Stir & Strain

spring

Source It: Punch Bowls for Springtime

by Leave a Comment

Springtime! A reason for garden parties and gathering outdoors (both of which I need MORE of in my life). Where cocktails flow from giant bowls and ladles, all laced with bits of fruit and maybe a flower or two… Excuse my fanciful daydreaming for a moment. I’ve been nose-deep in another Jeeves and Wooster novel this week and the English Countryside is calling my name. It’s also calling for the procurement of another punch bowl set in my house.

These punch bowls have caught my eye recently and perhaps they’ll pique your interest too. What’s a home bar without at least ONE fanciful punch bowl? Undignified; that’s what. Ok, maybe not that but take a look.

Source It: Punch Bowls // stirandstrain.comGreen Bowl / Rosé / Multi-Color / Orange / Mini Cobalt / Silver Set

 

Sex on the Beach Sailboat Popsicles

by 3 Comments

Sex on the Beach Sailboat Cocktails // stirandstrain.comI bought these sailboat popsicle molds last year with the sole intention of putting some sort of boozy frozen delicacy in them. And then a year went by, and I only just got around to taking them out of the box. And for a private dinner no less! I knew that if I put this post up on April 1st (yesterday) you all would have erroneously assumed it was some kind of practical joke. Sex on the Beach…popsicles?!?! So I thought it best to go up the next day to avoid any confusion with this recipe because it is, in fact, quite tasty.

The “cocktail” was developed after I was hired to make drinks for a private dinner party where the theme was “Seafood, Italian, 80’s Miami a la the Golden Girls”. The sailboats were the amuse course. The next four cocktails were all based on the four Golden Girls (you can check out some of those pics in my Instagram feed). My eyes popped wide open once I realized that I could use the sailboat molds – finally! At first I had thought I’d make a highbrow cherimoya-lime-spicy concoction. But then stopped myself. 80’s Miami? It HAS to be a cocktail riff based on one of those “classics” of the era; so a Sex on the Beach was made and enjoyed by all.Sex on the Beach Sailboat Cocktails // stirandstrain.com

I made a few adjustments to the recipe to start. Cranberry juice is almost never making an appearance in my fridge, so instead I subbed in my homemade grenadine. Same goes with Peach Schnapps. Instead, a fresh peach puree was used in place. A few minor changes took this recipe from meh to ahhh, resulting in a great start to the dinner.

So now I’m sharing the recipe with you all. It’s a taste of the summer to come.Sex on the Beach Sailboat Cocktails // stirandstrain.com

Note: you don’t need to have these sailboats on hand. Any popsicle mold will suffice, but just won’t be as fun.

1/2 ounce grenadine (homemade is always best)
1 ounce peach puree
1/2 ounce freshly squeezed orange juice
1/2 ounce vodka, Aylesbury Duck from the 86 Co. used here
1/4 ounce G.E. Massenez Creme de Cassis

  1. In the bottom of your popsicle mold, pour grenadine in. Freeze to semi-frozen, about 45 minutes.
  2. Mix together peach puree, orange juice and vodka. Pour on top of grenadine. Freeze to semi-frozen, about an hour and a half.
  3. Drizzle creme de cassis on top of peach/O.J./vodka mixture. Add popsicle stick at this point and freeze until solid, at least 6 hours but overnight is best.
  4. To un-mold, squeeze mold to release sides of the popsicle. This should enable you to wiggle the popsicle out. If not, run under warm, NOT hot, water for 5 seconds to help un-mold.
  5. Eat immediately!

Why not WAY more alcohol? Because then they wouldn’t freeze well. I tried this with one ounce of vodka in the center and it never fully froze to a stable consistency. That said, you can still taste that these have some booze in them because clearly, that’s the point. They do have a nice fruity punch to them with the grenadine working well in contrast with the peach/orange combo. Depending on the creme de cassis you have, this can be left out (some flavors work better than others). Try one with and one without to see for yourself. I tried this with Chambord too but the flavor just didn’t work well here, somehow it became almost medicinal. Also, if you can get a giant seashell filled with ice to display your pops in, you win.

Mixology Monday: Classic Blackberry Shrub

by 5 Comments

Mixology Monday Blackberry Shrub // stirandstrain.com

Mixology Monday LogoOk, first off guys, I am well aware it’s not Monday despite the name of the post. However, I wanted to get this up before the Monday deadline. What deadline? What are you talking about? Mixology Monday for you newbies here is the once a month “cocktail party” where internet people like to show off with a drink they made based on a theme by whoever “hosts” this month. Please read up on it here and see past entries on the MxMo site. This month, Craig from “A World of Drinks” gave us the theme of “Preserves” (and yes, there’s a lot of quotation marks happening in this paragraph). It took me a second to realize that I was already planning on making a shrub this month, and since making shrubs was an old school way of preserving fruit, I was ready to publish a double duty post this month.

