Irish Redhead

My wife, Laura, had been going through some stressful times and she needed a drink. She tends to drink very slowly, so it had to be strong, but not taste strong. I searched my kitchen for some inspiration, and came up with this. All the ingredients in this recipe are by volume (the imperial system is confusing).

Ingredients:

2 strawberries washed and trimmed
.5 oz of demerara sugar
1 oz of Ribena* or blackcurrant juice concentrate
2 oz of Irish whiskey**

Directions:

In a cocktail shaker, muddle together the strawberries and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Add the Ribena and whiskey. Fill the shaker with ice and shake thoroughly to combine and aerate. Pour through a cocktail or hawthorn strainer into a lowball or rocks glass filled with ice. Garnish with a strawberry and enjoy!

*Ribena is a British blackcurrant juice concentrate and is pretty much the only brand of the stuff I have been able to find in stores. I was first exposed to it when my family went on vacation to the UK and I fell in love with it, and I was so glad when I saw it in my local grocery store. If you can find a different variation, I am sure it will work just as well.

**If you replace the Irish whiskey with American rye, you have a cocktail I call a Strawberry Blonde, also named for my wife.

Mango Lassi

Never let it be said that I don't love my wife. At the very start of this I made it clear that there were certain foods I don't like cooking with, but when your wife asks for a yogurt smoothie, you make her a yogurt smoothie.

A Lassi is a Indian spiced yogurt smoothie. It is something that is typically a savory drink, but it can be blended with fruit, like mango, to make it sweet. In India this drink is made with dahi, but that isn't readily available in the States, so plain full fat or whole milk yogurt is a good substitute.

Ingredients:

2 C frozen mango
½ C milk
½ C plain whole milk yogurt
¼ C honey
¼ tsp ground cardamom

Directions:

Add all the ingredients to the carafe of your blender and blend until smooth. Poor into a glass and enjoy. Optionally, garnish with mint and a cinnamon stick.

Summer Fruit Punch Beer

So awhile ago I saw a recipe for this that was really not well thought out and I decided that I needed to rectify it, because I like the concept. This is a really great drink for some last parties at the end of summer or for tailgating through the fall. It's sweet and fruity so some people will inevitably call it girly, but something that is refreshing and easy to drink is something we all should be able to enjoy.

I've called this a summer recipe since it focuses on summer fruits, but plenty of other fruits would work great and could go into plenty of seasonal varieties.

Ingredients:

2 C sliced strawberries
2 C blueberries
3 peaches, skinned and cut into bite sized pieces
⅔ C sugar
Summer Shandy*

Directions:

Combine the berries, peaches, and sugar in a large container and stir to coat everything evenly with the sugar. Store, covered, in the fridge for about an hour so the sugar can build a heavy syrup.

Scoop ¼ cup of the fruit and syrup into the bottom of a pint glass or tulip glass and carefully pour on the summer shandy. Store any leftovers in the freezer, makes a great way to keep your beer cold without diluting it.

*I think a summer shandy works best with this recipe, but a great alternative would be a Belgian style white beer (witbier) like Blue Moon. It also works really well with an Agave IPA. A light lager or pilsner would do, but you'll miss out on some of the more fruity flavors.

Agua de Limon with Chia

Right after we first moved to our current apartment, my dad stopped by to visit and took my wife and me out to eat at a local Mexican place. They had a great selection of aquas frescas, or fresh fruit waters, and we decided to try the agua de limon. It tasted great, but had this weird gel-like stuff in it. The waiter couldn't remember what it was, and that restaurant changed hands and stopped serving that drink.

It wasn't until a couple years later, when I was looking more into health foods, that I figured out that chia seeds had been the secret ingredient. I have recreated it here, so please enjoy my take on a really refreshing Mexican lemonade.

Ingredients:

6.5 cups water, divided
1 ⅓ cups fresh lemon juice
⅓ cup chia seeds
1 cup demerara or raw sugar

Directions:

In a large jar or pitcher, combine 6 cups of water, the lemon juice, and the chia seeds. Stir well to combine.

In a small saucepan, pour in the last half cup of water and add the sugar. Stir over medium heat until the sugar is just dissolved, making a heavy syrup. Add 1 cup of the heavy syrup to the lemon and water mixture and stir well to combine.

Let the mixture sit for at least 15 minutes before serving: this will allow the chia seeds to start to expand and make their gel, which is what gives this drink its unique texture. The gel will continue to thicken as the drink sits, so in my opinion it hits its peak after being stored in the fridge overnight.

Pour over ice and enjoy this refreshing and nutritious take on lemonade.

