Cocktail Wednesday- Yes I know its Friday!

Yep-I’m late to my own cocktail party this week. On Wednesday night  I ended up providing support to a friend who was feeling rather ordinary and couldn’t front up to the cocktail party with me . (You know who you are – feeling unwell was your punishment for running off to Hawaii and having 9 days of fun in the sun without me, and then making me look at Waikiki beach on Facetime from your hotel window)

This week Little Miss Sunshine suggested we make Moose Milk. I was doubtful at first because where the hell was I going to find a moose to milk ? The only place I could think that might be possible was the zoo...and honestly I don't think they allow people to just front up and start playing with moose udders as part of the admission price. 

Thankfully, the need to find an actual moose was negated by finding out that the recipe for this cocktail substitutes vanilla ice cream for actual moose milk (Thank goodness, and I bet the Mooses of Australia breathed a sigh of relief too) and so the fun of choosing alcoholic accompaniments began. 

The original recipe is here  and calls for Kahlua, Rum and Irish Cream but the fun thing about this cocktail is you can substitute just about anything you like. This was my selection du jour. Kahlua, Chocolate Liqueur, and Butterscotch Schnapps. (and ice cream of course)

Do you like my shiny sink? My awesome cleaner has super sink cleaning powers and this thing blinds me every Thursday when I arrive home from work. I think she must sandblast it or something because I cant get it that shiny. Ever. 

Yet another recipe without any measurements...so I made up my own as I went along. Equal nips of each alcohol component added to a generously large spoonful or four of good quality vanilla ice cream.  I also don't own an actual blender so I improvised and used my mini whizzy choppy thing (I'm sure that's not the technical name) and it worked just fine. A blender would have been better though because I could have made a bucket load of these at once which would have been just handy dandy with me. 

Totally delicious. Mr. P elected to have one with me (probably because we were in the middle of some intense discussions  about what a Pratt he is sometimes and he wanted to get that floaty "I'm not really listening to you" feeling you get from an alcohol high)TBH at that point he was lucky I didn't add some Ratsak to his cocktail ....don't judge me - you've all been there. 

The Verdict: Freaking delicious. 5/5 from me. Little Miss Sunshine assures me she has drunk bucket loads of these in her time and I may be following suit.  

Cocktail Wednesday

Beck suggested two cocktails this week, both with a Disney theme (Watch Sister of Pyjamas get all excited. She's going to Disney World in Florida in a mere three months and if she thinks they have actual dedicated Disney cocktails she'll just about pee her pants) One of the cocktails had amaretto in it , which I'm all for giving a big miss since it would prove fatal due to my deathly allergy to nuts but the other one had chocolate liqueur as an ingredient so I was pretty much on that like a seagull on a chip. 

So after work last night I went in search of Pomegranate Juice. And Chocolate Vodka. Which is kind of shocking really because with this kind of a booze stash you'd think I'd have just about everything. 

I had my doubts about finding Pomegranate Juice but lo and behold I found it at my local grocery store. Can you guess how many times Ive ever had the urge to drink pomegranate juice before? What I will tell you is that when I opened it up and took a sniff I thought it was unlikely I'd be tripping off to the shops to buy it again any time soon. 

Second Stop- Dan Murphys, completely confident that chocolate vodka would be a snap to find. Obviously chocolate vodka is another ingredient unheard of in Australia.  I figured why waste the trip ....buy some more alcohol. 

Not to be beaten by a living in an apparently chocolate vodka-less country  I decided to infuse my own.  I hedged my bets and did it two different ways. Chocolate syrup and vodka and actual chocolate and vodka. 

During this process I actually spilled some precious vodka on my counter top and totally resisted the urge to suck it up with straw(so proud of myself)...but mopping it up with a sponge hurt a teeny tiny bit. I wouldn't cry over spilt milk but vodka is a horse of an entirely different colour. 

You know the old adage "You learn something new every day"? Last night I learned that Chocolate Liqueur and Dark Creme De Cacao are not in fact, the same thing. And I had one of them but not the one I needed. At that point I gave up and called it a night. It was 400 degrees in the shade here yesterday and I just didn't want to go back out to DM's and get the chocolate liqueur. And I didn't want the staff at Dan Murphy's looking at me like I was only there two hours ago and had probably drunk the three bottles I'd already brought home.

