21 posts tagged “happy hour”

So, last week I showed how Penny has been more than willing to help out while I play the piano, and the other day she decided that she could help out with Happy Hour.

Now, without opposable thumbs, she’s not very good with a cocktail shaker, but she did show a lot of interest in “helping” me while the Beloved and I were playing a few hands of gin rummy…

… looks like I had a good hand.

I feel badly for champagne.*  It’s fizzy. It’s tasty. It’s very refreshing on a summer’s day.  It does a wonderful job of picking up autumnal fruit flavors.  It is smashing with dessert.

And the only time people seem to drink it is during the last hour of the year and the first hour of a wedding reception.

What a waste.

And I think waste is the problem.  If your house is like mine, not everyone likes champagne (e.g. it's too sweet, I don't like the bubbles, it always gives me a headache**).  And if you open a bottle – pop! – you better finish it (which is probably a bad idea if you’re the only one having champagne).  Because it’s well known that champagnes don’t keep, right?   Wrong.

Enter the champagne bottle stopper – which is designed to re-seal the bottle so it can go back in the refrigerator to please another day.  A re-sealed bottle will easily last for a week or more – allowing plenty of time to finish off a bottle at an easy pace.  I got this little beauty at Amazon.  Set me back a whole $7.50.

Having champagne on-hand also opens up a whole world of champagne cocktails that go way beyond the mimosa.   One of my first attempts was “The Ritz”

The Ritz
¾ oz orange juice
½ oz cognac
¼ oz citronage (or cointreau, or triple-sec)

Mix these three together briskly and add to the bottom of a flute.  Top with champagne.  The cognac mellows out the sweetness of champagne and the citrus adds a nice tang, creating a well-balanced and refreshing drink on a warm summer’s evening.  I had two – and was considering a third, when I thought better of it…

*and for sparkling wine, as it’s called outside the Champagne region of France, and being a global citizen, I will refer to all of them as champagne.
**in order, don't buy "very dry" buy "brut" instead, nothing to do about that, don't buy really cheap stuff.

It’s a nice calm easy Independence Day weekend at The Aerie this year.  In addition to our national holiday, the weekend is always one of the biggest for tennis fans – this is the weekend of the Wimbledon finals.

So, to honor, I’m sorry, honour our nation's forefathers and tennis heroes alike, we made a very good cocktail from the latest issue of Imbibe Magazine.

The English Afterthought

3 oz gin
¾ oz St Germain liquor*
1-tablespoon fresh blueberries
1-tablespoon finely chopped ginger
Ginger beer**

In a Collins glass or large tumbler, muddle the blueberries and ginger.  Fill the glass with ice and add gin and St. Germain.  Stir and top with ginger beer.  Garnish with a skewer of blueberries.

This drink is very tasty and effervescent – perfect for a relaxing summer afternoon.   The mix of the tart blueberries, sharp ginger, sweet liquor and aromatic gin make for a great drink.

Cheers!

* St Germain is an elderflower liquor that has a very light, sweet honey-ish-but-not-quite taste.  It rocks.  In a pinch, you could probably substitute Drambuie, but I’d use less, I think.

** Ginger beer is a carbonated ginger soda that has a more intense ginger flavor than ginger ale.

As it turns out, all happy-hours don't (necessarily) involve booze.

This morning was a quiet one at The Aerie, with the regular tennis canceled because of a welcome misting rain.  After taking Penny on her morning walk, we settled in to newspaper, coffee, and waffles with strawberries and whipped cream.  

Happy Sunday!

Sometimes you need to start the weekend off early.  And our CSA box (which has had some blood oranges in it) comes on Thursday, so there you go --- all the inspiration that's required.

The BOM (Blood Orange Martini) goes down super-easy, which has its pluses and minuses.  I highly recommend one.  Or two. :)

2 oz vodka
2.5 oz blood orange juice
1/2 oz citronage (or triple sec)
1/2 oz simple syrup

Mix the ingredients into a cocktail shaker, add ice, and shake vigorously.  Strain into a cocktail glass.

After I made it, I realized I was supposed to try Hapalove's cocktail creation with blood orange juice from HER CSA box... d'oh!  Thank goodness there are more oranges in the refrigerator!

