Category Archives: cocktail

Mix and Be Merry

Posted on December 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

Two years ago I concocted a cocktail that I dubbed “Winter Tale,” and this year I went searching on the internet for a cranberry vodka recipe and rediscovered my own post.

Every year Moya, my wife, makes a music mix for friends. This year she named her mix “2011 Saints.”

I’ve mixed up 5 different cocktails and bottled them to give to friends, along with Moya’s music mix. Together they are the perfect party starter – a music mix, and a pre-mixed cocktail. For most of these, just add ice and stir or shake and strain!

Mixed Cocktails and Mixed Music

(left to right) Douglas Fir Gimlet, Winter Tale, Honey Saffron Liqueur, Pear Rosemary Cocktail, Autumn Leaves (and, yes, that's a magazine tree in the background!)

Here are the recipes:

Douglas Fir Gimlet (from New York Times)
Winter Tale (my concoction)
Honey Saffron Liqueur (from Eat Boutique)
Pear Rosemary Cocktail (from Bi-Rite Market)

Autumn Leaves (I don’t remember where I found this)
Combine in a mixing glass, stir, strain, garnish with orange peel:
3/4 oz Apple Brandy (I used Laird’s)
3/4 oz Rye (I used Bulleit)
3/4 oz Carpano Antica (or sub other sweet veromuth)
1/2 oz Yellow Chartreuse
1 dash Cinnamon Tincture (fill a small jar with cinnamon sticks, add vodka to cover, let soak 2 weeks, strain and refrigerate)

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Golden Ticket

Posted on February 4, 2011 | 2 Comments

I saw a photo of Sub Rosa Saffron vodka and thought I’d try to make something similar for a friend who loves vodka. The first batch wasn’t quite right with too much turmeric flavor and not enough heat from the jalapeño. The second batch stunned my senses. I mixed it with some French cognac-based orange liqueur, lime juice, Regan’s orange bitter, and a touch of simple syrup and thought of Veruca Salt’s Golden Ticket.

Saffron Citrus Spice Infusion

Note: I wanted to use fresh turmeric but couldn’t find any. I found dried slices of turmeric in the bulk section of Rainbow Grocery

750ml bottle vodka (I use Skyy)
Clean glass jar for infusing
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1 mandarin orange
1 jalapeño pepper
1-2 inches fresh ginger
Pinch of saffron
2 slices dried tumeric (or fresh sliced turmeric might be even better)

Toast cumin seeds and coriander seeds in a pan until fragrant. Let cool.

Peel the zest off a mandarin orange (or other small orange-y citrus) in large strips

Remove seeds from a jalapeño and chop

Peel and slice 5-10 ginger coins (more if ginger is smaller, less if ginger is bigger)

In a jar combine the toasted cumin and coriander with orange zest, chopped jalapeño, ginger coins, 2 small slices of dried turmeric, and a pinch of saffron.

Cover with 750ml vodka, seal the jar with a lid, shake, put in a cool dark place for 2 days, strain through a coffee filter. Keep an eye on it and taste it periodically — I think it’s probably best to strain it when the saffron loses its color or after 2 days, whichever happens first.

The recipe for this Golden Ticket cocktail comes from a recipe I saw on Sub Rosa Spirits

Shake with ice and strain:

2 oz saffron citrus spice vodka
1 oz orange liqueur (any light, clean orange liqueur is probably best)
1/2 oz fresh lime juice
2 dashes orange bitters (I used Regan’s)

The ingredients:

Add vodka, wait 2 days

The final golden color:

The vodka result!

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The Crispicy

Posted on January 21, 2010 | 3 Comments

Here’s a cocktail I invented last year and was thinking of today.  It’d be a good antidote for the cold windy rainy weather that has been assaulting San Francisco.

The Crispicy

2 oz Ginger Cardamon Vodka
1 oz Black Pepper Syrup
Juice of 1 lemon

Shake with ice and strain.

This makes a good batched and bottled cocktail to give to friends. Just mix up multiples of everything but the lemon juice and keep it in the fridge. Bottle it and gift it with lemons.  Instruct your friends to fresh squeeze 1 lemon with 3oz of the mix.

Black Pepper Syrup

1 cup water

1 cup sugar – it’s nice with brown sugar for color & extra flavor

15 or so black peppercorns

Boil 5 minutes, cool, then store in a glass jar in the fridge. Splash in an ounce of vodka to preserve it if you won’t use it up in the next week or two.

Ginger Cardamom Vodka

20 lightly crushed green cardamom pods

20 slices 1/4inch thick ginger

750ml vodka

Combine in a glass container.  Shake and check every day. I think it’s usually done (flavorful enough) within a day.

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Serendipity

Posted on December 15, 2009 | 2 Comments

This morning I spotted a pint of heavy whipping cream in the fridge about to expire.  I was browsing twitter updates and saw a link to a recipe for Homemade Bailey’s by @mizmaggieb. Lightbulbs in my spacecase mind! I could double the recipe and use the whole pint of cream and then bottle up the result and give it to friends.

I dropped Lucy off at school and picked up some instant coffee from Starbucks.  Then I walked down to Bi-Rite Market to get some pastured eggs – they are the only store I know around the neighborhoods I walk (Mission, SOMA, FiDi, Castro) that regularly have pastured eggs in stock.  I expected to find eggs from Eatwell or Clark Summit or Soul Food Farm or Marin Sun Farm, and then was pleased to find pasture raised eggs from farms I’d never heard of: Lazy 69 Ranch and Sinclair Family Farm.

I picked up a bottle of Bushmill’s whiskey which reminded me of meeting Moya in 1997 and of marrying her for the 3rd time in 2008.

Irish tradition (I married an Irish gal)

I got another can of sweetened condensed milk which always reminds me of my fabulously missed late grandma.  And some Recchiuti extra bitter chocolate sauce which is probably heavier than the recipe requires, but it looked so much more delicious than the bottle of plain chocolate syrup.  Why skimp when the ingredients list is already so decadent?!

I dumped all of the ingredients in the mixing bowl. It’s a simple recipe – you just whip together fresh eggs, almond extract, vanilla extract, chocolate syrup, instant coffee granules, sweetened condensed milk, whiskey, and whipping cream.

While I was scraping out the cans of sweetened condensed milk I was reminded of my grandma’s voice telling the story of how her mom would always use every last drop of sweetened condensed milk from a can by pouring coffee in the can and dissolving the last bits of sweet milk with the coffee.

every last drop of sweet

I don’t like milk in my coffee but I’ll drink coffee out of the remains in a can like this.

Here’s the finished product ready for a label:

Store in the fridge, not by the tree

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