At 8.20pm, I rallied, decided I'm not a quitter and went back to Dan's. And yes I changed my top and scuttled in wearing glasses (and a false nose) hoping I wasn't recognised from my earlier trip. 

I had to wing the measurements and make up my own. I went with 45mls (1.5 oz) of chocolate infused vodka, 30 mls of chocolate liqueur (1 oz) and a pomegranate top up. I want to know why you Americans make it hard by sticking with imperial measurements - Do you just like being different? I'm genuinely curious.

Styling this week provided by the addition of a white kit kat chaser and some artfully scattered chocolate covered sultanas...

Proportionally speaking, I think I got this one woefully incorrect. I never thought I'd type this sentence -but it was way too chocolatey with a bitter back taste from the pomegranate juice. I'm not convinced it would be any better with more juice either.

To get the taste out of my mouth I followed up with a Southern Comfort chaser and because I'm currently hormonal (which always makes me the Cadbury Kid) this put me to sleep quite nicely on the lounge until 5 am this morning....

So this one wasn't  a fave for me, but you live and learn right?

P.S. Does anyone want 440 mls ( 0.774 pints) of leftover pomegranate juice?

Cocktail Wednesday (on Thursday!)

Mr. P and I took the opportunity to head off this week for several days in the Clare Valley trying out wines from some lovely wineries and eating locally sourced food. I've come back 3 kilos heavier and with several additions for our wine stash. I always take plenty of food shots when on holidays and this time was no different. 

This is where we stayed while we were away. A beautiful old farmhouse built in 1870. Lovely to have kangaroos hopping past your back door at dusk and to have grape vines 30 metres from the house.

So,what better way to keep the R & R going than by swapping out wine tasting for a cocktail which was chosen by Thea this week.

Im always a bit dubious when I see healthy stuff in a cocktail but this one has enough alcohol in it to balance out the vegetable content....I breathed a sigh of relief when I had the first sip because I was a little afraid it might taste like a Boost Juice. No fear of that - plenty of nips of alcohol  to leave you in no doubt that you were having a cocktail! 

So this is a visual of what you're going to need:(original recipe can be found here ) 

This recipe calls for white cranberry juice and I couldn't find it anywhere so I just subbed a splash of ginger beer instead. Any port in a storm! I'm amazed by what isn't readily available here that seems to be easy to get in other places. 

And ta da ! Here is my artfully posed shot of a cucumber cosmopolitan.

This didn't taste at all like I thought it would. I was imagining a much stronger cucumber flavour. I stopped at one though ...three standard drinks in every glass means this is decidedly a one off cocktail! Definitely an acquired taste and probably much better with the white cranberry juice. I think my ginger beer addition was a complete fail! 

Cocktail Wednesday -It's Back.....

After a brief hiatus (during which I still managed to drink alcohol - I just didn't blog about it) Cocktail Wednesday is back. I'm looking forward to trying new cocktails, sharing disasters (Thea - bacon in a cocktail is off the menu this year because its just plain wrong) and probable cirrhosis of the liver by the years end. 

Little Miss Sunshine picked the cocktail this week, and decided to go all fancy on my arse with something exoticly unpronounceable. Caipirinha (which apparently is pronounced kie-purr-REEN-yah) is made from Cachaca which is also reasonably unpronounceable when you're in Dan Murphy's trying to find it. The Plebeians at Dan Murphy dont know what you're talking about when you ask whether they have any cachachahachahaha either,(nor do the think you are hilarious when you say it )  so best to write it down like I did and show them.  

For the uninitiated, Cachaca is a sweet white Brazilian rum that apparently is so much better than Bacardi and about 30% more expensive. My advice is to spring for the good stuff if you decide to give this one a go because its little more than a load of rum and a squish of lime juice. 

So here's the lineup....rum, ice, caster sugar, and a lime. 

Take your exceedingly expensive lime ($15.99 a kilo here at the moment) and cut it into quarters, and then put it in your cocktail shaker or another handy receptacle and add about two teaspoons of sugar. Don't skimp on the sugar because its the only thing in this cocktail that will stop your face from puckering up like a cats bum every time you take a sip- trust me on this. Smash the crap out of the lime and sugar releasing the juice and a good amount of oil from the lime skin. I didn't take pictures of this part because I didn't want photographic evidence of assault. 

