A Cocktail A Day: Week 2

Monday: White Lady

Ingredients

35ml Gin

10 ml Cintreau

25ml Lime juice

10ml sugar syrup

Pour all the ingredients into a shaker and shake (I went for 60 seconds for optimal cooling) then strain into a glass (prefferably a martini glass but I went for a tumbler)

Tuesday: Espresso Martini

I intended to make a chocolate liquor foam to top this but we were out of eggs and I couldn't get the leccithin foam to work, so it was just an Espresso Martini in the ned, just made terribly terribly wrong because I missrememebred the ingredients!

Ingredients

1 shot cooled espresso

2 tsp sugar

1 shot Absolut Vodka

1 shot Tia Maria

So this is meant to have way more Vodka and way less Tia Maria, and probably way less sugar come to think of if, but I loved it the way I'd made it, KJC was I think less enthused, it took her all night to drink it and I saw her shoot it suspicious glances on more htan 1 occassion.

Tristan Stephenson's book The Curious Bartender describes a way to make a coffee vodka using a cream whipper so once I've got some empty bottles I'm going to give it a whirl.

Wednesday: Bramble Two Ways

So traditionally a Bramble is made using Blackcurrant liquor but we didn't have that, KJC and I had a dig around and in my cupboards of wonder we found Creme de Cassis and Chambord, we deemed these to be similarish so we rolled up our sleves and gave it a go!

KJC started with the Cassis Bramble

Ingredients:

1 shot Gin

2 shots Sours mix

Cracked ice

2/3rd of a shot Creme de Cassis

2 Raspberries and a slice of overripe lemon

The ingredients were layered in the order listed & made for quite a tarte drink, it was very pleasant but I'm a bit addicted to sweet so it's not soemthing I'd have reached for ahead of anything else I've made so far.

I then had a stab with the Chambord Bramble

Ingredients

1 shot Gin

2 shots Sours mix

Cracked ice

2/3rd of a shot Chambord

2 Raspberries and a slice of overripe lemon

This was instantly recognisable as being much sweeter, I'm not sure if I was jsut a bit more generous with my shots, but we both picked up on the sweetness before anything else. It was much more benericly 'berry' flavoured, it's also been sat in my cupboard for quuuuite some time, I much preffered the Chambord variety, and it's actually right up there with the Espresso Martini and Gin Bloody Mary on my favourites list.

Thursday: Vodka Mule

Ingredients

2 parts Vodka

3 parts ginger beer

1 part lime juice

wedge of lime

Build it all up in the glass over ice and enjoy

Friday: Fog Horn

Ingredients

1 shot of gin

Ginger beer

Build in a glass over ice

Saturday: Brandy Cocktail with a Maple Syrup Foam.

I spent most of my day playing with my cream whipper trying to get it to make a stable foam whilst mostly it just pissed whatever I'd put in back at me with lots of bubbles, so in the end I swallowed my prode, stopped wasting my alcohol, eggs and cartriges and sat back to watch Jamie Bordeau in action. He is amongst the people who I rather consider to be geniouses... genii... full of genious! Watch him in action explaining the foam here. Now he is making the foam to go with an Old Fashioned but I only have so much alcohol to hand, so I improvised by using it to top a brandy cocktail

The Brandy Cocktail

2 shots Brandy

1/2 shot Orange Liquor (Cointreau)

2 dashes of Angustura Bitters.

wedge of lime

The ingrediens were chucked in a boston shaker with plenty of ice and given a good shake for about thirty seconds by the time my husband (who'd wandered in and decided to help) got bored fot he whole idea and strained it out. Thsi was then topped with the foam which had been resting in the fridge (onit's side) for about 2 hours.

Sunday: Light and Calm

Ingredients

6 parts ginger beer

2 parts lime juice

2 dashes bitters

wedge of lime

Build in a glass over plenty of crushed ice