It’s blood orange season! Pick some up at the market and treat your V-day pals to this delicious pink cocktail.
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It’s summer vacation! At least for the Schu family, it is. We’re all gathered here on Saxis Island, Virginia for a few good beach weeks. Besides a good book on the screen porch, we start our morning with a big bloody mary. A couple years back we featured a rosemary vodka & herb bloody mary, but if that sounds like too much work (though it’s not!) we have a few bloody mary basics to elevate your morning booze game.
The best bloody marys are flavorful, cold, and topped with an amazing garnish. Over the years, I’ve mostly stopped making bloody mary mix from scratch. Instead, I spend my time jazzing up the pre-made mix, my favorite is Zing Zang, and prepping garnishes to really elevate the flavors. Start by stashing your bloody mary mix in the fridge overnight. When morning comes, brew a pot of coffee and then get to work.
Mix up the following spices then rim each glass by running a lemon or lime along the edge before dipping it into the spice mixture.
Add 6-8oz of bloody mary mix and a shot (or two) of vodka to each glass. Then add a dash or a shake of the following, leaving out whatever doesn’t suit you. Give each glass a good stir and add a few ice cubes.
Now it’s garnish time and really, here’s your opportunity to play it low-key, pile it on, or experiment with something over the top. Here are a few garnish suggestions, but don’t feel pressured to do it all, coming up with your own unique combo is the way to go.
Whaddaya say? Bloody marys with brunch this weekend? Stir one up for us too, we’ll be hanging out on the porch!
I don’t know about where you live, but here in Boulder we’ve had a string of chilly fall-like days with views of fresh snow on the mountains. What’s better on a chilly Thursday than a cocktail that warms you up from the inside out?! If you haven’t had a sidecar yet, get ready to sit back, enjoy it in front of the fire, and plan on doing nothing for the rest of the night.
Sidecars are traditionally made with cognac, triple sec, and lemon juice. Today we’re substituting an apple-infused brandy for the cognac. Funny thing – cognac and brandy are the same thing, but to be called a Cognac it must come from a specific region in France. In the past I’ve used Jacques Cardin’s Apple Flavored Cognac. Today we’re making it with Santa Fe Spirits Apple Brandy because we wanted to try something new, and it’s produced closer to home with apples grown in New Mexico!
I’m a fairly new martini drinker, but I can see these appletinis showing up on a regular basis around here. They are full of fresh juice (& alcohol!) and they taste like Autumn!! Really, these apple martinis are fall flavored. This recipe makes enough for two martinis so grab a pal or drink both. If your plan is the latter then have a great afternoon at home 😉
Happy Tuesday! I know it’s a bit early in the week for a cocktail recipe, but I promise this Ginger Cuke Cocktail is mild, well in alcohol, not in flavor. You can drink a few of these and still have the energy to cook dinner or work on whatever project you have going on at the moment. I’m in the middle of a macrame wall hanging that I started months (!!) ago and kind of just walked away from. These Ginger Cuke Cocktails are the encouragement I need to plow ahead! The spicy ginger beer (a nonalcoholic ginger ale, but oh so different from standard american ginger ale) is absolutely essential to this drink. If you make it with regular ginger ale you will be sorely disappointed and I’ll feel really bad about it so PLEASE use ginger beer. You’ll want to make me one in gratitude after you finish your first, second, third drink. You can find the best and cheapest ginger beer in Jamaica, but if you’re in the states like me then head to your grocery store and look in the international aisle or where mixers are sold like tonic and seltzer water. Ginger beer is really yummy on its own too if you like a soda once in awhile. It’s not spicy, not sugary, which is why I’m a big fan. Enough about ginger beer (the essential ingredient!) on to the story of why I created this cocktail.
A couple weeks ago, I had a birthday – whoop whoop! I talked about my celebration here, but in short, I had a couple delicious mule variations at Venable. I couldn’t stop thinking about those spicy sage, yet fresh and limey drinks so I decided to mix one up! It took some tweaking, but I came up with the refreshing afternoon, afterdinner, afterdessert drink that I was craving.
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I hope these photos have you running out the door for ginger beer! Let me know how much you love this ginger cuke coctail @liveseasoned . XO
Remember when I promised a use for Tuesday’s leftover watermelon mint salad? Hands up if you guessed mojitos! Today’s drink couldn’t be easier to make (or drink), especially if you have your watermelon cut up into nice little cubes.
Hey Seasoned sippers! With mint as our ingredient of the season, you’re likely to see a lot of mojito recipes on the blog this summer. Today I’m going to put a simple twist on the classic mint mojito recipe. A mint simple syrup twist to be exact.
or cheese cloth
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along with half of the ice.
, add more ice if desired and top it off with club soda. Garnish with a slice of lime and a few mint leaves.
As you can see, I like to drink my cocktails while browsing through a book or two. First I pulled out this classic Old Mr Boston Bartender Guide to compare mojito recipes, but alas there was no mojito recipe to be found. I quickly became bored of browsing cocktail recipes (shame on me, I know) so I decided to flip through Two Eagles. It’s a large photo book that looks at the natural history of the United States and Mexico borderlands. It is over 200 pages filled with fantastic photos and interesting text so you may want to mix up another mojito!
Let’s just get this out of the way. I love (lovity love love) mojitos, but I’m a purest and only ever order or make the traditional mojito. I envisioned kicking off our summer of mint with a basic mojito, but then I saw some fresh rhubarb at the farmer’s market. Knowing that rhubarb season ends soon, what could we do but start the season with a deliciously pink Rhubarb Mojito?
You may recognize the photo above from Alex’s striped birthday recap. As I mentioned before, we were catering to the adults this year. Being the proud Pennsylvanians that we are, family gatherings always involve a case of Yuengling, but we often like to include a fun* alternative or two. With the little guy underfoot, I’m trying to be more smart in my planning. An alternate drink is awesome, but one that doesn’t have to be made glass-by-glass is even better. So, when I saw this recipe on A Cup of Jo, I couldn’t wait to try my first group-sized cocktail!
The original recipe called for gin, but I used my favorite substitute ~ Art in the Age’s Sage, which they describe as being a “garden gin” made from plants collected, grown, and chronicled from the Lewis and Clark expedition.
I loved this drink! It was delicious, and the combination of lemon and rosemary gave it a fresh and somewhat light flavor that I think would make this perfect for any sort of spring or summer event, particularly one outside on the green, green grass. That said, I loved it so much that I’ll probably find an excuse to make it year round. Come back in December and I’ll be telling you that with its rosemary garnish, it’s the perfect drink for your Christmas party (especially if you add some frozen cranberries to the punch bowl!).
The drink was strong, but as Joanna recommends, you can add a second bottle of Prosecco to lighten it a touch. I kept it to one bottle, because our gathering was small, and as it was we still had some left over, and I would say that that is the only downside of the big-batch cocktail. On the other hand, I put the extra in the fridge, and happily sipped on it for the rest of the week. The Prosecco’s bubbles faded, but it still tasted delicious.
I’m not one for getting drunk, but I definitely enjoy my fair share of cocktails. Right now I’m loving this simple and refreshing lemon vodka water. If you like lemon water, you’ll like this. It’s unbelievable how the lemon masks the taste of vodka so well. It’s easy enough to whip up a whole pitcher, so go ahead and try it next time your friends are over. If you’re really in the entertaining spirit, slice up a lemon, put it in a muffin tin, top with water and freeze for cute ice cubes like shown below.