Add 60 mls (thats two ounces for my Northern Hemisphere friends) of the Cachaca and further assault the entire concoction by shaking it together to mix. Put a load of crushed ice into your glass and pour the lot in on top including the squished limes. 

Sip- almost die...take another sip. By the third sip your taste buds will have gone on strike and you'll be starting to enjoy this. In fact , you'll enjoy it so much you'll make yourself a second one which will render you incapable of the power of recognisable speech because thats 120 mls of rum you just imbibed in under 30 minutes....

I'm going to have to up my game with photo styling my cocktails...Marg has a great picture of her cocktail next to a pineapple and the best I could manage was putting mine near my manky pen and pencil jug...

Seriously though - this was pretty good...and would make a lovely aperitif. Just remember to keep stirring that sugar through as you drink it. 

I'm giving this one a 5/5 , mainly because I was happy for quite some time after I drank two of them ! 

Cocktail Wednesday (on Friday)

Mother Nature has been having a hard time deciding whether she was going to actually let us have Summer this year. This week she finally came through after I wished really hard and gave us just a little bit too much sun all at once. 44 C is ridiculous.  I really need to learn to modulate this wishing business...I did the same thing with boobs when I was 15. I wished for them and ended up with mine and someone elses. Sorry to whoever is running round with 12 AA boobs, but I assure you it isn't any fun running round with DD's either. In point of fact I rarely run, because you cant do that when you have huge hooters without a world of pain.

Thank Goodness the delectable Rachael from Blue Mountain Daisy had picked a lovely summery cocktail this week. I was craving something to cool me down (it seems the air conditioner is slowly working it's way into Summer too ) and this cocktail was perfect.

So let me introduce you to the Cucumber Collins  (click the link for the original recipe) 

You're going to need a bunch of stuff that looks like this stuff . You should probably go buy a lemon since the recipe calls for one. I thought I had one and didn't and it was too hot to leave the house so I just substituted lime instead. 

This recipe calls for simple syrup which is really simple to make. Just equal quantities of sugar and water. I chucked in a 1/4 cup of each and brought it to the boil, then let it cool right down . 

The recipe calls for you to "muddle" your simple syrup, cucumber and lemon /lime juice. Muddle is just a polite way of saying smash the crap out everything you just put in your cocktail shaker so it releases all the cucumber juice. I used a wooden spoon. It was at this point that I was thinking "this cocktail is actually healthy - it has salad and fruit in it. I'm so good to my body"

I crushed my ice (which means I whacked the crap out of it when it was encased in a tea towel. This cocktail is great for releasing tension) and chucked that into the cocktail shaker, along with the rest of the ingredients aside from the soda. Then I merrily shook away. Violently. 

Strain it into a glass and top with soda water. I had tonic water so that's what I used. And top with a mint leaf or two. Or coriander if that's what floats your boat. I have it on good authority that you can drop strawberries into your glass and that'll taste fab too. 

Rachael put a cucumber finger in hers but I didn't want to shock my system with too much salady goodness .Pop over to see her post because honestly she went all out making this cocktail. Her pictures are gorgeous. 

I really liked this and think it would be the perfect cocktail for a summer picnic. Mainly because you could chuck a cucumber stick in there and nobody would think you were drinking booze. It looks more like a health drink from Boost Juice. 

Definite 4 out of 5 for me.  Thanks for the cocktail for this week Rach! 

Cocktail Wednesday

Yep- I've been absent for a week. I came down with super evil gastro on Saturday and and crawled off to bed to die. I pretty much remained there with intermittent gallops to the bathroom until Monday lunchtime. Further intimate details are probably unnecessary but I just want to put it out there that there's nothing classy about pooping in your own pants or throwing up on yourself. 

There's nothing better to kill off the last vestiges of any germs that may be lurking than a cocktail though right? Alcohol is a natural internal antiseptic. And this week I decided to go with a cranberry raspberry concoction as a homage to the  rapidly approaching Christmas season. 

The original inspiration for this cocktail can be found here . While faffing round in my booze cabinet I found some raspberry vodka and thought that would be a perfect substitute for regular vodka. I'm sometimes quite amazed by what I find in my cupboards when I go looking...I cant even recall buying raspberry vodka. 

