Piña Colada

PIÑA COLADA

A Piña Colada (without the garnish)

Good morning everyone! Today I made a cocktail...well, it certainly has made its way to the mainstream but this is the second (!) time I've had one (the first time was back in 2006 in Cologne when I was an au pair)! (and immediately made two versions of it :D)

For us Finns at least (if someone knows better, do correct me!), the Piña Colada is a cocktail you've had abroad during happy hours and then expect to have the same drink "back home". Honestly speaking, sure, every now and then a person asks me at work "can I get a Piña Colada?" The problem arises when you look at the ingredients of this now-classic tiki cocktail. Let's take a look. The recipe was acquired from THE BONNEVILLE COLLECTION: TIKI COCKTAILS.

• 6 cl rum
• 6 cl pineapple juice
• 2 cl creamed coconut
• 2.5 cl half & half (a mixture of half cream, half milk)
• (tiki garnish)

Both the pineapple juice/coconut stuff is something that doesn't hold for many days. I believe the Piña Colada is one of those cocktails you can't really get from Finland...well perhaps in Helsinki during summer time from one specific/certain cocktail bar. Stocking the above mentioned products is not worth their price when you might have 1 request/week. So better just make these at home.

The Bonneville recipe used Appleton 12yo for their rum of choice. I made two version; in the first one I did as per recipe and the other one with Malibu (coconut flavored caribbean rum). The reason for this was a request by a person who isn't allowed to buy strong spirits yet and Malibu being 21% ABV, so perfect for this occasion.

Shake the ingredients with ice, strain into a proper glass (tiki/hurricane, large-ish wine goblet) and garnish. I didn't have any pineapple or proper tiki garnish for that matter, so I left those out.

I have got to say, when I made the two versions, the Malibu one tasted better! It had that Piña Colada feel to it; the Appleton 12yo version tasted...well, not only more boozy but as if it lacked body. Were I to make this cocktail again, I would totally use Malibu. Otherwise the measures were great; the cocktail was creamy and pineappl-y :)

Some recipes use a blender but to heck with those.

Kaukokaipuu (Wanderlust)

KAUKOKAIPUU (WANDERLUST)

reader request, awesomeness ensured!

A good Saturday to you all! Here's a cocktail I made based on a reader request! Its base ingredient is quite different that what you would expect and its name "Kaukokaipuu" (Wanderlust) derives from and I quote

"You can make this with rather cheap ingredients. While drinking this at cold winter nights watching Madventures one can ponder, what it be like to jump out of the rat race into far away lands."

Roughly so :D So what do you need to make this?

• 2 cl blanco rum
• 1 cl malibu
• 1 cl gin (prefer a floral, "light" gin)
• 1 bs almond syrup
• 6 cl Alpro coconut-rice milk
• some roasted almond chips on top (optional garnish)

Shake everything with ice and strain into a smaller, chilled cocktail glass. Garnish optional (an edible flower would be awesome I realized).

With a good coconut-aroma to it, it also has that surprisingly good combination of rum & gin. The slight sweet-bitter almond-y notes are also there easily to be found.

In my opinion, it was a very fun experiment and this cocktail is an all-around drink. I give it a solid 4 out of 5!

Mother's Day Special / Green Goblet / Orange Fury

MOTHER'S DAY SPECIAL

Mother's Day Special for...you know...

The weekend is here and I am perfectly late for this Mother's Day Special! Then again, this cocktail needn't to be for any specific occasion as long as we're celebrating!

Last Sunday was our national Mother's Day and I wanted to make a drink for my wife. In addition to the cake I baked (and card I made), I wanted to make a cocktail that is both luxurious and sweet enough (she prefers sweeter drinks over sour/bitter ones). Well sparkling wine is thus an easy component. For the others I decided to go red and hence:

• 2.5 cl wild strawberry liqueur
• 2.5 cl creme de cassis
• 1 small-ish strawberry muddled
• (dash lime juice)
• sparkling wine
• orange zest for garnish

What I did was put the four first ingredients in a small cup and let them "soak" for ~ day. Truth to be told, this I could've left out and I doubt it would've made such a huge difference. Stir them quickly with ice and strain into a champagne flute. With the sparkling wine be careful since it reacts with sugary components thus foaming a lot. Finally garnish with a orange zest and give to your loved ones.