If being out of work has any advantages, one of them is that Happy Hour always starts on time.

I know I lot of people don’t like the taste of different whiskeys – I used to be one of them.  And I have to admit that I really don’t dig the taste of a Manhattan (classic drink that it is…).   If you’re in my camp, that doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy whiskey, bourbon and rye – and today’s drink is a perfect example.

The Pear Sling

2 oz rye (or bourbon)
2 oz. pear nectar*
¼ oz. simple syrup
½ oz. lemon juice

Mix ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice.  Shake vigorously (which will produce a light foam) and strain into a cocktail glass – garnish with a little sprinkle of nutmeg.  That's right, nutmeg.  Just do it.

This drink is one of those that goes down verrrrrry easily – almost too easily.

*I use Kern’s which I can find in the grocery store

With the 135th Kentucky Derby being run today, there’s really only one choice for what to drink: A Mint Julep.  The Julep brings to mind old Southern days of relaxing on the veranda, but has become as synonymous with the Derby as roses.

The Julep is potent drink (it’s essentially all bourbon) but is meant to be cold and drank slowly – you know, on that hot veranda.

You really only need a couple of ingredients: mint, bourbon, sugar, and ice.

Add 4-6 mint leaves to the bottom of your glass*
Add ½ oz of simple syrup**

Lightly muddle the mint into the simple syrup

Add 3 oz. bourbon
Add crushed ice to top of glass
Use a bar-spoon to stir until the contents are really cold

Garnish with mint sprig.

Put your feet up, relax and enjoy the Derby.

* there are special julep-cups.  I don’t have one, which seems like an egregious home-bar oversight on my part.
** you can use 1 tsp powered sugar, but I don’t like the texture.

A while ago, I mentioned that the re-do of our yard was taking up a major portion of this calendar year.  And that we were marking progress by which holiday the yard would be completed.

The answer is: Winter Solstice.

Actually, it was almost completely done by Thanksgiving, but a back-order on a couple of plants kept everything delayed an extra week and a half.  Despite the time it took, we’re both really very pleased with it.  We have a small yard and we think the new design utilizes the space well – we got rid of a grassy patch and replaced some large bushes with smaller, drought-tolerant plants.

One of our favorite things is a redwood trellis that was constructed to replace the kitchen herb garden of the Beloved’s.  Rather than take up the very limited ground area, the idea was to make it vertical.  Our contractors plumbed it with drip irrigation so with the right adjustments, it will essentially take care of itself.

My favorite part has to be the inclusion of two citrus trees (a lemon and a lime) in huge containers.  Even though there’s not much of a commercial citrus industry here anymore, it makes me feel very southern Californian.

Not a bad place to have happy hour – even on the shortest day of the year!

Show us a picture from your favorite vacation.

In 2005 (pre-blog, hard to believe!), we took a wonderful vacation to Kauai.  We rented a great little house, right along a rocky shore. (if you know the island, it’s between Poipu and Spouting Horn).

Maitais

3 comments

Since the house had a kitchen, we weren’t forced to eat-out every day and enjoyed a number of hours relaxing, reading, and watching the sea turtles.

Actually, I think our love of having happy-hour together may have started there as I learned to make a pretty good mai-tai for us to share while basking in the setting sun -- maybe that's why I love this picture so much.

When the Beloved and I went to Chicago back in September, we had a fantastic meal at the restaurant Blackbird.  In addition to the great food, the restaurant also had a fantastic cocktail selection.

In their menu, they listed the components for each drink, but not the proportions.  So when I returned, one of my goals was to recreate the drink that I had that night: The Blackbird Orange.

I think I got it.

Mix together in a cocktail shaker with ice:
1 oz brandy (or cognac/armagnac)
½ oz gin
¾ oz Averna*
½ oz lemon juice
½ oz orange juice

Shake the hell out of it –this produces a wonderful foamy texture.  Strain into a martini glass.

*Averna is a spiced liqueur from Italy that adds a complex “autumn-like” flavor to this drink.  You can find it at well-stocked liquor stores (I found ours at BevMo).