Italian Sunset

ITALIAN SUNSET

Hey everyone! If Tequila Sunrises are getting boring (like 15 years ago :D), here's a fun little twist on it. I introduce you to the Italian Sunset. Based on the Italian almond liqueur (DiSaronno), this cocktail is to the sweeter side. Let's take a look:

• 6 cl amaretto
• pulp-free quality orange juice
• club soda
• grenadine
• (garnish)

I actually made two versions of it, in one using OJ that had pulp in it just to see why it was originally mentioned that specifically pulp-free should be used. Fair enough, the result looks better, with no chips of fruit sticking on the side of the glass after you've drunk some of it.

Anyhow, using a bit larger glass than normally, fill it with crushed ice. Add in the amaretto, carefully pour in the OJ and then top it with slub soda. Drizzle some grenadine to create the sunset effect, add a straw but don't stir it! Garnish if you please (I used a twist) and enjoy.

Since the amaretto lays at the bottom, it is sweet. Using the straw and going the up-down motion will help enjoy this cocktail way more better, getting all layers of flavors (since the cocktail should layer in three separate...layers :D)

Cointreau Fizz p.2

COINTREAU FIZZ p.2

Version 1 made roughly four years ago

Hey everyone! Exciting things and let us go "back to basics" with another classy high ball - cocktail, the Cointreau Fizz! As you might have noticed, I made this one in 2013 (!) May (as per link above), this time I took a more "professional" way to it, if you may. Pretty much everything has stayed the same, except now with a tad less alcohol (due to national regulations). Let's take a look:

• 4 cl Cointreau
• ½ lime, the juice
• 5-10cl+ soda water
• seasonal garnishes, berries, fruit, whatever you prefer

In a large-ish wine goblet, build this cocktail; add the ice, then the lime juice, cointreau and finally top the cocktail with soda water. Garnish and serve.

Just like four years ago, this cocktail is refreshing! The lime juice cuts the edge of the sweet liqueur and with the fruits/berries you get so much freshness. Albeit being a totally summer drink, the Cointreau Fizz works magic even during winter.

I also made this using a colleague's Cointreau Blood Orange, adding more tartness to the drink. I still preferred the original concoction better.

Basilowski

BASILOWSKI

Hoya everyone! It's been almost a month since my last update, but this time I got FOUR (4) new updates, in a row! (wow-za!)

If we turn back time a bit, I spent a week in Bremen with my sister (4th July - 11th July). On Friday we went to Lemon Lounge (@ Am Wall 164 like I did in 2015 with my two good friends and 2014 with my oldest brother :D) and asked for my good friend's Tomasz Gutowski for a(ny) signature drink the cocktail bar has. He introduced me with his concoction, the Basilowski. He was kind enough to share the recipe with me and gave the last drops of their peach bitters this cocktail needs. COOL!

So as I got back from Germany (still enjoying my last weekend of summer vacation), I made his drink. Here's how to do it:

• 2 cl lime juice
• 2 cl mango pureé
• 4-6 basil leaves
• 2 ds peach bitters
• 5 cl grasowka/zubrowka
• soda water

Smash the basil leaves in your palm and add them in your glass. Add the rest ingredients (over ice), give it a good stir and top with soda water. Garnish with a beautiful basil bunch and serve.

This cocktail is fresh and seriously, you can hardly taste the alcohol :D On a warm summer's day...deceitful I say, deceitful! The aftertaste is a bit sour-ish, which compliments this fruity cocktail's overall taste just fine.

Thanks Tomasz!

Paranoid

PARANOID

Hello everyone! Today (actually almost a week ago) I had the pleasure to make a cocktail called Paranoid. Its history goes back to 2004 to a cocktail bar called Shaker, in Jyväskylä, Finland. I had previously seen a video of the drink being made by their staff and a BIG SHOUT OUT goes to Karl Lojander for inventing this drink! Story goes they wanted to make a kick-ass gin-based cocktail after their opening in 2003 and what do you know? They made this, which roared success on the first try! *cue slow clap right here ladies and gents*

I've personally heard of this drink before as well but now I had the opportunity to make it myself! The recipe as follows:

• 3 cl lemon juice
• 2 cl DeKuyper blueberry liqueur
• 2 cl dry gin
• 1 cl lingonberry syrup
• dash soda water

I made the lingonberry syrup myself by using 2dl frozen lingonberries, 0.5dl water, 1dl sugar and 0.5dl household syrup (for future reference that last one is option IMHO). Boil the berries with water, strain the mash, add sugar and heat to dissolve. Yeah...kinda like that :D

As for the drink, shake everything except the soda water and strain (no double straining needed here) into a glass. Top it off with soda and garnish with an orange slice. There you go!

It's a lively-colored cocktail, fresh, has that "zinggg!" to it and tastes extremely good which makes give it a 4 out of 5!

Here's a clip of it when I made it (in Finnish!)

Tom Collins

TOM COLLINS

Hey everyone! A few days back I made probably one of the most well-known cocktails of all time, the Tom Collins. This drink goes back a few centuries, wikiquote

"First memorialized in writing in 1876 by "the father of American mixology" Jerry Thomas, this "gin and sparkling lemonade" drink typically is served in a Collins glass over ice."

I decided to give it a go.