Mixology Monday Blackberry Shrub // stirandstrain.com

Blackberries. I love the taste of them, but, truth be told, I hate eating them. Those little seeds! They always get stuck in my teeth and half the time they seem like too much of a bother to eat. Anyone with me on this or am I crazy? Last week my husband was out getting some food and I had asked him to pick up some blueberries. Apparently the store was out and he figured I just wanted a berry that was close enough to blue to eat. So he picked up blackberries instead. After scrunching up my face at them and letting them sit there for a few days, the overwhelming urge not to waste food made me cave in. What to do with them?

Mixology Monday Blackberry Shrub // stirandstrain.comA shrub! If I made them into a shrub I was just going to extract their juices and all those annoying little seeds would stay in the strainer. I might have patted myself on the back there for thoughtfulness.

Shrubs are a bit well known now, more so than say, a year ago. I see them a lot more on cocktail menus and on the shelves of my local liquor suppliers. Shrubs are also pretty simple to make yourself; let me show you how.

Mixology Monday Blackberry Shrub // stirandstrain.com

Classic Blackberry Shrub

1 cup whole blackberries, rinsed
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar

  1. Combine blackberries and sugar in a bowl. Lightly crush the blackberries to release their juices (I used a potato masher, but a fork would suffice). Cover and let sit 8 hours or overnight. Shake the bowl every once in awhile to make sure the sugar is incorporating into the juice. Half way through, stir the mixture and re-cover.
  2. Next, strain the mixture through a fine strainer into an airtight container. Add the vinegar and shake well (if any sugar has remained, shake hard to dissolve here). Store the container in the refrigerator for 6 days.
  3. After 6 days give it a taste. Usually, by day 6 the sharpness of the vinegar has started to pull back and let the sweetness from the sugar and fruit stand out more. Keep in mind, this is a vinegar base: it will ALWAYS taste like vinegar. The vinegar will mellow more as it sits but its zing is what is wanted in a shrub.

For this shrub, there is a nice sweet and sour balance from the ingredients. The blackberries produce a tartness that is heightened from the vinegar while the sugar cuts through to keep your mouth from puckering. Strong nose of vinegar with subtle berry.

Sparkling Blackberry Shrub (no booze)

1/2 ounce blackberry shrub (recipe above)
6 ounces sparkling water
1 lime wedge

Fill a rocks glass with the water and pour the shrub down the center. Stir to combine. Squeeze a wedge of lime and add spent lime to the glass.

And here’s Christopher’s cocktail recipe with the shrub he’s been making:

2 ounces 4 Roses Bourbon Yellow Label
1 ounce Blackberry Shrub (recipe above)
1/4 ounce maple syrup

Fill a mixing glass 2/3 with ice. Add all ingredients and stir to chill. Strain into a cocktail glass.

Thanks to Craig for hosting this month and Fred for keeping MxMo up and alive!

Cocktail Quickie: Yuzu Lemon Sparkler

by Leave a Comment

A cocktail does not need to be complicated. It does not need to contain 7 ingredients. It doesn’t need herbs freshly harvested from my backyard. Sometimes a cocktail is something you threw together in 2 minutes. Sometimes it looks like this.

I’ve been going through those watermelon chunks like crazy and came to a point where I ran out but still had half a bottle of OK champagne in the fridge. Ah dilemma. I could have gone the Champagne Cocktail route, but I’m trying to get through that bottle of Limoncello because I need that bottle to make a new batch soon. So this became a marriage of convenience (of ingredients).

I like the idea of sometimes having something in my brain Rolodex that I can throw together quickly without having to think too much on it (like after a grueling day at work). This is one of them, and may possibly be a new vein of recipes on here: the quickies.

1-1/2 oz Limoncello (homemade if you got it)
2 dashes of Miracle Mile Yuzu Bitters
3-4 oz of Champagne

Pour limoncello and bitters in a chilled Champagne flute. Swirl gently to mix. Pour in champagne. Bottoms up.

I love the heightened citrus and woodsy notes that the Yuzu bitters adds to the mix (DO go and find these bitters. So worth it.). Can you drink champagne without any extras? Yes. But if you want an extra punch to the drink, this quick fix will do you right.

