Malibu Rum – It’s Still for Chicks

The Twilight Lounge – February 12, 2017

I wonder, if my bottle of Malibu was that big, would I have girls like that coming over all the time?

Unfortunately my bottle isn’t that big, and it’s been sitting in my liquor cabinet for far too long, leftover from a previous party.  I finally decided I’d need to drink it since the Malibu girls still haven’t come by.  The difficulty is that I don’t like coconut flavors or Malibu.  So what to do?

I realized I’d need to essentially mask the flavor of the Malibu.  I know, that is an anthema to what I typically do when creating cocktails, but it was the only way I’d be able to drink it.  The first decision was what to use for juice.  Orange or cranberry would have been the easy choices.  Pineapple made sense, but I thought that might be too sweet.  While perusing the juice aisle at the local grocery store I stumbled upon a blend of mango, pineapple and orange juice that sounded intriguing.  So into my cart it went and I was on my way.

Back at the Twilight Lounge it time to put a cocktail together.  I had my Malibu and I had my juice.  I could have just done the rum and juice (my apologies to Snoop Dogg), but that was pretty bland and a bit sweet.  After a little tinkering and a couple of trials, here’s what I came up with:

Snoop Dogg

• 1-1/2 oz Malibu rum
• 1/8 oz lime juice
• 3-4 dashes Bittercube Blackstrap Bitters
• mango pineapple orange juice
• soda water

Add the Malibu, lime juice and bitters to a collins glass and stir to mix.  Fill the glass with ice and then add a 50/50 mix of the juice and soda water.  Stir and garnish with a lime slice.

This is a nice, refreshing cocktail that I and the Malibu girls can enjoy.  The taste of the Malibu is barely discernable and the bitters add a nice, smokey depth to the drink.  The lime juice helps cut the sweet factor of the juice.  This will be a nice way to finish off my bottle of Malibu!

Cheers!

Melon Patch

The Twilight Lounge – February 25, 2012

A quiet evening at home after the week in Vegas is just what I needed last Saturday.  A couple of movies and cocktails were the order of the day.  However, I wasn’t content to have the same ‘ol same ‘ol, so I started rooting around in the Twilight Lounge amongst the drink recipes.  What caught my eye was this little number called the Melon Patch (yeah, I know, they caught your eye too, didn’t they?).  With vodka as its base, I knew it would be strong enough for me, yet with melon flavored Midori and orange flavored Cointreau, I knew that Gwen would also enjoy it.

  Melon Patch

• 1-1/2 oz Midori
• 3/4 oz Cointreau
• 3/4 oz vodka
• soda water

 

In a shaker with ice combine everything but the soda water and shake.  Pour, ice and all, into a rocks glass and top with soda water.

The vodka and soda water do a nice job of cutting the sweetness of the Midori and Cointreau, leaving a nice, refreshing cocktail.  The combination of the flavors evokes a hint of bananna along with the orange and melon flavors of the liqueurs.  This one would be perfect for warm summer evenings or pool side on a hot day.  It’s a good thing summer isn’t that far away!

Cheers!

The New Old Fashioned Way

The Twilight Lounge – February 3, 2012

Friday night was movie night around here and I had selected Patton to watch.  This definitely called for a cocktail, and I was in the mood for something new and different.  I also had a taste for St. Germain, so I went to their website to see what the had and found the Elder Fashion.  A twist on the Old Fashioned, and very straightforward to make, I decided to give it a whirl.

The original recipe called for rye whiskey, St. Germain and Angostura bitters, garnished with an orange slice.  I made the first one that way, but it wasn’t quite what I wanted – it was missing the orange/cherry components of the Old Fashioned.  So when I mixed up the second one I used orange bitters rather than Angostura.  That hit the spot!  I’ve always enjoyed the flavor of rye whiskey with orange bitters, and the St. Germain gave just the right level of sweet and that hint of elderflower.

  Elder Fashion

• 3 oz Old Overholt rye whiskey
• 1/2 oz St. Germain
• 1 dash orange bitters

In a rocks glass combine all the ingredients and stir.  Add 3-4 ice cubes or an ice ball, garnish with an orange twist and serve.

Much simpler to make than an Old Fashioned and just as tasty!  Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Cheers!

This Is Not Your Mother’s Attic

April 25, 2011 – Toledo, OH

Ok, stepping back a bit here, to Monday, April 25th.  One of my new colleagues took me to The Attic on Adams for dinner and a couple of cocktails.  Dive bar was the first description that came to mind as we walked up the outdoor stairs to the Attic.  It’s situated on Adams Street above Mano’s Greek Restaurant.  A large bar open to both sides of the room dominated the main bar area and there’s also a pool table in a side room.  New twists on traditional pub fare were on the menu, but what really caught my eye were the homemade infused vodkas.

