Category Archives: Cocktails

New Year’s Eve cocktail: a Goodnight Kiss

Posted on December 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

Let’s ring in the new year with a bubbly cocktail, shall we? I love the Goodnight Kiss recipe from Drinks Mixer, except I make it with Prosecco, Italy’s more affordable answer to Champagne. Besides, the cocktail calls for a splash of Campari — an Italian bitter liqueur — so it seems another reason to use Prosecco. The best part of this drink is the sugar cube, though. Not only does it add a sweet kiss to the otherwise dry and slightly bitter sparkling sipper, it doubles as a garnish. Happy New Year!

 

Go easy on the bitters or this kiss will leave you with an unpleasant pucker.

 

Goodnight Kiss

4 oz Prosecco

Splash Campari

1 sugar cube

1 drop Angostura bitters

Place a drop of Angostura bitters on a sugar cube and drop into a champagne flute. Add Prosecco and a splash of Campari.

— Recipe adapted from Drinks Mixer

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Drink of the Week: Hot Toddy

Posted on December 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

If you have children, brace yourself for two weeks of sugared-up hyperactivity, toy mahem and general upheaval. To get your zen on in a hurry amid the chaos, try a Hot Toddy on an empty stomach. The nearly 3 0z of booze will immediately go to your head, and you won’t care that your kid is trying out his new Christmas gift marker set on the wall.

 The Hot Toddy recipe I like is from Mount Gay Rum. It’s an undeniably festive holiday cocktail that tastes rather like a hot Sidecar, with just a subtle hit of Earl Grey tea. The cinnamon stick garnish is a nice touch. I guarantee that drinking one will bring your back to your Christmas happy place, where sugar plum fairies cavort with magical snowmen. If the holiday hijinks continue, sip another. You deserve it Mrs. Claus (you too, Santa)!

Christmas stressing you out? Bliss out with a Hot Toddy.

Hot Toddy 

1 oz Cointreau

1-3/4 oz Mount Gay Rum

1/2 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice

Blue agave nectar to taste

4 oz hot Earl Grey tea

Cinnamon stick garnish

Combine all ingredients in an Irish coffee glass, stirring briefly.

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Drink of the Week: Apricot Lady Sour

Posted on December 16, 2011 | 1 comment
Sours have been on my radar lately. Whiskey, tequila, and now this delish apricot sour using rum as its base. I love sours because they’re tart and because I love the way the egg white renders them foamy and smooth.
 

This sophisticated cocktail shakes rum with lemon juice and apricot liqueur.

 I came across the recipe for this Apricot Lady Sour while paging through Cocktails Made Easy by Simon Difford. The ingredients looked like they would shake up nicely and they did. Difford uses Bacardi Superior rum, but since my husband just came back from Cuba I subbed in Havana Club rum. I also used North American-style simple syrup (1:1 ratio sugar to water) instead of the sweeter U.K. style.

This drink’s subtle apricot flavour is complemented by the rum, and the lemon’s pucker is lessened by the simple syrup. It’s nicely balanced, and light, but substantial enough — thanks to the egg white and apricot brandy — to drink on a December night close to Christmas. Enjoy.
 
Apricot Lady Sour
 
1-1/2 oz Havana Club light rum
 
1 oz Bols apricot brandy liqueur
 
1 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
 
1/2 oz simple syrup (1 sugar to 1 water)
 
1 fresh egg white
 
Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into an ice-filled rocks glass.
 
— Recipe modified from Cocktails Made Easy
 

Grab some rum, apricot liqueur and lemon juice and get ready to pucker those lips.

 

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