Grab yourself some crushed ice, ginger beer, vodka, cranberry juice and  lime. Add 30 mls of vodka to a glass full of crushed ice , fill the glass to 3/4 full with cranberry juice and add a generous splash of ginger beer and squeeze of fresh lime juice and there you have it. Easy , simple and no bacon or maple syrup in sight. Im calling this a Raspberry Crantini. 

My cocktail was kind of anemic looking so I added a splash of raspberry cordial to the mix to give it this lovely deep red colour. Plus who doesn't need a bit more sugar in their diet?

I would like to point out I didn't drink all four of these myself. Mother and Father of Pyjamas are visiting at the moment and so we all sat down last night like civilised grown ups for cocktail hour. MOP liked this so much she asked for a refill, and who am I to let her drink alone? 

Comments: A raging success in my book. I giving this a 4/5 and a big thumbs up! Too bad you cant get real cranberries here because they would have looked pretty in the glass. 

Cocktail Wednesday -It's a Doozy

What do all these ingredients plus bacon have in common?

I bet your first thought is Alcoholic Breakfast. 

This week it was Thea's turn to choose the cocktail of the week and on Tuesday morning she surprised us with an email containing this cocktail gem. My immediate thought was that perhaps she'd been giving the crack pipe a little toke.

"The Bacon Maple Syrup by Tyler Voelker, Urban Farmer

If you took a pancake breakfast, removed the pancakes, and then added 1.5oz of rum and 1oz of Calisaya liqueur, you'd have this drink, which combines that boozy pair with .75oz of maple syrup (sticky!), tops with coffee, floats with frothed milk, and garnished with a cured bacon skewer. Naturally." 

There was quite a bit of furious emailing back and forth between Little Miss Sunshine and myself. Who the F*** has ever heard of Calisaya? While I went to work to save the world , LMS googled furiously for a while longer to find out what it was (turns out it's unheard of Down Under) and whether we could find a proper substitute (there isn't one) so we had to improvise with Angostura. 

I did wonder at one point whether Thea was having a bit of a lend of us ...that this was a sucker cocktail where we'd make it and drink and she'd email and say "Bazinga- got you-I'm not drinking that, you cray cray biatches" But I'm game for anything really so it was duly made.  I had also warned my boss that there was every possibility I could die overnight from cocktail poisoning and in preparation for that eventuality I left her a list of things that had to be followed up if I didn't turn up to work Thursday. 

I've put a lot of weird things in my gob over the years (lets not get into details) but this was one of the most unusual. Let's just say I was not a fan ....cold booze, hot coffee, frothy milk, maple syrup with a bacon chaser... It's like someone put a ton of leftover bits and pieces into a glass and called it a cocktail....

Im going to confess I took one swig....that was enough. The best part ? The bacon chaser. That was good. Because it got the taste of the rest of it out of my mouth. (The Midori Cosmopolitan I made immediately after also helped) 

I think the challenge has now been set for Little Miss Sunshine and I to find a cocktail that equals this for payback!

Blerk. Try this at your own risk. And don't blame me. 




P.S. Despite it all I still love Thea. We all make mistakes...

P.P.S. Have just decided my payback cocktail may include vegemite and frothed kangaroo milk...

Cocktail Wednesday

I had a hard day at the office yesterday so I was really looking forward to the cocktail du jour picked by the delightful Little Miss Sunshine. Alcohol always helps you let go of the last vestiges of work day blerk. I'm dishing that little nugget of advice out for free.

After less than lovely cocktails for the last two weeks I was really hoping for something that I didn't want to spit out the second it hit my taste buds this week. Miss Sunshine did good. This one was deliciously refreshing and very more-ish. A perfect Summer cocktail well suited to 100 degree F day ( I think Spring has come all at once)  Disclaimer: It would be fairly easy to get shit faced on a bunch of these because they pretty much taste like cordial. Dont blame me if your day after starts with a headache.

I've seen this referred to as a Tiffany's Blue Cocktail and a Low Country Lemonade. Pick your favourite name- no matter what it's called it's worth making. 

