11:59… Last-Minute Party Cocktails

Basic champagne flute

If you have procrastinated (like the GrogDog has with her New Year’s Eve post) and are looking for last-minute party cocktails for New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, try a champagne cocktail bar! All you need are sparkling wine (which includes prosecco, champagne, or any other wine with bubbles) and a few basic additions. Chill the wine, put the juices and liqueurs on a long table, buffet-style, and let your guests mix their own festive concoctions!

The traditional Champagne Cocktail is made from Angostura bitters, a sugar cube, and sparkling wine. Put the sugar cube in the bottom of a champagne flute, soak it with a few drops of bitters, and top with the wine. (If you’re feeling particularly fancy, add a lemon twist as garnish.)

The Mimosa is a basic sparkling cocktail made with orange juice (a Tablespoon or two, to your taste) in a flute, topped with sparkling wine.

The Kir Royale is similar to a Mimosa, but uses Chambord raspberry liqueur in place of the orange juice. (A traditional Kir uses creme de cassis instead of Chambord, in case you’re curious.)

Working off these three basic cocktails, you can offer guests choice of flavors from ingredients you may already have, or can easily obtain.

This is a good time to reach to the back of the bar and dust off any fruity or herbal/botanical liqueurs you have on hand. Curacao, Chambord, and other fruit-based liqueurs will add flavor and in some cases bright color to your sparkling cocktail. Herbal liqueurs like St-Germain (elderflower), Domaine de Canton (ginger), and Chartreuse (made from a secret herb recipe) can be an acquired taste, but are delicious ingredients if you like those flavors.

You can also offer a selection of fruit juices, like pomegranate, cranberry, pineapple, and orange or blood orange so your guests can enjoy variations on the Mimosa. Don’t forget to pick up sugar cubes and Angostura bitters for those who want a traditional Champagne Cocktail!

The great thing about the champagne cocktail bar is that you can set one up without spending a lot of time or money.

It’s not worth splurging on an expensive sparkling wine when it’s going to be mixed with liqueurs or juices, which will affect the taste and texture (amount of bubbles). Prosecco – Italian sparkling wine – is generally inexpensive and slightly sweet, so it’s a great choice for mixing. In my experience, however, Prosecco has “softer” bubbles than French or American sparklers, so if you’re looking for something with a lot of fizz, go for the California sparkling wines.

For more on how the bubbles get into the wine, and which methods are used for which type of sparkling wine, check this Wiki entry.

Happy New Year from GrogDogBlog!

That Warm, Red Glow…

It could be the festive Christmas lights or Santa’s snow-chilled cheeks, but at GrogDogBlog that warm, red glow means Maker’s Mark bourbon! The GrogDogs recently attended a wonderful evening of Maker’s Mark cocktails and fellowship with local Maker’s Mark Ambassadors at the County Cork Wine Pub in Eldersburg, Md. World Whiskey Specialist Ryan Lyles (yes, that’s a real job, and I am envious of it) provided a wee taste of Maker’s 46 in a souvenir wax-dipped glass as well as some education about Maker’s 46 and what makes it so special. (Hint: It’s in the barrel. See that nicely charred stave in the photo? It smells amazing!)

Maker’s 46 ages in charred French oak barrels for intensified vanilla and caramel flavors.

While true GrogDogs enjoy just about any spirit that makes a good cocktail, I’ve been a Maker’s Mark Ambassador for many years, and it’s my go-to bourbon for mixing, cooking, or just plain drinking. (Maker’s 46, the longer-aged version, I save for special occasions.)

The County Cork Wine Pub offered a light buffet featuring – what else? – Meatballs in (MM!) Bourbon Sauce and other delicious noshes to accompany the featured Maker’s cocktails: Old Fashioned, Manhattan, Mint Julep, Side Car, Maker’s Mule, Kentucky Coffee, Maker’s (non-egg) Nog, and Maker’s Hot Cider. Here’s one recipe as provided by the excellent County Cork bartender:

Side Car – 1 oz Maker’s Mark, 1/2 oz triple sec, 1/2 oz fresh lemon juice. Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Check back for more recipes soon, and in the meantime, enjoy that warm, red glow throughout the holiday season!

TGIF Cocktail of the Week

This week’s TGIF cocktail of the week is the Pisco Sour! While pisco is not one of the foundational spirits, it is an affordable*, light, distilled spirit made from grapes that makes a smooth, citrusy Sour to help you transition from workday to weekend. The froth of egg white gives the sweet-tart drink a rich mouthfeel, and a dash of Angostura bitters on top adds character. What’s nice about a Pisco Sour is that you can (depending on your tolerance) indulge in more than one without making your dinner companions wish you’d excuse yourself before dessert.

The Pisco Sour is 1-1/2 oz pisco, 1 oz fresh lime juice (about 1/2 lime), 1 oz simple syrup, 1 oz pasteurized egg white. Shake ingredients with ice for at least 20 seconds to maximize froth – you want plenty of air to get into the egg white. Pour into a short glass (tilt the shaker gently back and forth as you pour to keep the ice from blocking the liquid). Top with a dash of Angostura bitters. Using the point of a knife, swirl the bitters into a pretty design and be a true BAR-ista!

