Random Access Cocktails (RAC)

RANDOM ACCESS COCKTAILS

A good Monday evening to everyone! Last night I had a little game with a friend of mine after some heavy duty Dungeons&Dragons. He had brought a bottle of sour apple schnapps so I thought "Why not randomly decide two other liqueurs and whip up a drink of them?" What a splendid idea!

Three "rules":

1. 2 cl of sour apple included
2. one lime wedge squeezed in
3. 4 cl of apple juice included

So we headed to my bar cabinet and rolled a d20 to decide which Dekuyper liqueurs we would use! We both rolled once and with 20 bottles available we got the following combinations:

• peach & blueberry
• amaretto & watermelon

#1

sour apple, peach, blueberry, apple juice, lime wedge

So here's the first one. With a fresh aroma, you couldn't really notice the peach flavor. The blueberry on the other hand dominated most of the drink leaving only a crisp, US-candy-ish (jelly bean) aftertaste to it!

#2

sour apple, amaretto, water melon, apple juice, lime wedge

The second one was a peculiar mixture! You have that distinct almond aroma, tastes like amaretto and then changes to the watermelony flavors! The apple part has completely disappeared!

In its essence, both cocktails weren't "super delicious". Sure, one goes (for the ladies) but they both had a problem of being very sugary (like candy), synthetic and something youngsters would appreciate. All of this was culminated in our discussion:

Me: "Try having six of these!"

Friend: " :D "

Angostura 1919 / El Dorado 15yo Old Fashioned

Angostura 1919 / El Dorado 15yo 

Old Fashioned

Angostura 1919 version

El Dorado 15yo version

A fine evening to each and all! Tonight I created a cocktail courtesy of Charlotte Voisey and her Flor de Caña Old Fashioned. Since I didn't have the original ingredients at hand I made a little adjustments/twists to suit my needs. In the end, it turned out alright!

As we know, an Old Fashioned can easily be modified by changing the base spirit. Bourbon is the traditional one but with little tweaks you can make it appeal to people who might not like the taste of bourbon (if such people exist :D). What I did was two versions because quite frankly, the first one did not catch the essence of what I was looking for. Let's break down what I did here:

• 6 cl aged rum (Angostura 1919/El Dorado 15yo this time)
• 2 bs brown sugar syrup
• 3-4 dashes orange bitters
• 2 orange zest + 1 for garnish

Put all the ingredients in the mixing glass, press the orange zest for their essential oils and drop them in as well. Give it a good stir with ice and strain into your glass. Flame one orange zest over the drink and use it as a garnish. Serve.

As it is no mystery that different rums taste differently, the way the worked in this particular cocktail was astonishing. With the Angostura 1919 version it was a bold, spicy cocktail. Elegant, but strong. I did not quite got the fruity aromas I was hoping for so later this evening I made a second one using El Dorado 15yo rum. Now the cocktail had a much more "aromatic" sense to it, making it a better drink overall.

Quite the cocktail, I say!

Grasshopper

GRASSHOPPER

Good evening y'all! Tonight's cocktail is a true classic! A colleague of mine once said and quote:

"This is just a Marianne made with cream!"

No. A Marianne is a Grasshopper made with milk! Done properly, this cocktail is a rather sweet and super pepperminty/fresh (!) pre - or after dinner drink. Not to mention how easily it is done. What you need is to remember the simple 1:1:1 ratio;

• 1 part crème de menthe (green peppermint liqueur)
• 1 part crème de cacao (white!)
• 1 part fresh cream

Don't use non-fat/low-fat cream.

So shake these up with plenty of ice, double strain into your chilled cocktail glass/coupe. Optionally grind some fresh nutmeg on top and serve. This is a really delicious drink. Like its Finnish counterpart Marianne (2 cl peppermint liqueur, 2 cl crème de cacao [brown] and milk built in a tall glass), the Grasshopper is just a much more richer cocktail in general. Not drunk too many a night, they make excellent cocktails for everyone to enjoy.