Scotch Sour

One of my goals in life is to know a few cocktails that I can whip out whenever company is over or I feel like a drink. I've always enjoyed sour cocktails, especially whiskey sours, but I was out of bourbon so I decided to try Scotch instead. It was delicious. I added a bit of my own flair by making a simple syrup with demerara sugar and created this simple, refreshing, easy drinking cocktail.

Ingredients:

Ice
1 part demerara simple syrup*
1 part fresh lemon juice
2 parts Scotch
Lemon peel (optional)
Maraschino cherry (optional)

Directions:

Fill the bottom of a cocktail shaker with ice and add your simple syrup, lemon juice, and Scotch. Shake for 10 seconds to thoroughly combine the ingredients and lightly aerate it. Strain it into an ice-filled lowball glass or tumbler or straight up (no ice) into a cocktail glass and garnish with a lemon peel and maraschino cherry.

Raise your glass, toast your friends, and enjoy!

*Simple syrup is made by bringing equal parts water and sugar to a boil and stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved. Let it cool and store in a squirt bottle in the fridge for up to a month. Simple syrup is better than sugar in cocktails because it dissolves in cold water. I like demerara sugar in this application because it adds a great depth of flavor to cocktails.

Maple Old Fashioned

Recently I got to go on vacation and spent a few days with some friends having a blast in Vermont. While we were there, we went for a whisky tasting at Saxton River Distillery where they have amazing maple infused whiskeys and some great gin. I'd been wanting to use my bourbon maple syrup in a cocktail and I think I found a great match in this maple old fashioned.

Because this is a sweeter old fashioned it's not much of an aperitif (before dinner), I'd recommend it as a great after dinner cocktail.

Ingredients:

1 tsp bourbon maple syrup
4 dashes angostura bitters
2 oz maple bourbon
Ice
Maraschino cherry

Directions:

In a lowball glass combine the syrup, bitters, and bourbon and stir well. Add several large ice cubes and garnish with a maraschino cherry.

Sit back, relax, and enjoy!

Cranberry Mulled Cider

Well it's the holiday season, which means everyone is adding cranberry to things, and I am no exception! I started seeing cranberry apple cider for sale recently and decided to make my own. I poked around on the internet looking for a recipe for a while, trying to find one that wasn't simply dumping a bunch of cranberry juice (which is mostly apple juice anyway) into apple cider. I had bought all these cranberries in preparation and by golly I was going to use them! After searching my kitchen for some other flavor enhancers, I came up with this parts list:

Ingredients:

½ gallon of apple cider
1 12 oz (by weight) package of cranberries
Zest of 1 lime
1 clementine or naval orange
1 sweet apple, sliced (I recommend a snapdragon)
5-6 star anise pods
3-4 short cinnamon sticks (about 3 inches)

Directions:

Pour the cider into your slow cooker and set on low.

Add the cranberries, making sure to rinse them first, and the zest of 1 lime. I used a standard vegetable peeler to simply peel the zest off, making sure to avoid the white pith underneath as much as possible, but using a fine grater will work just as well (it just doesn't make as pretty a picture).

Peel 1 clementine and add the sections. I made sure to slightly break them so that there would be good flavor extraction. Feel free to simply cut up a clementine, but if you don't peel it, you will get more citrus from the rind so be sure to shorten your cook time. I used a clementine instead of a naval orange because they are in season right now, and there are a lot of strong flavors in this cider and it could use the sweetness of the clementine. If you're making this when clementines aren't in season, a naval orange will work just fine.

Add the sliced apple, star anise pods, and cinnamon, stir to combine, and let it cook on low for about 2 hrs. Serve and enjoy!

A note about cooking time: because cranberry is such a strong flavor, I recommend you start tasting the cider about 1.5 hrs in to make sure you haven't over-extracted. Make sure you stir it gently before tasting it because the flavors have a tendency to separate into layers since cinnamon sinks and cranberries float. If you find that you have over-extracted, don't panic, just add a bit of salt. Salt helps block bitter flavor receptors on the tongue. I've also simply added some more cider to help mellow a bitter quaff.

Hot Toddy

My wife and I have been feeling a bit under the weather recently and with it finally getting a little colder outside, I decided to make up my favorite cold weather punch, the hot toddy. It's light lemon and cinnamon flavor help clear sinuses, the added sugar soothes the throat, and the spirits help you get a good night's sleep.

Ingredients:

1 qt of water
1 lemon, sliced
2 long sticks of cinnamon
1 t of whole cloves

½ C of demerara sugar

2.5 C of bourbon
Nutmeg

Directions:

In a crock pot set to high, combine the water, lemon, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar and steep for 30 min. Stir occasionally to make sure the sugar dissolves. After 30 min add the bourbon and stir to combine. Let the mixture get back up to temp, usually about 30 more minutes.

