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More Drinks Exploration...
Nov. 9th, 2020 05:40 pmWe (my partner in crime Lala and I) have tried the Mai Tai.
A Mai Tai is made with lime juice, orgeat syrup, orange curacao (or, if you are like me too cheap to buy another bottle of orange-flavored thing, cointreau) and rum. Shake with ice and serve open pour into a glass. All my glassware is pint glasses. I am not pretending to be fancy here.
1 1/2 ounces white rum (We used Plantation 5 year because it was the only rum I had on hand.)
3/4 ounce orange curaçao
3/4 ounce lime juice, freshly squeezed
1/2 ounce orgeat (making this is fiddly. I bought it from Latitude 29.)
1/2 ounce dark rum (We used the Plantation 5 year. I'm on a budget over here.)
Garnish: lime wheel and mint sprig
These are good about halfway down the glass, after the ice has melted into it a bit. I should try it again with some more crushed ice at the front end so that it'd be drinkable right away.
Bloody Mary. This is not a tiki drink but Lala loves them and I can tolerate them. I have heretofore never had a Bloody Mary at a fancy bar but I've had them at home and at friend's parties and stuff. They've always been OK but not awesome. But Lala loves them. So I researched a scratch Bloody Mary for Drinks Night.
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
4 oz tomato juice (see note)
2 oz mid-range vodka
2 dashes worcestershire sauce
2 dashes cholula hot sauce (Lala hates tabasco and I am not a fan of Texas Pete. We both kinda like Cholula.)
salt and pepper
Garnishes: big fat olive, a pickled jalapeno, a baby dill pickle, a celery with leaves
In shaker, combine ingredients (but not garnishes) with like four ice cubes. Shake until cold. Open pour into your glassware. Spear everything but the celery on cocktail spear (I have reusable metal ones). If drink is for Lala, take pimiento out of olive, she does not like pimiento. Balance spear of garnishes across rim of glass. Plunk in celery spear, leaves up. Enjoy.
NOTE: The reason I did not see the appeal of the Bloody Mary prior to this was that I don't like the metallic, processed flavor of commercial tomato juice. I also don't like the mixes, though some are better than others. Instead of bought tomato juice or a mix, I used a quart jar of home-canned beefsteak tomatoes that I ran through a ricer to remove the seeds and skins. They were early September in a jar, rich and sweet and the right amount of thick and also fucking outstanding. (That's also why I went for half an ounce of lemon juice, they could stand up to it. Less-sweet tomatoes would have made the drink too sour.)
How was it? Oh my god. Salad in a glass. It went down SO EASY. Delightful. Wonderful. I could drink like three. I would regret it, for sure, but it might actually be worth it. I imagine a fantasy land wherein we work off the old canned tomatoes (the ones I used were from 2010) as "Bloody Mary Ingredients" on summer weekends before real tomatoes ripen.
If you actually kind of like Bloody Mary cocktails and you have never made one at home with the best canned (or fresh) tomatoes you can source... you might give that a whirl.
I am starting to have some faith in this "fresh ingredients make a better cocktail" thing.
A Mai Tai is made with lime juice, orgeat syrup, orange curacao (or, if you are like me too cheap to buy another bottle of orange-flavored thing, cointreau) and rum. Shake with ice and serve open pour into a glass. All my glassware is pint glasses. I am not pretending to be fancy here.
1 1/2 ounces white rum (We used Plantation 5 year because it was the only rum I had on hand.)
3/4 ounce orange curaçao
3/4 ounce lime juice, freshly squeezed
1/2 ounce orgeat (making this is fiddly. I bought it from Latitude 29.)
1/2 ounce dark rum (We used the Plantation 5 year. I'm on a budget over here.)
Garnish: lime wheel and mint sprig
These are good about halfway down the glass, after the ice has melted into it a bit. I should try it again with some more crushed ice at the front end so that it'd be drinkable right away.
Bloody Mary. This is not a tiki drink but Lala loves them and I can tolerate them. I have heretofore never had a Bloody Mary at a fancy bar but I've had them at home and at friend's parties and stuff. They've always been OK but not awesome. But Lala loves them. So I researched a scratch Bloody Mary for Drinks Night.
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
4 oz tomato juice (see note)
2 oz mid-range vodka
2 dashes worcestershire sauce
2 dashes cholula hot sauce (Lala hates tabasco and I am not a fan of Texas Pete. We both kinda like Cholula.)
salt and pepper
Garnishes: big fat olive, a pickled jalapeno, a baby dill pickle, a celery with leaves
In shaker, combine ingredients (but not garnishes) with like four ice cubes. Shake until cold. Open pour into your glassware. Spear everything but the celery on cocktail spear (I have reusable metal ones). If drink is for Lala, take pimiento out of olive, she does not like pimiento. Balance spear of garnishes across rim of glass. Plunk in celery spear, leaves up. Enjoy.
NOTE: The reason I did not see the appeal of the Bloody Mary prior to this was that I don't like the metallic, processed flavor of commercial tomato juice. I also don't like the mixes, though some are better than others. Instead of bought tomato juice or a mix, I used a quart jar of home-canned beefsteak tomatoes that I ran through a ricer to remove the seeds and skins. They were early September in a jar, rich and sweet and the right amount of thick and also fucking outstanding. (That's also why I went for half an ounce of lemon juice, they could stand up to it. Less-sweet tomatoes would have made the drink too sour.)
How was it? Oh my god. Salad in a glass. It went down SO EASY. Delightful. Wonderful. I could drink like three. I would regret it, for sure, but it might actually be worth it. I imagine a fantasy land wherein we work off the old canned tomatoes (the ones I used were from 2010) as "Bloody Mary Ingredients" on summer weekends before real tomatoes ripen.
If you actually kind of like Bloody Mary cocktails and you have never made one at home with the best canned (or fresh) tomatoes you can source... you might give that a whirl.
I am starting to have some faith in this "fresh ingredients make a better cocktail" thing.
