Tag Archives: Cocktails

How to Make a Flavored Gin Fizz

Posted on June 26, 2018 by Her | Leave a comment

Rhubarb-infused gin makes a lovely pink cocktail.

Fruit-flavored cocktails are all the rage, but there are two hurdles for the home bartender to surpass in making them:

Infusing fruit into a sugar syrup is easy, but in trying to balance the fruit flavor against the alcohol you run the risk of oversweetening the cocktail.
Flavored alcohols are pricy, and it’s hard to use up a whole bottle if you’re mixing for just one or two people at a time.

An excellent work-around for both issues is to flavor your own at home, in small batches. It’s an excellent way to eke out the last bit of use from overripe fruit, too!

Earlier this month I made rhubarb gin from the last of my home grown rhubarb.

Wash and dry the stalks, and trim them into ½ inch pieces.
Place the cut rhubarb in a glass jar, and cover with gin. (We stock Tanqueray London Dry at home.)
Lid the jar and tuck into the back of the fridge for a couple of weeks.

On Saturday, I strained the solids from the liquids and we were left with a lovely pink liquor. We mixed it with a bit of lemon juice and a dash of vanilla syrup, and topped off the glass with ginger soda for an easy, flavorful, and not-too-sweet Rhubarb-Ginger Gin Fizz.

Have you ever made your own flavored alcohol?

Just a Sip

Posted on January 18, 2015 by Him | 1 comment

We are neither of us tee-totalers; we just don’t drink very much. She hasn’t yet found a wine she’s enthusiastic about. I like a humble glass of red with dinner once in a while, but I’m often just as happy without. I found a recipe for a grapefruit soda-and-gin cocktail that became all the rage at her mom’s surprise birthday party last June, but as the summer wore on I usually drank mine without the gin, and eventually I switched to grapefruit juice and seltzer: less sugar, almost as flavorful, and I could drive after drinking one.

She’ll have a Manhattan once in a while–she, not her mom. (Her mom might like them, too, but that’s another matter.) Because she likes sweet beverages, I’ve learned to make a Manhattan so untraditionally fruit-filled that it’s nearly a new drink–maybe it should be called the Suburban. And I have learned to make it small: I usually make a single drink and split between us. Even then our glasses usually end up half-full, and not merely because we are optimists.

And so I giggled when I opened a Christmas gift that arrived from some old friends: the Teeny Weeny Martini Set: thimble-sized glasses, a miniature cocktail shaker, and an ice tray that makes positively Lilliputian cubes. I’m sure they thought they were being silly–or maybe they recall that I’m not much of a drinker.

We stayed in Friday night–no theatre, no movies, no restaurants, no takeout, just us–and as the chicken marinated for the recipe we planned, it seemed like the perfect time to try our new barware. I mixed a few drops of dry vermouth with a half-a-jigger of gin, chilled it with an ice-fragment, shook-not-stirred-even-though-that-meant-a-slightly-watery-cocktail-the-way-Bond-likes-it, and poured the result into our micro-glasses.

As for garnish: just a drop of pickle brine in each. I would have tried a twist of lemon peel, but we were out.

She took a sip, and made a face. It was nowhere near sweet enough for her liking. Fortunately, a sip is all there was. As for me, I had two. Two whole martinis. Well, G. I. Joe-sized ones. I might even do it again sometime. Maybe with a different garnish. Wonder where I can find a very small olive…

Just right for Cocktail Minute

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Tagged Cocktails, Friday, Wine

Manhattan Pancakes

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Him | 1 comment

She’d had a rough morning, I’d had a rough afternoon, and breakfast-for-dinner seemed the only way to go. She replied to my iMessage asking what she’d like:

Ooh! Pancakes? Plain, topped with peanut butter and butter?

I agreed. It was, in fact, what I was hoping she’d choose.

Meanwhile, knowing that comfort food was on the horizon, I posted jokingly to Facebook that I was having pancakes, and wondered

…what’s an appropriate wine to pair with them. Or perhaps the best hard spirits. Or both.

My friends enthusiastically rose to the challenge. Suggestions included hard cider (apple or pear), moonshine, beer, various German wines and a couple of sparkling wines, blueberry schnapps, and “honey-infused rye whiskey.” This bunch clearly takes their pancakes-and-drinking seriously. Or maybe they were just ready to help a friend in need.

The comment stream amused her as much as it had done for me, but that “infused” comment made her sit up and take notice: “We could just pour bourbon over the pancakes.”

All of a sudden I was in the act, too. “Wait–what if we made some simple syrup…”

“…and added bourbon!”

Now, neither of us is really a drinker. I can mix a Manhattan, split it into two glasses, and there’ll be some left in each glass at the end of the evening. But, as with the one-spoon-sundae that has become a favorite dessert, sometimes just a little taste is enough.

There was no bourbon in the cupboard after all, so she flavored the syrup with rye and a splash of scotch. I mixed batter and heated the griddle. One pancake got the last of a batch of homemade maraschino cherries (the kind where real cherries have been infused with maraschino liqueur, not the candied-and-dyed fakes). We cooked some sausage, deglazed its pan with a little more rye and thickened it with a bit of butter, and drizzled that sauce over the sausage. All the while, she sang Don McLean’s “American Pie.”

“…drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry,
and good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye…”

Nobody got over-served. We each had just a bit of the sort-of-cocktail syrup over very fluffy pancakes. Even so, neither of us was driving anywhere. The miserable parts of our days faded away in the giddiness of doing something silly in the kitchen, and in its unusual and tasty result.

“Who needs ‘American Pie,'” she asked, “when you’ve got cake!”

There’s quite a lot of the syrup left, but we’ll probably save it until we’ve both had a really good day at work.

Breakfast-for-Dinner for Grownups