Final Post: My Favorite Drinks

So, a couple of days after my last post, when I was “frantically trying to think of a theme for next time” as I put it, something happened that made that a lot easier: there won’t be a next time. As in, this is my last post. I can’t really go into detail about what happened, but it’s nothing bad – no one was hurt or anything. But I know I’m just not going to have time to continue this blog with any regularity whatsoever – I barely had the time for that before, with how not often I posted! So I guess this is goodbye, then. Before I go, though, I have something I’ve been saving for my last post. I didn’t think that would be so soon, but I was running out of ideas anyways, so maybe it’s not such a bad thing! So, here it is: some of my personal favorite drinks!

Irish Coffee
4 parts Coffee (hot)
2 parts Irish Whiskey
1.5 parts Cream
1 tsp Brown Sugar
Heat the coffee, whiskey, and sugar and pour into a glass, then top with cream. Serve hot.

Sea Breeze
1 part Vodka
1 part Grapefruit Juice
3 parts Cranberry Juice
Mix in a glass filled with ice and garnish with a lime wedge.

Kir
1 part Creme de Cassis
4 parts White Wine
Pour the creme de cassis in a glass then pour the white wine on top.

Yes, I have quite varying tastes! I have more drinks that I love, of course, but those are some of my favorites that I haven’t already shared in other posts. I think I ordered them from most well-known to least. Everybody knows about irish coffee these days, I think some people probably know about the sea breeze, but I doubt you’ve ever heard of a Kir before unless you’re from France! That’s where it’s originally from. Anyways, I hope you haven’t heard of at least one of these drinks, and hopefully more that I’ve posted before. I really hope that my blog helped some of you pick out drinks for your party! It’s kind of sad, saying goodbye, but it’s less sad if I think about the fact that I’ve helped some people with this blog. So I hope I you all enjoyed it, because it was a fun little hobby for me. I guess that’s it, then. Goodbye!

IBA “Golden” Drinks

Okay, for today’s post, I’m going to do what I did last time again: three IBA official cocktails linked together by a common theme. Well, one’s actually a variant on an IBA official cocktail, but close enough, right? And what’s today’s theme? They all have “golden” in the name!

Two of them get their name from a common ingredient, Galliano – an herbal-flavored liqueur known for its bright golden color. Now that I think of it, I’m disappointed that I didn’t think of it when I was doing those color-themed drink posts! Anyways, the third cocktail gets its name from another “golden” ingredient which is, well, a little strange. You’ll see what it is! First, the other two:

Golden Cadillac
1 part Galliano
1 part Creme de Cacao (white)
1 part Cream
Shake in a mixer with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Golden Dream
2 parts Galliano
2 parts Cointreau
2 parts Orange Juice
1 part Cream
Shake in a mixer with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Okay, now, last but not least, here’s the one with the weird ingredient that’s a variation of an IBA cocktail. The IBA cocktail is a Gin Fizz, but this is apparently a popular variant of that. I’ve only seen it ordered at the bar a couple of times in my life, but maybe it’s more popular in other areas. Here it is…

Golden Fizz
5 parts Soda Water
3 parts Gin
2 parts Lemon Juice
1 part Gomme Syrup
1 Egg Yolk
Mix and serve in a glass with ice.

Yep, the weird “golden” ingredient is nothing other than an egg yolk! There’s also a version called the “Silver Fizz” that uses the egg white instead. Personally I don’t think you could ever talk me into trying a drink with an egg yolk in it, but if you’ve got some adventurous girls, this could be a good challenge for them!
Also, about Gomme Syrup, same deal as the Orgeat Syrup from last time – you can get it at some grocery stores and many liquor stores. Same goes for most “syrup” ingredients, so if I talk about any more in the future, that will probably be where you can find them! Okay, that’s all for now, back to frantically trying to think of a theme for next time again! Haha!

Classic Tropical Drinks

I’ve thought and I’ve thought and I’m still having no luck coming up with a good theme for my posts. The more I think about it, the more I realize I’m running out of drinks to share with you, too! So I thought, when in doubt, I can always just resort to some classics. Of course, who knows how long these will last me… I need to think of something else soon! But in the mean time, here are some very well-known drinks. You might already know how to make one or two of them, but hopefully not all three, so that I can at least feel like I’m still teaching you something! There’s kind of a theme between them, they all have a reputation for being kind of tropical or being from tropical places. So that’s good that I at least thought of sort of a theme for this post! Anyways, here they are!

Bahama Mama
1/4 oz Coffee Liqueur
1/4 oz Bacardi 151 (or other high-proof rum)
1/2 oz Dark Rum
1/2 oz Coconut Liqueur
4 oz parts Pineapple Juice
Juice from 1/2 a lemon
Mix in a glass with ice and garnish with a strawberry or cherry.

