7 posts tagged “happy hour”
What's your favorite time of day and why?
Well, that’s such an easy question, it hardly bears answering. My favorite time of the day is: Happy Hour!!
Tonight, the Beloved is enjoying a zanahorita, and I’m prepared to enjoy a tall, cool tequila sunrise, which I think is an incredibly under-rated drink. It’s also a great, easy drink to make and perfect for summer:
Tequila Sunrise
Fill tall glass with ice:
Add tequila to there (first row of blue dots)
Add orange juice to there (second row of blue dots)
Top with club soda
Mix with spoon, and drizzle in grenadine (or maraschino cherry juice). They heavier syrup will collect at the bottom producing the “sunrise” effect.
Happy Friday!
It’s a holiday weekend, so why not start a little early, right? A couple of weeks ago, while we were at Lola in Cleveland, we tried one of their signature martinis -- Hot, Dirty & Bleu -- and really enjoyed it.
So, continuing the apparently recurring themes of reconstituting other restaurants drinks and a new affinity for spicy drinks, here it is:
3 oz Vodka (and use the good-stuff)
¼ oz Olive-brine (from the jar of olives you’re going to use as a garnish)
¼ oz Dry vermouth
~5 drops Tabasco (or other hot sauce)
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled martini glass and serve with a skewer of bleu-cheese stuffed olives. The cold, cold martini, the salty-bleu cheese-olive taste and the spicy hot sauce are a really great mixed sensation. I recommend using a vinegar based hot-sauce (if you have one) and nothing that’s been thickened – I think it will disperse better in your drink. Also, while I'm a fan of the traditional gin-martini as well, I think hot sauce and gin sounds really terrible.
(Of course, you can make it as “hot”, as “dirty”, or as “dry” (varying the vermouth) as you like – that’s sort of the joy of martini-making…)
Bottoms-up!
Ok, I have a confession. I make a crappy margarita.
What’s that you say? You live in San Diego, 30 miles or so from the border – you of all people – with your love of cocktails and spicy Mexican food this should have been something in your arsenal a long time ago.
I agree. But mine always tend to come out too tequila-y, too sweet, too lime-y, too something where you can tell it’s just not right. I won’t use a mix, because a) that’s cheating, and b) they vary from too sweet to just plain nasty.
But no more with the bad margaritas!
My rescue came in the form of the latest Imbibe Magazine (your guide to liquid culture…), which has some new summer drink recipes. The other night we tried one that we LOVED and instantly declared The. House. Margarita. This. Summer.
Zanahorita
Mix the following in a shaker with ice:
2 oz reposado tequila
¾ oz cointreau or triple-sec
1 oz carrot juice
¾ oz fresh lime juice
½ oz orange juice
½ oz simple syrup
Shake vigorously and strain into a glass with fresh ice (salted or not, depending on taste) and THEN sprinkle the top of the drink with ground cumin. (Yes, that’s right -- cumin -- don’t argue with me)
The carrot-cumin-tequila-salt-citrus blend is both incredibly smooth and gives this drink a rare exotic feel.
Trust me -- it might sound a little strange. It’s bueno.
When I was in my 20s, and you were at a wedding reception (and we're going to one this weekend...) and wanted to get a mixed drink, it was a screwdriver. It was easy and tasty, but it hardly conveyed any sense of sophistication. It's the default for a lot of folks that feel "on the spot" when having to come up with a mixed drink.
Well, I say…put down your screwdrivers!
Tonight’s Happy Hour drink is: Agent Orange
2 oz vodka
1 oz Grand Marnier
½ oz Patron citronage (or cointreau)
½ oz orange juice
Mix the ingredients together with ice. Shake vigorously and strain into a cocktail glass. Smooth citrus flavor, with a remarkably small amount of actual orange juice (that's a veiled word of warning).
Happy Friday!!
Note: Apparently, I’m starting a series of some of my favorite drinks using my favorite cocktail shaker.
The Sidecar is a one of the earliest known cocktails – thought to have originated in Europe around the end of the First World War.
The classic sidecar is made with equal parts brandy (or cognac), cointreau, and lemon juice. In many ways, it is the grandfather to very popular drinks like the margarita. Generally, you have the spirit, a sweetened citrus liqueur, and citrus juice (booze+sweet+tart = :D ).
Tonight, my choice is the Chelsea Sidecar.
The Chelsea Sidecar is made with gin in place of the brandy/cognac. You can vary the ingredients to taste. Here’s my version:
2 oz. gin (use a good one too, like Bombay Sapphire or Hendrick’s)
1 oz triple sec (we like the Patron citronage, cointreau is good too)
¾ oz lemon juice
Shake vigorously in an ice-filled cocktail shaker and stain into a martini glass. Enjoy!
I like a good drink every now and then(1). This past Christmas, I mentioned that The Beloved gave me a sleek new cocktail shaker, and Mello suggested that I post any new drink creations. I’ve been meaning to post this one for a couple of weeks.
One of the better dining experiences I had in 2007 was at the restaurant TAO, which is in the Venetian in Las Vegas. The food was pan-Asian, inventive and delicious. When we arrived we had cocktails, and Roomie and I tried the “house” martini – the Tao-tini – and really liked it.
On New Year's Eve, we decided to celebrate by trying to recreate the drink. We were able to track down the components from a pdf of the restaurant’s menu, but not the proportions.
As a scientist, I’m always interested in a little empirical experimentation and so Roomie and I set out to recreate the TAOtini. After a little trial and error (even the errors were pretty good…) here’s what we came up with:
1 part mandarin vodka
2 parts raspberry vodka
2 parts Malibu rum
½ part fresh lime juice
dash cranberry juice
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously for a few minutes. Strain into chilled martini glass.
One of the nice things is that you can adjust the lime and cranberry juice content to fit your particular taste – I like the citrus of the lime more than sweet-tart of the cranberry. A word of warning: this drink goes down pretty easily and you’ll be tempted to make another one right away. Given that its nearly straight booze – eat some peanuts and wait a bit.
Cheers!
(1) “now” tends to be about 5:30 p.m., “then” seems to be about 6:15 p.m
So, I received a belated birthday present the other weekend that was a set of longitude and latitude values, a bottle of champagne with two flutes and two canvas fold-up chairs (that come in their own little tube that makes them easy to carry). We were supposed to carry out the instructions by the end of the month.
Last night, we executed the instructions… the coordinates lead us to the cliffs above the beach between Torrey Pines and Del Mar (which I actually took a picture of from the beach perspective here).
We carried our chairs, champagne and some crackers and cheese out to the edge of the bluff and had a perfect little happy hour watching the sun set into the Pacific.
It was a really lovely time, and remarkable that even though we were maybe only 40 ft off the road, the only thing we heard was the ocean. I think the only caveat was that The Beloved had to drive back because she doesn’t care for champagne that much so I was practically forced to drink almost the whole bottle myself.
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