To serve, place a lemon slice in a cup, pour on the toddy and garnish with freshly grated nutmeg. Enjoy!

David's Mulled Cider

My friend David had some good suggestions on how to modify my mulled cider recipe, so, I decided to give some of his suggestions a whirl and came up with this variation. This one is based off of apple pie spices as opposed to the citrus notes of my recipe. While I am partial to my variation, this is a tasty traditional.

Ingredients:

1 lemon
1 apple
2 sticks of cinnamon
1 t of whole cloves

½ t of whole allspice berries

¼ t of fresh grated nutmeg

½ gal of apple cider

Directions:

Slice up the lemon and apple, again discarding the end pieces since flavor extraction of the pith will just make the whole brew bitter. Since I don't have an orange to put them in this time, I wrapped my smaller spices in a bit of cheese cloth that I tied up with butchers twine to make a spice bag, but a tied up coffee filter would work just as well, I just don't have any.

Place all of the ingredients in a  slow cooker and steep on low for 2.5-3 hrs stirring occasionally. I steep mine until the cinnamon sticks are flexible so I know there has been plenty of flavor extracted.

Once the cider has been thoroughly spiced, remove all the solids and discard, trust me, they don't taste good anymore. Strain the cider though a fine mesh strainer to remove any sediments and pulp. Though the spices were in a bag, you still want to make sure you get out any lemon seeds, pulp, or apple seeds. Serve hot or cold, and enjoy! For the adults in the room, this one will also taste really good with a splash of cinnamon whiskey.

Citrus Mulled Cider

Mulled cider is one of my favorite drinks to make during the fall, I lost track of how many gallons of cider I went through last year when I started making this all the time. I made this mulled cider as Christmas presents for some of my friends last year, and they loved it. It is a fantastic drink for a cold day during apple season.

Ingredients:

½ gallon of apple cider

1 lemon
1 apple*
2 oranges 1 sliced and 1 whole
1 t of whole cloves
2 six inch sticks of cinnamon
Optional: 1 T of salt**

Directions:

Slice the lemon, the apple, and one of the oranges into rounds, discarding the end pieces since there isn't much flavor to be garnered from those pieces. Then, stick the cloves into the remaining orange, I like to make a little face out of them.

Once your prep work is done, pour the cider into your slow cooker/ crock pot and add all of the ingredients. Put your slow cooker on low and let it go for 2.5-3 hours, stirring occasionally. I like to steep mine until the cinnamon sticks are flexible so I know there has been good extraction of flavor.

Once the cider has been thoroughly spiced, remove all the solids and discard, trust me, they don't taste good anymore. Strain the cider though a fine mesh strainer to remove any sediments and pulp. I strained my cider into a large mason jar and garnished with some granny smith apple slices and another stick of cinnamon. Serve hot or cold, and enjoy! For the adults in the room, this also tastes really good with a splash of cinnamon whiskey.

*I used an heirloom apple called a Pippen, but feel free to use whatever apple you like.
**I find that sometimes a bit too much bitter from the pith of the orange and lemon gets into the cider, when this happens, I add a bit of salt because salt blocks bitter flavors from the tongue

Horchata

Horchata is a Mexican drink of sweetened rice water mixed with spice. It is a really great drink for hot days. My wife spent some time abroad in Mexico and developed quite the taste for Mexican food. She told me that recipe comes out with a texture most similar to what she experienced there. The flavor is authentic, with a bit of my own flair.

Ingredients:

1 ¼ C of white rice
4 C of water
1 T of cinnamon
5 oz of sugar
¼ t of vanilla

Directions:

Grind the rice in a blender until it is coarsely ground, then pour into a 2 qt container. Add the 4 cups of water and cinnamon and let it soak, covered, on the counter overnight, 12 hrs would be best. I like this 2 qt canning jar because I can shake it to stir it whenever I walk by, every few hours.

The difference between granulated
and super-fine sugar

Once your patience has been taxed long enough and you want to drink this tasty beverage, put the 5 oz (by volume) of sugar in a blender and grind for about 30 sec turning it into super-fine sugar. Because if its better surface to mass ratio, superfine sugar dissolves better in cold liquids which makes it great for lemonade, iced tea, and cocktails.


Pour the sugar and vanilla into the brew and stir vigorously. Strain the mixture into another container or pitcher, serve over ice and enjoy. If the horchata is too grainy for your taste, run it through some cheesecloth, that should improve the texture immediately.