Collect your supplies:

30mls (1 oz) Peach Schnapps

Bubbly lemonade (you can use the fresh stuff if you must but aside from making it yourself you can't buy that Down Under so I just went with good old Sprite because I'd run out of Woodies )

A dash of Blue Curacao

Crushed ice

Add the schnapps and ice to a cocktail shaker and splash in just a drop or two or three of the blue curacao. Shake it up and get it nice and cold. Pour it into your glass and top with lemonade. You can fancy it up with a sugar rim if you want to make it look classy.

I made it twice because the first time I slipped over with the blue curacao and I'm all about getting it exactly right no matter how many times it takes where cocktails are concerned.  I thought the  hundreds and thousands added a nice burst of color around the rim. 

My second attempt had much less Curacao and looked much more like the original picture. That's one big mo-fo sugar rim. Mr. P is much better at doing those than I am but he wasn't home to be wheedled into doing this for me. 

Success! This one was a big 4/5 for me. Definitely on the "make it again" list!

Cocktail Wednesday

Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching for our US friends and I spent the better part of last week surfing the internet trying to find an appropriate way to help them celebrate the occasion. I couldn't find any cocktails that contained turkey or mashed potatoes so I went with the next best thing. 

I'm going to confess that until this morning I actually thought Thanksgiving was tomorrow. My blissful ignorance of important holiday dates gives you plenty of time to run out and get the ingredients you'll need to serve this up at your own Thanksgiving dinner next week. There is a bit of alchemy involved with this cocktail so I've left you plenty of time for the infusing process as well.  You're welcome. No need to thank me. 

I was pretty taken with this idea when I saw it because it just screams Halloween/Thanksgiving to me but the trouble is candy corn is a bit thin on the ground Down Under. I've never seen it for sale here. So you can imagine my delight when I stumbled across an international lolly shop last Friday completely by accident, and lo and behold it had candy corn for sale. I happened to be with a family I work for at the time and that mother now thinks I'm completely crazy because my discovery was accompanied by much excitement and possibly a few squeals of delight. Nothing like losing that thin veneer of professionalism when your work life and home life suddenly collide. 

This is officially the most expensive candy corn in existence. Given the price of the bag ($10.00) I think it must have been flown here on a magic carpet, accompanied by baby unicorns and a bag of hens teeth. 

OK- now on to the fun part. You're going to need:

4 oz.  Vodka 
1/2 cup of candy corn 
2 oz. Cointreau 
Juice of a 1/2 lemon 
Crushed ice 
No trips to Dan Murphy this week..I had everything I needed at home...like the good little alcoholic that I am.

Take your vodka and put it in a jar with a lid. Or if you're classy like me you'll use a beer glass and plastic wrap. Then chuck in your candy corn and give it a shake. Slowly back away from the Vodka and go and do something else for a minimum of 12 hours. Go to work , dance a jig, knit a blanket. Sneak back occasionally and shake the jar to get all that candy corn goodness happening.  

Once most or all of your candy corn has disappeared and you've tired of knitting or dancing it's time to strain your vodka mix into a cocktail shaker. Dump in all the other ingredients and give it a shake ala Tom Cruise in the movie Cocktail. Pour it into a glass and take an arty photo like this one to celebrate making a Candy Corn Martini.

The first mouthful tastes like paint stripper but it gets much more palatable with each passing sip. I couldn't really taste the sweetness of the candy corn in amongst all the booze but maybe that's just me.

I reckon by the second one you'd be drunk enough to contemplate making a third.  If you could see straight.

Rating 2.5/5. I wouldn't turn one down if it was free but I wouldn't go out of my way to make it again. 

Salut!

Cocktail Wednesday

Welcome to Wednesday and another attempt to make hump day bearable. 

As I was pouring my cocktail this week the thought occurred to me that I need to get myself some more snazzy cocktail glasses. I have my martini glasses and some coloured glasses (that are so big they almost resemble bowls-perfect if you're actually having frozen daiquiris or margaritas) but not much else. Im going to have to remedy that- I see a trip to do some op/thrift shopping in my fairly immediate future.  

I learned my lesson last week with using a 1/4 cup measure. I worked out (later when I was capable of doing maths) that by the time I'd finished my cocktails I'd managed to swill down about 7 standard drinks.  I was pretty darn proud I could still function once I'd worked that out. It's easy to forget when you're drinking something that basically tastes like cordial. I held it together in a much more ladylike fashion this week. 

