(EE-craftiness: part of a heart garland.)

I love Valentine’s Day.  I view it as an ideal holiday, and strenuously disagree with those who consider it to be over-commercialized, depressing, and all the rest.  Valentine’s is a bright spot in in the otherwise desolate month of February (at least in the Northeast).  Even before the days of EE, I was always happy to invite a pretty lady to be my valentine (and in my limited experience, ladies always enjoy being a valentine).  What could be better than fine dining, and perhaps the exchange of an extravagant gift or two, with someone whose company I enjoy?  Share the love, that’s what I say.

(Only on Valentine’s Day will your friends give you this card.  Hopefully.)

This year, EE and I somewhat reinterpreted our traditional Valentine’s celebration: we threw a cocktail party!

We hosted about 30 guests, a mix of singles and couples, for the express purposes of Valentining and having cocktails.  The goal was not to provide dinner - it was to provide an extra oomph of glizt and glam (and maybe even gossip and drama) to whatever evening people may or may not have planned for themselves.

In preparation for this momentous event, I went to work creating some drinks that fit the occasion.  The challenges/criteria were:

• 3 colors – EE often thinks in colors, so we determined the need for a red drink, a pink drink, and a white drink.
• Glassware – we only have so many of each type of glass, and wanted to avoid plastic.  The drinks had to spread across tumblers, stemmed wine, and stemmed cocktail glasses.
• Flavors – needed more than one type of flavor profile for a range of drinkers.

The results were (bearing their Valentine names):

Passion

Color: Red

Glass: Tumbler

Flavor area: Bitter

Ingredients

1 Tequila

3/4 Campari

3/4 Blood Orange Italian Soda (I bought this at Whole Foods)

1/3 Sweet Vermouth

drop Orange bitters

A muddled cherry (buy the frozen ones)

Muddle the cherry, stir vigorously with ice and all ingredients except the soda.  Strain into serving pitcher, add soda and stir gently.  At the party, I mixed batches of these in a pitcher, which we put out with an ice bucket and the correct glassware.

Blush

Color: Pink

Glass: Cocktail

Flavor area: Lightly fruity, easily accessible gin

Ingredients

1 Bombay Sapphire

1/4 Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur

1/4 Kumquat liqueur (you have to make it yourself – a post for another time – substitute Cointreau)

half a Lime’s juice

drop of Cranberry juice

Combine all ingredients with ice in a shaker and shake vigorously.  At the party I shook up batches and funneled them into a good-looking clear liquor bottle that I had de-labeled and cleaned.  The bottle was then left in an ice bucket next to the correct glassware.

Lovely

Color: White (ok, it’s yellowy, like white wine is white.  But true white is a pain)

Glass: Wine

Flavor area: Light, aromatic, refreshing, and sweeter

Ingredients

2 Seltzer Water

1 White Wine (something dry and simple – I used an Austrian wine made by Berger)

3/4 St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur

1/4 Dry Vermouth

1/4 Dolin Blanc Vermouth

Combine all ingredients and stir.  Or, if using a siphon for the seltzer (a superior way to go), just add the seltzer last and allow the blast of seltzer to do the mixing.  For the party, I had some old french lemonade bottles with flip-tops that I put batches into and then topped with seltzer.  We left the bottles in a bowl with ice next to the correct glassware.

Note:  Sadly, we had such a good time at the party that we didn’t take any drink/party pictures.  Sorry, that was lame of us.  Here’s a final photo:

(My present to EE this year – they are antique sterling stirrer-straws. I was a little wary of giving her something cocktail-related, given it’s kind of my own hobby at all, but she does seem to like them very much.)

]]> http://www.tessinrinpoche.com/2010/02/15/a-valentines-threesome/feed/ 1 http://www.tessinrinpoche.com/2009/12/13/a-pink-zipper/ http://www.tessinrinpoche.com/2009/12/13/a-pink-zipper/#comments Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:19:01 +0000 Bertessa http://www.tessinrinpoche.com/?p=632 NY got really cold this week.  Sure I’ve seen colder in the midwest, but my personal Absolute Zero is around 35 – anything below that is in one big category of inexplicable cold.  Given the temps, I was not surprised when EE requested something warming (but not warm) as an aperitif.

I feel challenged by making cold but warming drinks.  This is silly because all alcohol is warming, right?  True, but there is something to the way a drink looks, smells, and plays on the tongue that warms or chills well before ethyl becomes your mental tauntaun.  For example, I would argue that a Martini is an arctic drink (not just cold, but downright glacial, which is kind of awesome) while a Gin & Tonic is refreshingly cold (more like a June breeze or snow cone).  On the warming side – ignoring hot drinks – Egg Nog is warming (more a promise of warmth, like a cold pair of gloves) while a Pink Zipper is hot!  Damn hot!

