December 3, 2011 – Germantown, WI
Last Saturday was the kickoff to the holiday season for me. The decorations are all up (we’ll, OK, I’m still putting the finishing touches on the Twilight Lounge decor) and our first holiday party of the season was Saturday night.
Of course, I had to come up with Christmas themed cocktail to take for us to imbibe. I seem to have a thing for green cocktails at Christmas, so when I stumbled upon a cocktail called the Grinch it seemed like a natural. It called for Midori (very green indeed), lemon juice and bar syrup. So I mixed up a batch and….waaaaaay to sweet. The Midori is sweet enough as it is and with the additional bar syrup, well, there was just no way I’d be able to sip these all night long. Factor in that Midori is only 40 proof and I knew I just had to do something. And what was that something? Vodka!
The Grinch
- 1 oz vodka
- 1 oz Midori liqueur
- 1/2 oz lemon juice
- 1/8 oz bar syrup
Combine the ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake, shake, shake. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a maraschino cherry.
Alternatively, you can just pour this, ice and all, into a rocks glass. In that case, just double all the ingredients and you’ll be good to go.
This turned out to be a nice holiday sipper – not to sweet, not too boozy, but just right. The melon flavor of the Midori is cut down by the vodka and lemon and is in the background instead of in your face. Of course, the green color certainly matches the Grinch’s face, and the cherry is a nice reminder that his heart went from two sizes too small to two sizes too big!
Chears!