Mojito
4 parts White Rum
3 parts Lime Juice
3 sprigs of mint
2 teaspoons sugar
Soda Water
Mix in a glass and top off with Soda Water. Garnish with a sprig of mint.

Mai Tai
6 parts White Rum
6 parts Dark Rum
3 parts Orange Curacao
3 parts Orgeat Syrup
2 parts Lime Juice
Shake all ingredients except dark rum together and strain into a glass. Pour dark rum on top. Garnish with a pineapple slice.

For that last one, Orgeat Syrup isn’t the most common ingredient, but you can get it at some grocery stores and liquor stores. I know Trader Joes carries it. Anyways, I’d love to post more recipes, but I’m starting to think I might have to conserve them if I want to make the blog last! So hopefully this will be enough for now, and I’ll have more next time… with a new theme, maybe? A girl can hope!

Bachelorette Drinks

Okay, so I thought and thought and thought about what to post about next, but I’m out of ideas. I’m having trouble coming up with another theme to post about. If anyone has any suggestions, leave a comment and let me know please! But in the mean time, since I couldn’t think of any themes I thought I would go back to the original theme of the blog: drinks that are great for bachelorette parties. I already went through all the ones that immediately came to mind for me, though, so what to do? I did a little searching on the internet and I found a couple that seem like they could be great drinks to serve at a bachelorette party. So here’s what I found!

Bachelorette Pomegranate Passion
1 part Vodka
1 part Orange Liqueur
1 part Pomegranate Juice
Optional: Juice from 1/2 a lemon
Mix together in a glass with ice

Bachelorette Party Ball and Chain
4 parts Green Tea
2 parts Sake (cold)
1 part Bacardi Tropico
Splash of sour mix
Pour in a glass with ice and garnish with a citrus twist.

Bachelorette Margarita
1 part Cointreau
1 part Lime Juice
2 parts Tequila
Fresh rose petals
Shake together gently without damaging the rose petals and serve in a glass with ice. Garnish with a lime wedge.

I love the idea in that last one about using rose petals! They provide a very distinctive contribution to the flavor, and if you manage not to damage them, I bet they would look the drink look very pretty and cool, too! Of course, the other two drinks look like they would be good too (I wouldn’t post them if they didn’t!) but my favorite is the last one. How creative! I want to try something like that out now! I also want to think of a theme for my next post… so hopefully I’ll have one soon! You’ll find out next time, I guess!

Honey

I racked my brain trying to think of flavors I could keep this up with, but all I could think of that I haven’t yet posted about were liquors with obscure flavors and flavors that are only found in obscure liquors! The only exception was honey. So, this might be my last flavor-themed post, but at least I’m able to make this one, and honey it is!

There are two types of alcohol that come from honey: Mead and Drambuie. Drambuie is just a liqueur, like many of the other flavored drinks I’ve been posting about, flavored with honey and herbs. But Mead, which is also called honey wine, is actually made directly from honey by fermenting a mixture of honey and water. If the word “mead” sounds familiar to you, it’s probably from some old story about ancient kings or gods – it has a bit of a reputation as what kings and gods drink! And who wouldn’t want to drink the same thing as them, right? For a more concrete distinction between the two: Drambuie is a liqueur, so it has an alcoholic content of 40%, but Mead is more like wine, so its content is usually somewhere around 13%.

So, without further ado, here are some cocktails for each of these types of honey-flavored alcohol, and one that uses both!

Buddha-Tini
6 parts Mead
2 parts Coconut Rum
2 parts Vodka
1 part Triple Sec
1 part Grenadine
Mix ingredients (except grenadine) in a cocktail shaker with ice, then pour in a glass with ice. Layer grenadine on top.

Rapunzel’s Delight
2 parts Mead
2 parts Ginger Ale
2 parts Pineapple Juice
1 part Vodka
Mix in a glass with ice.

Rust Nail
9 parts Scotch
5 parts Drambuie
Mix in a glass with lots of ice and garnish with a lemon wedge. Be careful, this is a strong one!

Libertine
1 Glass Drambuie
1/2 Lime
Soda Water (optional)
Cut half a lime into wedges and add to a glass with crushed ice. Fill the glass with drambuie. Top off with soda water if desired. It may only have one alcoholic ingredient, but it’s still a cocktail!

Honeymoon
1 Glass Mead
1/2 Shot Raspberry Liqueur
1/2 Shot Honey Liqueur (Drambuie)
Fill a glass with mead, then add half a shot each of raspberry and honey liqueur, and stir all them together.

Wow, I think that’s more recipes than I’ve ever included in one post. That’s a good finale for the flavor-themed posts, then! Now I’m going to have to give some thought to what I’m going to post about next time, but you’d better believe this blog isn’t over, so I’ll post again when I can think of what to post next!