A Pink Zipper (it’s pinker in reality)

Aspects of Hotness (in a Pink Zipper, that is…)

• Color – a subtle warming pink
• Tequila – it comes from hot places and retains that heat in the form of Midi-Chlorians, a special six molecule nano-carbon sub-atomical hot neutron plasma structure unique to plants grown south of the Freeze Your Keister line (this line is said to be moving south due to climate change – it even temproarily dipped south of Houston this month)
• Plasma (see Tequila) – the sun is made out of plasma, this stuff literally provides all warmth we known to Earth.  No plasma, no heat, no nothing (may not be entirely true as tectonic effects may generate some heat without a sun, but I’m not sure)
• Jalapeno (sorry, I’m not sure how to get a tilde on my ‘n’) – also from south of the FYK, jalapenos have a very high concentration of Midi-Chlorians, but still have a father whereas Habaneros may have been conceived by Midi-Chlorians
• Ginger – Not a Midi-Chlorian source, but totally has zip

The other ingredients are important too, though, because they make the drink balanced and enjoyable instead of searing and lethal – like the ozone layer!

Ingredients

1/2 Jalapeno-infused tequila

1/2 Tequila

2/3 Cointreau

1/2 a lime’s juice

1/3 Pomegranate juice

1/3 Agave nectar

1/4 ginger juice

Some frozen cranberries

Combine in a shaker and shake vigorously.  Serve up and garnish with frozen cranberries (or small jalapenos).

A few notes:

• The balance of infused/non-infused tequila depends on how strong your infused tequila is – use your judgment
• Infusing cranberries into the jalapeno tequila would be one more step of awesomeness
• May the force be with you

This post is about the perfect Christmas house party drink.  What do I mean by house party?  I mean being in a house for days surrounded by fudge, pie, frosted cookies, any number of other sweets, and hard candy.  I’m in this situation every year, and I pretty much pick up a sweet bit every time I walk between rooms.  Unfortunately, most drinks do not pair well with the sweet parade.

Many drinks are themselves sweet, which becomes overkill, or they are too dry/tangy/whiskey-based (though I’ll allow that some may like whiskey and candy).  I have solved this problem in the form of a concoction I call the Hard Candy Christmas.

Am I getting fired or tossed out of my apartment?  No.  The name of this drink isn’t about my hardship, and I actually invented and named the Hard Candy over the summer while in search of something totally different.  Even those many months ago, I realized how perfect it would be for this time of year.  The name is the name for four reasons:

1. Honors my childhood car rides (original Chrysler minivan) across Texas listening to Dolly Parton (if you don’t know the song, click here)  and Crystal Gayle
2. It smells sorta like a Christmas tree – not sure why, but trust me
3. It goes really well with sweets, like hard candies
4. It is a really pretty red color, appearing rather like a hard candy

Ingredients

1 Tequila

1/2 Stone’s Ginger

1/3 Tournement absinthe

1/4 Campari

3 drops orange bitters

1-2 frozen strawberries

grated ginger (I keep some fresh ginger in the freezer and grate it as needed)

Combine everything but the absinthe in a shaker with ice and shake vigorously.  Stir in the absinthe and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garnish with something festive (frozen cranberries, green sugar on the rim, etc).

These could definitely be  pre-mixed and made in batches for a party.

Merry Christmas!

If you’ve ever been to a Mexican food restaurant, then you should be familiar with the margarita.  Anyone who has lived in Texas for any period of time should be familiar with this simple masterpiece.  Falling into both camps myself, I am very familiar with the margarita. Very.

Here’s the good news: margaritas are simple and customizable.  I truly don’t believe there is one specific way to rock the rita (but there are some wrong ways).  We all have different tastes, and indulging our individual tastes is part of why home mixology is so fun.

Sadly, I am disappointed in most restaurant margaritas.  They normally contain artificial sour mix, which honestly grosses me out (high fructose corn syrup plus citric acid just isn’t lime juice).  But whatever, if that’s your thing, or the place you go makes them with real ingredients, then more power to you.

The frozen branch of the margarita family doesn’t happen to be most appealing to me, though I’ll allow they play an important role in warmer climes.  I think frozen ones are best when they’re from one of those big stirring machines, which is not commonly done at home.  You can rent one (which I’ve done), or you can buy one from Sur La Table, but you risk causing the nation’s economic collapse.

Furthering the need to make margaritas at home: regrettably, not all parts of the world offer convenient Mexican restaurant options.  We faced this situation living in London, and I hear from a trusted source that Israel has the same issue.  But most parts of the world do provide access to the ingredients you need to make your own.

One way not to customize a margarita is by adding aloe vera juice to the mix.

blechhh

I read about all these possible health benefits of drinking aloe juice, and thought I’d give it a try.  My adventurousness was ill-considered.  The liquid smells like Bactine, and I can’t tell you what it tastes like, because it was far too nasty to keep in my mouth long enough for my mind to work out a description.  I got a bit down, but I don’t feel any better for having done so.  EE actually spit it out. 

I had thought aloe might play well with a margarita by being a relative of the agave plant (they’re both in the order Asparagales).  I was wrong.  Nothing could play well with aloe.

Agave (l) and Aloe (r) seemed similar enough to be good together.

Luckily, a classic margarita was able to right my wrong.  Margaritas have always been common around here, but I’ve recently been making a lot of Ginger Margaritas.  They have a little more zip, but don’t lose the beautiful balance inherent in a margarita.

