to make and they look great. Again these are Tovolo molds that can be picked up at amazon.com. These really are the most important, if you don’t take anything away from this post except one thing I hope it’s this. You, at a minimum, need to be using cubes like these to get your drinks right. Like I said no one wants a warm drink, or a watered down drink, and using these cubes will avoid that all together. Just look at any of the picture on my blog, the ice I use is ice I’ve talked about here, I wouldn’t steer you wrong. A set of two mold trays is $10.50 online and it’s the best money you’ll spend. I hope you’ve learned something and please as always leave your comments and ask all the questions you’d like. Until next time enjoy your drinks responsibly. 

Blue Blazer

So like I said first attempt at a video blog, hopefully there will be more to come. It was fun to make and I hope you can follow what's going on in the video, I wish there was a little less light so you could have seen the flames a little better but I think you should be able to see it and realize what's going on. Enjoy this one it's tons of fun and it always impresses.

By the way you were not supposed to see the dog but that's Gus.

Anejo Old Fashioned

This drink is yet another creation from the guys at The Gin Joint in Charleston, SC. It’s a great take on the Classic Old Fashioned which normally has some simple syrup, bitters and bourbon and is finished off with a nice big piece of lemon peel. The Classic is a great drink and if you have yet to try one you’re missing out big time. Now getting back to this Anejo Old Fashioned, which I almost always order, the thing to talk about is of course anejo which refers to the tequila that graces this amazing drink.  Anejo really just means aged in Spanish and many things are referred to as anejo, for instance cheese, rum, and in this case tequila. Now for tequila to be called anejo is must be aged for at least one year, but not more than three, in oak barrels. A word of caution before you venture into this one, anejo tequila is pricey no matter what brad you choose to buy. I use Don Julio and it runs anywhere from $52.00 a handle to $60.00. So if you’re not sure about this one right off the bat you might try to either find a place that serves it and try it that way or see if someone you know has some you can try. Enough of this lets get to what you want, the know how.

2 oz Anejo Tequila

¼ oz Agave Nectar

2 Dashes Grapefruit Bitters

1 Large Piece of Lemon Zest

Start by getting your nice piece of lemon zest and putting it right in the serving glass, I use a double old-fashioned. Then add the bitters and nectar. A little tip put the nectar in the microwave for a few seconds it makes it much easier to work with. Now you’ll need to gently muddle the ingredients so the oils in the zest release. Once you’ve done this add the tequila and stir it all together. Now add one large piece of ice and you’re ready to imbibe freely.