Peach

Okay, so now that that idea with the colors has failed already, I think I’ll go back to having flavors as themes for my posts instead. Although, I can’t think of many flavors I haven’t covered yet, so this might be very short lived this time too. But in the mean time, there is one flavor I can think of that I haven’t gone over: peach. The only peach liqueurs out there, really, are Peach Schnapps. Schnapps are kind of a subset of liqueurs that are adapted from a German type of alcohol and I could list a bunch more information about them but I know you’re not here for any of that. So, without further ado, here are some of my favorite drinks that use peach schnapps.

Fuzzy Navel
1 part Peach Schnapps
1 part Orange Juice
Mix in a glass with ice.

That one’s a very easy drink to make, but it’s very tasty, too! If you like a bit stronger of a drink than that, you can add an equal portion of Vodka to make what’s called a “Hair Navel.” Nope, I’m not kidding. Names of drinks can be pretty weird. Here’s a drink with a few more flavors going on in it:

Sex on the Beach
1 part Peach Schnapps
2 parts Vodka
2 parts Orange Juice
1 part Cranberry Juice
Mix in a glass with ice. Garnish with an orange slice.

And if you thought that one had an interesting and somewhat dirty name, how about this one?

Redheaded Slut
1 part Jaegermeister
1 part Peach Schnapps
Cranberry Juice
Mix in a glass with ice and fill to the top with Cranberry Juice.

That reminds me, I went to another bar when I was visiting some friends out of town once, and I saw a funny novelty drink there based on this. They served the Redheaded Slut, but they also had a drink called Lindsey Lohan. For the ingredients, it listed “Redheaded Slut with a little coke.” Haha! I thought that was hilarious. Anyways, those are my favorite drinks that use Peach Schnapps. Hopefully I’ll be able to think of another flavor for next time!

Red!

Trying to think of brightly colored liquors was harder than I thought, I couldn’t come up with anything off the top of my head! I haven’t been in to work since the last time I posted, so it’s possible that I’ll remember something when I see all the types we have there, but in the mean time there was only one more cocktail ingredient I could think of that’s known for its distinctive color. And it’s not even alcoholic! I’m talking, of course, about Grenadine, a cherry-flavored syrup used in a lot of cocktails both alcoholic and non-alcoholic (for example, if you order a cherry coke at a restaurant, they’ll probably put grenadine in it!) So it itself might not be alcoholic, but it’s often added to alcohol to create a bright red or pink drink. Here are some examples!

Singapore Sling
4 parts Gin
2 parts Cherry Liqueur
1 part Grenadine
1 part Lime Juice
6 parts 7UP
Pour in a glass with ice and stir. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Over the years people have come up with a lot of different ways to make a Singapore Sling, because the original is somewhat complicated to make and contains some rare and expensive ingredients. This is a fairly simple version, and tastier than some other versions I’ve tried. Plus, you should be able to get all the ingredients for this no problem!

Hurricane
2 parts White Rum
2 parts Dark Rum
1 part grenadine
6 parts Orange Juice
6 parts Pineapple Juice
Shake together and pour in a glass over ice.

I know, neither of those drinks use a lot of Grenadine – but you don’t need a lot for it to make its contribution to the drink. It’s pretty strong both in terms of flavor and color. If you want the drink to be a bit more red than it is, just add a bit more Grenadine, but don’t add too much or its flavor could become overpowering. Oh, and here’s another favorite drink of mine that uses Grenadine but isn’t really red. It is tasty though!

Tequila Sunrise
3 parts Tequila
6 parts Orange Juice
1 part Grenadine
Pour tequila and orange juice into a glass over ice. Then add the grenadine, which will sink to the bottom. Don’t stir or shake it!

The cool thing about a Tequila Sunrise (and the reason it got its name!) is if you make it correctly it’ll have a cool layered effect that makes it look like a sunrise! So I know it’s not bright red, but it looks even cooler! Anyways, like I said, I think I might give up on this color thing because I can’t really think of anything else with an especially distinctive color. If you can think of anything, though, leave a comment and I’ll see how many drinks I can think of that use it, and maybe I’ll make a post about it!

Green!

No, no, there’s nothing called “Green Curacao.” I bet that’s what you thought this post was going to be about when you read the title, right? Well, maybe not. Anyways, I was thinking about how fun mixing (and drinking!) drinks with Blue Curacao is, and I got to thinking about other brightly colored liquors that are fun like that too. And I was running out of popular flavors of liqueur that I could think of, so maybe it’s time to move on anyways! So, other than Blue Curacao, the next obvious color that came to mind was green. And what liquor is known for being bright green? I’ve actually talked about it on the blog before, but it was a long time ago, so I forgive you if you don’t remember! It’s Midori!