How can you share in this bounty? Like so:

Ingredients

1 tequila (pick it yourself; everyone has a different taste)

3/4 Domaine de Canton’s ginger liqueur

1 lime’s juice

Combine in a glass and stir with a few pieces of ice.  Fill glass with ice.  Garnish with wedge of lime.

The classic margarita simply replaces the ginger liqueur with orange liqueur (Cointreau is probably most classic, but I’ll allow that Grand Marnier is common as well).  I’ve made one here:

As stated above, ritas are customizable.  If you want it up, serve it up.  If you want it on the rocks, serve it on the rocks.  If you want salt, add salt.  If you want it frozen, serve it frozen.  If you want it sweeter, add more Cointreau.  If you’re into tequila, use more tequila.  If you don’t care about tequila, use cheap tequila.  If you’re making for others, give it the way they like it.

Margaritas rock.

* P.S.: Mad props to Sur La Table for embracing the South Park episode and linking to it from the Margaritaville machine page

I’ve gotten requests to help others start their home Mixology Stations, and that is just what this post will attempt to do.  Luckily I’ve been asked to opine on this topic previously and another time the in-laws asked what was needed for a fun Christmas.  The answer was about the same…

Rude interruption from the readership rabble: “Tess, you’re a dork, why not just call it a bar?”

Bite me.

A bar is more complicated, and sounds a bit trashy to bring into one’s home.  More importantly, though, this blog is about mixology, not say, beer and wine.  I’m not saying I’m never going to write about beer or wine, but I don’t mix beer and wine.  I think we would all agree that beer and/or wine would be a part of any bar.

Alright then, on with it.

Tools

There are some basics that you have to have.  I wouldn’t buy anything too gimmicky, but I’m not sure you can get by without the following:

• shaker
• jigger
• stirrer
• strainer

Glassware

Drink from your morning latte’s crumpled Solo cup if it fits the circs.  If you’re going for the more traditional style or registering for your wedding, start with at least four of each:

• high ball glasses
• martini glasses
• tumblers

Liquor

“I only like X!”  Then only buy X.  Why fight it?  But if you want to be able to host with the basics, some basics are required.  All of these are placed here with the idea of MIXING drinks (remember, this is building a Mixology Station), so if you get all high and mighty about what is best on its own, then buy that for serving on its own.  If you’re a fiend for labels and want multiple high-end whatever, then by all means, get more of that whatever.  I won’t object anytime you add another bottle to the cart.  Basics:

• Gin – I keep Sapphire and Hendricks and think gin is basically the best base liquor
• Whiskey – you need at least one, even if you don’t drink it, regardless of what I said before.  They should be (in order of importance):
  • Bourbon – don’t spend a ton, but make it good.  I recommend Buffalo Trace
  • Scotch – something in the middle range if you’re not into scotch already
  • Rye – whatever you can find.  It’s needed for Manhattans
• Tequila

Am I really leaving off vodka?  Damn straight I am!  Unless it is infused, it does nothing for mixing flavors.  If you want to stock it, go for it, but buy something really cheap for mixing, as people truly can’t tell the difference.  I also left off rum.  Rum is hard.  Poor rum, go marry a Coke.

Liqueurs and Such

SHOCKER: The real key to mixology is not the liquor, but the random stuff you have to put in it.  This becomes more subjective, but the list below is ordered with necessities at the top and things I prefer descending below:

• Cointreau – no way around it, this is critical
• Vermouth – sweet (red/Italian) and dry (white/French)
• Bitters – keep at least Angostura.  Look for specialty flavors like Fee Brothers or Regan for Orange/Lemon/Peach, etc.
• St. Germain’s Elderflower liqueur – just makes mixology too easy
• Campari – I love the stuff, turns a drink red, people accuse me of having a girly drink, and then I give them a taste…
• Absinthe – I’m using LeTournement and think it adds great flavors
• Domaine de Canton’s Ginger liqueur – great way to spice things up

This is a starter list.  Recipes will call for all kinds of junk, but you can pretty much cheat using the first three items in this list.

Other Things You’ll Need

• Citrus – mainly limes, but some lemon too
• Olives – they can be be in vermouth in a jar in the fridge indefinitely
• Onions – get the ones in sweet vermouth; I’ll write many odes to them in posts to come
• Fruit juices – unsweetened cranberry is #1, after that it just depends
• Any fruit you can put in the freezer – blueberries and cranberries are particularly useful
• Mint – you can freeze this too
• Sparkling water – feel free to get a siphon
• Tonic – particularly in the summer

Wait, I don’t have this much space, you’re not a dork, you’re a nut!

If you go with the first two items in each list, you’ll be fine.  A lot of where and how to store things comes down to aesthetics, and there’s nothing wrong with picking your bottles to enhance your decor.  Plus, you should use the fridge.  I keep the gin, plus the citrus, olives, etc in the old icebox.  My own bar cart is pictured at the beginning of the post, but I also think a minimalist setup like the below is sweet.  Make your own, since this is expensive:

Ultimately, your Mixology Station should match your style.  If it limits your menu, so be it.  Just be sure you limit it to drinks you like.

Ingredients, Stations, Mix!