GREEN GOBLET

Just experi...I knew what I was doing, trust me!

So I had almost half a pint of freshly squeezed orange juice at my disposal. I really wanted to make a few cocktails using said stuff so I went to my liquor cabinet and randomly with extreme precision and knowledge picked a few extra bottles to whip up this Green Goblet (name courtesy by my co-worker! :D)

• 6 cl freshly squeezed orange juice
• 2 cl absolut pears
• 2 cl melon liqueur
• 1 cl maliby
• 2 maraschino cherries for garnish

Shake all except the cherries with ice, double strain and drop the cherries last. The Green Goblet works as a good dessert drink. It is soft, has a distinctive melon-pear bite to it with coconut flavors following to the end.

ORANGE FURY

Another wild exp-, cocktail made with determination

Here we have the second one, called Orange Fury (again, name courtesy by my co-worker!) Let's face it, two green drinks would be such a shame. Using the miniature bottle(s) I found, this is more suitable as an aperitif:

• 6 cl freshly squeezed orange juice
• 2 cl absolut ruby red (grapefruit vodka)
• 2 cl maraschino liqueur
• bitters for garnish + orange zest (flamed)

Shake the three first ingredients with ice, strain into a coupe, drop a few dashes of bitters on top of the drink and garnish with a flamed orange zest. Serve.

This cocktail is quite different than its green counterpart, Similarly soft but much more bitter, it has more "oompf" to it. The essential oils from the orange peel work wonderfully in this drink. Also, I liked the bitters floating on top giving this Fury its kick.

 

Coco Jambo

COCO JAMBO

Now with sexy-wow effects! It's totally rad!

Welcome back to the summer drinks! First of all, here's the drink's title as an epic 90's song! But let's get started with this cocktail. So basically the Coco Jambo goes down as a (surprise, surprise), coconutty drink. But it's also a frothy, creamy cocktail, which in my opinion will be regarded as AWESOME! I got this recipe from a fellow cocktail-lover and the name I just made up. I mean, it has Coco in its name, so it must be great, don't you think?

• 5 cl fresh cream
• 1 egg white
• 1 tea spoon sugar
• 4 cl Malibu coconut rum
• 2 cl Irish cream
• (a cherry)

First things first, put the cream, egg white and sugar in a shaker and dry shake vigorously for a lengthy amount of time. After this pour in the alcohols, add plenty of ice and shake again for about 20 seconds or even more. Take your high ball glass and without straining pour in everything you have into the glass. Garnish with a cherry and add a few straws!

I was amazed how well Malibu worked with Irish cream! It's a "heavy" drink but easily enjoyed during any summer day.

Midori Splice

MIDORI SPLICE

Booaaaah!! Luxury at hand! Well, almost, but fair enough, let's get busy with the Midori Splice! History goes Splice was some sort of ice-cream-brand in Down Under (mate) so yeah, let's just make an alcoholic version of it! Before getting into the details, though, I must say I now understand why the Piña Colada is totally famous. Pineapples + cream = profit! But enough of that, let's break down the Midori Splice!

• 3 cl Midori (melon liquer)
• 3 cl Malibu (I used coconut rum from DeKuyper)
• 9 cl Pineapple juice
• 3 cl fresh cream
• a maraschino cherry

In a tall, ice filled high ball glass, build the cocktail in the given order and finally layer the cream on top. Add the cherry and enjoy.

A few words I will say about this cocktail. First of all, a truly fruity drink, the creamy-pineapple mixture was yum, so good! As I got further down the drink, the pure alcoholic content was a tad strong and not quite appealing per se. A straw or a bit of stirring would be recommended for an overall more pleasant drink. Now it felt like drinking mixers first, then the alcohol. To be honest, the first time after I drank the first two layers, I mixed the alcohols together and then added another layer of pineapple juice + cream just to enjoy this again :)

The Midori Splice, I like it!