Salty Melon

by 1 Comment


Watermelon is a wonderful fruit if you’re the type of person who loves to break down fruits and veg. Pineapples also fall into this category. Thank god my local grocery store caters to us lazy kitchen skills people to give us these fruits already broken down and cut into chunks. Awesome, thanks Fresh & Easy.

It’s been hot in LA for the last week or so. Summer hot. The rising temps tricked my inner self into thinking it was already time for tropical fruit drinks on the patio and I found myself seeking out fresh pineapple chunks at the grocery store and for kicks threw in a pack of watermelon chunks too. I had started out thinking I was going to make some kind of tropical sangria. Until I remembered the whole pouring it into a pitcher (which I need to buy), and also hey, you can’t drink this for 24 hours. So that will have to wait for another time. But I had champagne and something sparkling seemed the right thing to make. And suddenly I wanted watermelons.

My mint plant has been out of control lately with this new plant food I’m giving it, so pretty much I’ve been throwing it into everything. No exception here.

In the first version of this drink, I found that I wanted…salt. So on the next round I added a bit more mint and a pinch of salt and OH YUM. Hello new summer drink. It was so tasty I made two more.

It’s a bit of work, but if you’re reading the this and enjoy making cocktails then this isn’t all that much. Note: with the desire to drink several of these I thought I’d try this as a blender drink (minus the champagne). Don’t do it. The beautiful pink color you get from the muddled melon disappears with the addition of the blended mint leaves. Also, it’s a lot more on the watery side when you do it this way. I would just advise making it by the glass.

1 oz Limoncello (homemade if you got it!)
2 sprigs of mint
3-4 chunks of watermelon about 1-1/2″ in size
pinch of salt
2-3 oz of champagne (decent quality. but since you’re mixing it, don’t use up the really good stuff)
1 sprig of mint for garnish

In a Mixing Glass, muddles the mint with the limoncello. Add the pinch of salt and muddle just enough to mix it in. Add the watermelons to the glass and muddle until smooth (this may take a few minutes). Strain through a medium-fine strainer into a rocks glass. You’ll need to use the back of a spoon to push the solids through to help get the remaining liquid in your glass. Add the champagne and garnish with a mint sprig.

This drink is a great balance of flavors with the addition of salt (just like in baking). The watermelon is present, but not overpowering to make it too sweet. That champagne cuts through to help aid in that as well. And in the background there is a nice herbal-citrus note that finishes well. I was really happy with this, and I hope you can enjoy it too.

UPDATE: instead of using the strainer to get the last bits in, you can mix and muddle your ingredients in a bar shaker and then flip it over into the glass and push solids through the top. Less dishes and mess.

Aperol G&T

by 2 Comments


I enjoy Gin and Tonics like some people enjoy water, or cocaine. They go down pretty easily and are light enough that I can have them with the heaviest of meals. Occasionally though they get quite dull and an extra oomph of something is needed. I like to think that many cocktails are given birth with that thought process. Foul, rancid water? Hey, let’s add some beer to that! And so forth.

So a week or so ago we went over to BevMo and stocked up on some more items for the bar. On a recommendation we found and picked up a bottle of Aperol. Aperol is another of those Italian aperitifs… slightly bitter, slightly sweet. This one tastes of oranges.

The syrupy nature of this liqueror made me think that it needed a couple of ingredients to cut that down.. and so I thought of a gin and tonic. And the conclusion? So. freaking. tasty. I need to make a barrel of my own tonic water because I think this concoction might just become my new summer drink.

2 oz Beefeater Gin
1 oz Aperol
Tonic water

Fill a Collins glass 2/3rds with ice and build up with gin and aperol. Top glass with tonic water.

 

The Basil Simple

by Leave a Comment

Here’s a little something green for this week. Just one of the handful of basil liqueur recipes I’ve been trying out lately. It’s pretty simple, but super flavorful. Do I need to add another sentence to make this look like a whole paragraph? Apparently so.

2 oz basil liqueur (recipe HERE)
1/2 oz of freshly squeezed lime juice, keep the limes handy
2 dashes of mint bitters

In a rocks glass with 3 large ice cubes, add the basil liqueur, lime juice and mint bitters. Add the spent limes as well. Stir together, squishing the limes into the mix with a bar spoon. Sip and slurp.

The mint bitters accent the subtle mint flavor of the basil liqueur and heighten them so they’re a bit more loud. Oh, so this also means I’ve gotten around to tasting the mint bitters. Boy are they strong. Just a tiny bit goes a long way. One thing that I hate though is that they have dye in them. I need to put making mint bitters on the to do list, but not for awhile. I’ve bought the bottle and I’m committed to using it.