Remember this? It’s that melon-flavored liqueur from Japan! I told you all how to make Kamikazes and Japanese Slippers with it, both Japan-themed drinks, but it’s used in plenty of other bright green cocktails too! For example…

Midori Sour
1 part Midori
1 part Lemon Juice
2 parts Sweet and Sour Mix
Mix in a shaker with ice, pour in a glass and garnish with an orange slice or a cherry.

Illusion
3 parts Midori
1 part Triple Sec
1 part Vodka
1 part Lemon Juice
3 parts Pineapple Juice
Mix in a shaker with ice and pour into a cocktail glass.

Midori Cosmopolitan
2 parts Midori
2 parts Lemon-flavored Vodka
2 parts Cranberry Juice
1 part Lemon Juice
Mix in a shaker with ice and pour into a cocktail glass. Garnish with raspberries.

The Midori Cosmopolitan has an especially vibrant green color, if you do it right. Midori is one of my favorite liquors to mix with, and there’s a lot you can do with it – this is just a small sample of how it can be used! Now, green was easy to think of, but I wonder what liquors I can talk about for various other colors… I guess you’ll find out next time!

Blue!

Get it, because last time was “Orange!” And since I’m talking about blue curacao this week, I made it Blue! Okay, sorry, I’m kind of a dork. Anyways, like I was talking about last week, Blue Curacao is a lot like Orange Curacao – the only difference is the color! For this reason, there are a lot of special drinks that specify Blue Curacao because of the unique color it adds to the drink. So if you want to make fun, exotic-looking drinks, it’s a great ingredient to have on hand! Here are some of my favorites that use it!

Blue Bay
1 part Blue Curacao
2 parts Lemon bitters
Mix in a glass with ice, garnish with a slice of lemon

Blue Hawaiian
3/4 oz. Light Rum
3/4 oz. Vodka
1/2 oz. Blue Curacao
3 oz. Pineapple Juice
1 oz. Sweet & Sour Mix
Blend together with ice, pour into a glass and garnish with a pineapple slice and a cherry.

Chameleon
1 shot Blue Curacao
1/2 glass Orange Juice
1/2 glass 7-Up
Mix in a glass with ice.

Blue Cosmopolitan
8 parts Vodka Citron
6 parts White Cranberry Juice
3 parts Blue Curacao
3 parts Lime Juice
Mix in a shaker with ice, pour into a cocktail glass.

Okay, I have to confess that it’s been a while since I made anything with Blue Curacao, but I’m pretty sure that if you make any of those drinks, they’ll be very blue! Except the Chameleon, of course. It features all kinds of bright colored drinks – I bet that’s where its name comes from! Anyways, that’s all I can think of for Blue Curacao (like I said, it’s been a while since I’ve used it) so that’s it for this post! See you next time!

Orange!

Another fruity flavor this week! Sorry to all the tough badass girls I was talking about at the end of the last post, but I think you’ll have to suffer through a few more “girly” drinks before I start posting things as hardcore as straight scotch! Anyways, I’ve been noticing recently that orange liqueurs have been gaining a lot of popularity recently, and I’m not sure why. I wonder if some cocktail or just the liqueur itself was featured in a popular movie recently, like how white russians became more popular after the Big Lebowski hit theaters. Hmm, I don’t know. But what I do know is that there are two main popular types of orange liqueur out there: Triple Sec and Curacao. They’re not technically the same thing, but they’re basically interchangeable when you’re mixing cocktails. The fun thing about Curacao, though, is that it comes in two bright colors – orange and blue! Blue Curacao is really fun to make cocktails with because of its unique color, so I think I might save those fun blue cocktails for next time. In the mean time, here are a few tasty ones you can make with Triple Sec or Orange Curacao!

Kamikaze
1 part Triple Sec
1 part Vodka
1 part Lime Juice
Mix in a shaker with ice, pour into a cocktail glass and garnish with a lime wedge.

Margarita
7 parts Tequila
4 parts Triple Sec
3 parts Lemon juice
Mix in a shaker with ice, then pour into a glass over ice with salt on the rim.

Cosmopolitan
8 parts Vodka Citron
6 parts Cranberry juice
3 parts Triple Sec
3 parts Lime juice
Mix in a shaker with ice, pour into a cocktail glass.

None of these cocktails feature the Triple Sec as their primary ingredient (well, in the Kamikaze it’s even with the others) but I couldn’t really think of too many that do that are any good. But as you can see here, orange liqueur is used in a lot of really famous drinks like the Margarita and Cosmopolitan! I bet you wouldn’t have guessed that, right? So, at least this post has been kind of interesting and informative, I hope! But next time will be fun with the Blue Curacao recipes, so look forward to that – I will!