*Note: The pisco pictured is a top-shelf version and was more expensive than I would normally use, but in my defense, it was on sale. There are less costly brands that taste equally good, so remember to check the middle shelf first. 😉

 

 

Decadent Delivery!

Now you can order party “reinforcements” (1:35) just like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s!

Delivery services in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, The Hamptons, Ithaca (NY), or Westchester (NY), will bring the goods to you and keep your guests happy throughout the evening. They’ll restock your bar in as little as 30 minutes, though they don’t say whether that timeframe comes with a guarantee…

More Bar Basics – Juices, Mixers, and Liqueurs

In my last post I offered a list of basic spirits that will serve you and your guests well. But drinkers do not live by spirits alone, for the most part, and everyone enjoys a little variety. So what else should you keep on hand so you can have a delicious cocktail any day of the week?

Fresh lemons and limes and oranges are great, though you’re the only one who will know if you use bottled juice. (I keep bottles on hand myself, in case my fruit goes bad or I just don’t feel like squeezing. Purists will damn me for it, but whose drink is it anyway?) You can get larger bags of citrus at a warehouse store like Costco, and if you drink a cocktail or two a day (or several on weekends), you will generally use them up before they turn brown or grow mold. A half-lemon or half-lime produces around 1 oz of juice, but if you’re OK with your cocktail being on the tart side, don’t get too precise: just squeeze in half the fruit and get on with it. Thus one lemon or lime makes two drinks, which is probably more than your doctor would be happy about, but at least you can tell him you’re adding fresh juice to your diet.

Mixers: Tonic water, club soda, ginger ale. I don’t use tonic or ginger ale much, so I spend a bit more on the six-pack of tiny bottles so I don’t waste it. I can make about two Gin & Tonics from one of those little bottles, which makes for a nice happy hour. But I go through gallons of club soda (because I also drink it straight), so I pick up the 5-for-$4 liter-bottle deal at my local supermarket. If you use them often, keep your mixers in the fridge – you will not enjoy the watery result when room-temp soda hits the ice. My policy is one-out, one-in, so I always have at least one chilled bottle on hand.

Bitters: Angostura bitters are readily available at supermarkets and are used to add some depth and (obviously) a slightly bitter flavor to many of the common sweet cocktails. It’s tempting to look at the per-ounce price and go for the large bottle, but until you have a reason to shell out for that much (like, you’re writing a cocktail blog and do a lot of taste-testing), just buy the small one. You’ll only use a few drops at a time, and the small bottle will last a good while.

I also recommend orange (or blood orange) bitters, which are stocked at most larger liquor stores. There are several classic cocktails that call for them, and you don’t want to miss out on a more complex flavor for want of a simple ingredient.

Vermouth: Keep a small bottle each of red (sweet) and a white (dry) vermouth. If you tend to drink Manhattans or Negronis frequently (recipes below!) and know you’ll use it up, go for the larger size. But this is an inexpensive, widely available ingredient, so just restock when you need it.

Campari: I have used a surprising amount of Campari since I started drinking cocktails. It’s a bitter herbal liqueur that’s shockingly red in color, which makes an attractive drink. I used to think it tasted like cough syrup (and it does, somewhat), but it makes a very nice balance to vermouth and other sweet flavorings. It can be an acquired taste, so pick up a small bottle at first, and experiment with the proportion of Campari-to-sweetness in your Negroni or Boulevardier. You may find you enjoy it more than you expected.

Other liqueurs: I happen to like Chartreuse and St-Germain (floral/herb-based liqueurs), and I keep 750ml bottles in my bar because I use them. But many specialty liqueurs are available in small sizes or even miniatures behind the counter at your neighborhood liquor store, so you can sample something new without shelling out for a huge bottle that may end up gathering dust. (More recipes to come in future posts using those and other “exotic” ingredients!)

Garnishes: Ordinarily I don’t bother with garnishes because they seem a little high-maintenance for a drink you just want to sip while heating leftover spaghetti and catching up on the evening news. But there is a science behind their use, and I’ll get into that in a future post.

RECIPES! I referred to a few cocktails above, so here are the recipes that use many of the ingredients in this post.

Manhattan: 1 oz each whiskey (preferably rye) and sweet vermouth, with a dash of Angostura bitters. Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Boulevardier: 1 oz each bourbon, sweet vermouth, and Campari, stirred in a short glass with ice.

If a Manhattan or Boulevardier is a little too sweet for you, you may enjoy the Old Pal: 1 oz each whiskey, dry vermouth, and Campari, stirred in a short glass with ice.

If you like your Boulevardier on the bitter side, you could expand your repertoire to the more astringent Negroni: 1 oz each gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari, stirred in a short glass with ice.

The ice helps blend and smooth out the flavors in each drink, and the slight chill is reviving.

Now you have a choice of four simple cocktails to help your no-hassle transitions from workday to evening. Cheers!