Ginger Martini

GINGER MARTINI

Evening everyone! Here's a cocktail I picked up from a food&drink magazine while at the barber shop (I'm so fresh&clean right now). It also traces back (kinda) memories because the main ingredient here is Xanté, a pear-cognac liqueur. The thing is, for a long long time I looked Xanté down for one (vain) reason. It was my...25th (?) birthday and a friend of mine asked what I wanted. I told him to get me a glass of Amaretto (I love that stuff). As the story goes, they didn't have any (!) at the bar so my friend asked the bartender to give something "similar". So what I got was Xanté. Nope, not an overly-sweet (mild) almondy liqueur but a strong pear-cocgnac one. At the time I couldn't drink it.

Ever since that I felt Xanté was a bad product. Yes, I was young and didn't know better (and to be honest the ideology behind my hatred was simply immature) but...last year I found out how horribly wrong I've been all these years. A few days ago I tried Xanté with hot chocolate, it worked! The possibilites are endless but only my stubbornness was getting in the way.

So today I grabbed the bull by the horns and this is what we have; the Ginger Martini (yea it's technically not a martini since it doesn't have vermouth in it. Hey I didn't come up with the name :D)

• 4 cl Xanté
• 2 table spoons of sugar
• juice from ½ a lemon
• ~1 cm piece of fresh ginger

Put everything in a shaker, muddle the ginger properly, add ice and shake vigorously. Double strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a piece of ginger (as seen on the picture).

I got to say, this is one great cocktail! I can taste each ingredient individually, the lemon, spiky ginger and notes of pear! Yummy! This cocktail has that ZING! It's a super fresh cocktail!

All in all, the Ginger Martini has won my heart. It's a good cocktail.

Pink Polar Bear

PINK POLAR BEAR

(to see how the drink looks like under "different" lighting)

Well met again. It's...3am and I'm posting a blog regarding a new cocktail! Given, I made this a few days ago (sober :D), recommended by a member of a gaming community I am currently in. It is called the Pink Polar Bear. As I see it (having tasted it as well), it's a semi-variant of the (in)famous Finnish White Russian:

• 5 cl vodka
• 2.5 cl Tia Maria (coffee liqueur, I used Kahluá)
• 2.5 cl grenadina
• milk

In a high ball glass, fill it with ice, pour in the alcohols, grenadine and top it off with milk! One site even said quote "Tastes like chocolate milkshake looks like strawberry milkshake very nice!" but let's be honest, it didn't quite. In their defence, Tia Maria probably gives a more intense chocolately taste to the cocktail where as the Kahluá is more espresso/coffee bean - flavored. It does look like strawberry milkshake I give you that. I give it 2½ visual points but only 2 taste points. Should I ever have Tia Maria, I would try this again and see if (when) it's different. At the moment I'd rather just make regular White Russians and be satisfied with them.

Rouva Runeberg

ROUVA RUNEBERG

(MRS. RUNEBERG)

Happy national Runeberg's day to you all! In order to celebrate his legacy, I re-created a cocktail Niko Autti from the A21 Cocktail Lounge invented. I don't know when though, probably two years ago. The recipe I have was from a food magazine I cut and today (okay I made this yesterday) I could really try it out:

• 2 table spoons of raspberry jam or 12 raspberries
• 3 cl raspberry vodka
• 1 cl almond liqueur (amaretto)
• 1 cl vanilla syrup

For the sugar rim:

• sugar
• a lemon wedge

First things first, I didn't have raspberry vodka, so I combined some raspberry liqueur with plain vodka. It's not the same but it'll do for now. Also, not having real raspberries (during February it's really hard to come by in Finland) I used the jam. The vanilla syrup I made myself.

First do the sugar rim by coating the side of the glass with the lemon, tapping it on sugar and letting it chill in the fridge. Put the ingredients in a cocktail shaker, add ice and stir vigorously. Strain into your glass.

Visually good-looking, this cocktail is overly sweet! Fair enough, I used the raspberry liqueur-vodka mix instead of "pure" raspberry vodka, but the amount of jam with the vanilla syrup made this drink way to sugary. I can't agree that two table spoons of jam equals 12 raspberries and instead, would cut the jam amount to half to the least. Also I would've used a smaller cocktail glass. But that was my problem, not the drink's. Also, the amaretto flavors were barely noticeable. Nonetheless, it was a fun little experiment to do on a specific day in a year.

Also note the Runeberg's torte next to the drink, a pastry made just for this day (I didn't have the sugar coating since I didn't have powdered sugar at home).

Dutch Sunrise

DUTCH SUNRISE

Good evening ladies and gents! Tonight I present you with a cocktail I wanted to try out for a long time now. I found it from here. But before I get to the cocktail, I just want to share a little story how it all went down:

I've been enjoying a few days of vacation. Luckily so, because today was my appointment donating blood (I do it every two months), I met good friends of mine, had coffee with one and with the other I had a whiskey tasting as per my resolution I made. It's always more fun to taste whiskeys with friends than alone.

Nonetheless, I got home and got tipsy enjoyed my time with my wife watching a documentary about Hercule Poirot. I had a beer and afterwards made this cocktail. Sadly, it didn't live up to its standards. To make a Dutch Sunrise, you need:

• 2.5 cl Passoã
• two orange wedges + one rind to decorate
• weizen beer (wheat beer), but only a little

Take a tumbler, fill it with ice, add in the Passoã, squeeze the juice from the oranges and carefully top the drink with your wheat beer (pour it over the ice so it doesn't interfere with the liqueur). Add a few straws and the rind for decoration and voilá!

...And that's about it then. I was rather disappointed with this cocktail. The drink had an intriguing taste to it but the Passoã dominates the drink way too much. At its best, it's only mediocre (as I've said from another cocktail I can't remember quite now).

Visually it is quite nice. You have the "sunrise" effect but as a whole, this cocktail doesn't cut to the big boys' league. I wouldn't recommend it, really.