• 5 cl Tanqueray dry gin
• 2.5 cl lemon juice
• 2.5 cl simple syrup 1:1
• dash soda water
• lemon slice/maraschino cherry as a garnish

Since I don't have a soda streamer at home, I find "soda-based" cocktails rather difficult to make. I usually substitute it (soda water) with mineral water (which isn't the same) but it gets the job done. This time I actually had a bottle of "Fever Tree soda water", which in my opinion is totally overpriced and overrated. But the heck with it, I shook up this cocktails, strained into a glass filled with ice and topped it off with soda. Garnished it with a lemon slice and one home-made maraschino cherry.

Result? Refreshing & fabulous.

I like to use a 2:1:1 ratio when making this drink (at work/home), getting a little bit more volume, consistency and not such a sour drink. Essentially, this is the sour of all sour drinks truth to be told.

Recommendations? During the summer as far as I'm concerned!

Mojito

MOJITO

2009

2011

2013, fresh mint from my own garden

 Probably one of the most known cocktail of all time, this is the Mojito. It is very nice to see how my skills and abilities as a mixologist have bore fruit. Just look at the pictures from the past years. In 2009 I barely knew how to muddle. The end result, shredded mint leaves and a funny lime wheel on the rim of the glass. In 2011 the glass isn't even filled up. Or then I took a picture of it after I had sipped several times of it. Contrary to 2009, I actually used the mint stalks. Now, 2013 I knew how to muddle and I even had my own mint from my garden. What could go wrong? Nothing I say, nothing. I'm really proud of my work. But let's begin, shall we? Do mind there are countless amounts of different ways to make a Mojito, this was mine.

• 5 cl white rum
• 1 tablespoon simple syrup
• ½ lime cut in four pieces
• ~12 mint leaves and a sprig for decoration
• crushed ice
• club soda

Gently slam the mint leaves on your palm and drop them in the glass. Add the simple syrup and gently press the mint leaves in order to release their oils. Don't shred, press. Add in the lime cuts and muddle them as well. Fill the glass ½ way with crushed ice and pour in the rum. With the help of the bar spoon mix the ingredients in the glass. Fill the glass with crushed again and top it off with club soda. Add a sprig of mint for decoration, pop a few straws in the glass and enjoy.

Cointreau Fizz

Cointreau Fizz

Another perfect summer drink that has been tested already! Introducing the Cointreau Fizz. A perfect mix of both sweet and sour, getting a bottle of Cointreau just for these is worth the trouble!

• 5 cl Cointreau (triple sec)
• half a lime
• 10 cl club soda (carbonated water [not mineral water])

Cut the lime half into four pieces and muddle them in the glass. Then fill the glass with crushed ice, pour in the Cointreau and soda. Give the drink a few gentle stirs so the ingredients properly mix and top the cocktail with more ice, if needed. Add a straw and if you want to garnish this, a lime wedge will do just fine.

I didn't have a soda streamer so I had to get myself a bottle of fancy-ass carbonated water...you could substitute it with mineral water (pellegrino for instance), but the cocktail will soak in flavors from it. Thus if all able, prefer club soda.

Just let the sunshine in...

The Iron Curtain

The Iron Curtain

Warning! An Iron Curtain has been detected!

  

- Real WWIII advisor

I finally got around doing the Iron Curtain, a "soviet" buddy for the Allies' Cronosphere. I actually made a little sketch of this drink before as shown here:

My initial idea was that I would use Stolichnaya vodka, crushed ice, either tonic, soda or such and pomegranate seeds to create a swindling/wavy effect. Of course the drink had to be red of some sort, so a red liquor was needed to achieve that.

The setup:

• 4 cl Stolichnaya
• 4 cl cranberry liquor
• Mineral water
• Pomegranate seeds (according to "taste") 
• crushed ice

First, I scraped the seeds off the fruit (which was a messy job) and put them on a small plate. In a high ball glass, add the stoli, crushed ice, top it off with the water then added the seeds on top. I finished the drink with the cranberry liquor, put a swizzle stick and gave it a good stir. Finally I included a largish straw.

The outcome:

Frankly, this drink didn't really cut it. In any aspect, really. Taste-wise very mild with only slight cranberry notes. As for the seeds, they weren't worth the time either. I had fun with the cocktail as a "concept" and brainstorm this cocktail on a sheet of paper but the end result was a disappointment. 

But I made it, nonetheless.

PS. It didn't turn me invulnerable.

Americano

AMERICANO

Americano, 2012

Americano, 2013

Unlike Yolanda Be Cool and producer DCUP, today we do speak Americano! This is one of the more famous aperitifs so I had to give it a go. As I have mentioned earlier that I am not a big fan of bitter cocktails, especially those with Campari, but I just had to try this one and see if it lived up to its name.

First of all, what you need is:

• 3 cl Campari
• 3 cl Sweet Red Vermouth (Martini Rosso)
• Club soda
• An orange slice for garnish

Fill a tumbler (on-the-rocks-glass) with ice, pour both the campari and vermouth in the glass and top it off with club soda. Add a slice of orange for garnish.

That's it! As for the taste, I was a bit on the fence on this one. The club soda took most of the campari's edge off so it wasn't too bitter for my taste. The vermouth's sweetness gave this definite pre-dinner cocktail a nice touch, I admit. Just like the Campari Orange Passion I made a little while back, this cocktail had that sweetness which in my opinion helped a lot in making me like this drink. They're also super easy to make for a larger group of people, say as a beginning of an evening meal so I give the Americano a big thumbs up!

Some say Campari at its finest, I say close, but no cigar.