Little Miss Sunshine picked this weeks cocktail.  She was keen to do something with Limoncello so I wandered out to buy some (I'm pretty sure she deliberately picked something I didn't have) Then I realised I didn't have any white creme de cacao -only dark - so I wandered out again to get some without the benefit of writing it down. I came back with white curacao by mistake and had to go back to Dan Murphy's to get the right stuff by which time the staff were probably thinking I was either casing the joint or had a real issue with alcohol that I was trying to hide with multiple trips to augment my stash. 

Some proper measuring this week with an actual jigger...a quick shake in the cocktail maker (or just stir it with a stick if you don't have a jigger -dont use a quarter cup measure because that way lies drunkenness) and voila you have a Lemon Meringue Cocktail. 

Cocktail recipes from other parts of the world often put the measurements in fluid ounces while we use millilitres to measure liquids. Im sure at some point there is going to be a major disaster with conversion...

You will need :

1.5 oz of lemon vodka ( I just used regular because I was too afraid to go back to Dan Murphy's a fourth time for the week ) 

3/4 oz limoncello liqueur 

1/2 oz white creme de cacao

Like my embellishments? Kind of makes my cocktail look like a freaky Mickey Mouse.  I have a ton of really cool cocktail stuff hidden somewhere in the shed in my "party" box that I think Mr. P is going to have to find this weekend so I can make my cocktails look all purty...

Gotta say this one isn't going to make it into my "must make again soon" file. The first glug almost blew my head off - and I think after that my taste buds were drunk. It tasted better the more I drank though. 

A La Votre!

Cocktail Wednesday

On my way home from work last night I had the most inspired idea I've had in months. I've been hankering for a cocktail since Saturday so I'm starting a new Wednesday tradition...Cocktail Wednesdays. Wednesday is hump day and we all need a little motivation to get through mid week. Plus I like the idea of winding down on Wednesdays with a cocktail when I get home from work ala 1950's style. 

I have a ton of cocktail recipes pinned on Pinterest and it seems a shame to waste all that pinning (and alcoholic amazingness) and I have a cupboard full of booze and I don't want it going to waste. (Quell horror - what if it goes off?-better start drinking it just to be on the safe side)

So I dropped by Dan Murphy's on the way home and stocked up on Blue Curacao, Chambord, Midori and Raspberry Vodka because in typical fashion they were the only four things I didn't have in my liquor cabinet  and they were the things I decided I needed. I'm drawing a long bow at the truth when I say Liquor "cabinet" which sounds so classy - I actually keep my liquor stash in various cupboards where it will fit.  If I had it stashed all around the house that would be a lot more suss because I hear that's what alcoholics do, so I'm careful to keep it in the kitchen.

So this weeks concoction was a Purple Rain. 

The recipe calls for a 1/2 nip each of Raspberry vodka, Chambord, and Blue Curacao. Then you top it up with cranberry juice. I couldn't find my alcohol measure thingy so I used the next smallest measuring implement I had, which just happened to be a 1/4 cup measuring cup. That worked out really well because I got at least double the amount of cocktails. I'm sure that was due to the top up with cranberry juice. 

Somewhere in between Cocktail 1 and Cocktail 2 I face timed Little Miss Sunshine to tell her of my brilliant plan and to rope her into this new piece of madness. I also phoned a friend from work, my mother and told a telemarketer who called to sell me a new phone plan. My point in confessing that is that it's OK if you want to join in too. 

The trouble with making cocktails is that the more you have the more it seems like the most brilliant idea you ever had. So I followed up with a Japanese Slipper chaser and before I knew it - it was 7.00pm and I was wondering if I could stay awake for the end of the Big Brother Finale. FYI- I did. Just. Maybe because I made the tactical decision that three cocktails was probably enough. 

Japanese Slippers are an old favourite of mine. Just mix equal parts of Midori, Cointreau, and lemon juice and pour over crushed ice. If you want to class it up add a red cherry to your glass. 

Roll on next Wednesday - Little Miss Sunshine is picking next week's cocktail and I'm hearing rumblings about Limoncello. 

P.S. Realised AFTER the fact that the cocktail shaker I was using to mix the cocktails actually had a measurer on top of it...oops!