Now I know, and before you go all postal on me, yes, I usually don’t like flavored vodkas.  But when it’s homemade flavored vodka, all bets are off.  And the Attic’s vodkas are both good and creative!  At the suggestion of our bartender, the effervescent Amelia, I started with a homemade apple – watermelon infused vodka that was served with lemonade and ginger ale, garnished with a lime.

  

Delicious is the only way to describe this cocktail.  Light, refreshing with the apple and watermelon clearly coming through.  It was fruity without being sweet and the kind of cocktail I could drink all day by the pool during the summer.  Amelia was dead on with this one!

Since she did such a good job with the first I was ready to follow her recommendation for the second cocktail of the evening.  This drink featured the Attic’s homemade salsa vodka.  That’s right, salsa vodka.  It was vodka infused with tomato, garlic, jalapeno, onion and cilantro.  It is served with pineapple juice and just a splash of lime juice and orange juice.

Damn, this was fantastic!  I wanted to grab a bowl of tortilla chips and dig in!  The salted rim (done at my suggestion) really finished off the presentation of this cocktail.  It truly tasted like liquid salsa – with a punch! 

If you find yourself near downtown Toledo, take the time to find the Attic and try one of their homemade flavored vodkas.  You won’t be disappointed.  I know they’ve inspired me to try some of my own this summer.

Death and Taxes

Day 356, Cocktail 359

Tax season is over!  Hopefully you’re getting a modest refund.  If you wrote a check, well, you have my sympathy!

To celebrate the end of the tax season I pulled out a recipe from Colleen Graham’s blog that she had published a week or so ago.  How could I resist something called the Income Tax Cocktail?  This is basically a Bronx cocktail with the addition of bitters – perhaps indicative of the bitter pill paying taxes is?  We’ll never know for sure as the actual origins of this drink don’t seem to be known, at least not that I could find.  So let’s give this a try and see how it comes out.

  Income Tax

• 2 oz gin
• 1 oz orange juice
• 1/4 oz sweet vermouth
• 1/4 oz dry vermouth
• 2 dashes Agnostura bitters

Combine everything in a shaker with ice and shake, shake, shake.  Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish, if desired, with an orange peel.

It was…alright.  Kinda’ like doing taxes, I’m more relieved to be done with this than enjoying the actual cocktail.  The sweet vermouth dominates the flavor, most likely because the Agnostura bitters are playing right into sweet vermouth at the expense of the other ingredients.  Kinda’ like our government, huh?

Cheers!

Fireflies and Klaviers

Day 354, Cocktails 357 & 358

Friday night and both Gwen and I were ready for a fun evening.  I had been in Texas for the bulk of the week and it was hectic getting started up on the new job.  It had also been a busy week for Gwen with lots of activities for the girls that had to be taken care of.  So when Friday rolled around we were ready to celebrate our birthdays in style (Gwen’s is coming up next week). 

Our first stop of the evening was the Firefly Urban Bar + Grill for dinner (using my trusty Groupon!) and a drink.  Firefly is located in Wauwatos and has a very hip and slightly upscale vibe – so definately wear your best t-shirt when you go, as the one of the girls at the table next to us did.  The food is varied and ranges from appetizers to sandwiches to full dinners that are twists on traditional comfort type foods.  The pork chops that we both ordered were good, and the speciality cocktails were very good.  Gwen had the White Cosmopolitan, which I won’t report on (since I only tasted it) while I went with the Metaxa Side Car.  Consisting of Metaxa, a greek brandy that is a blend of brandy and wine, Patron Citronage, orange and lemon juice, this was a very nice, mellow cocktail.  It’s flavors were multilayered with the orange and just a hint of lemon made dark, silky and almost chocolatey by the Metaxa, with a hint of the Patron lurking in the background.  Very smooth and not too sweet but not boozy either.  I definately recommend this cocktail if you visit Firefly.

After dinner we headed back to Germantown and stopped by the Klavier Lounge.  We both had their special for the night, a Berry Mojito.  Consisting of Bacardi Dragon Berry rum, simple syrup, grapefruit, lime and garnished with a mint sprig this was propietor Kris Peters’ twist on the classic mojito.  This cocktail had a nice, sweet flavor that goes over big with the girls.  I also enjoyed mine, but one was enough for me on the sweet scale and I moved on the a Rusty Nail and then Monterrey Mules for the rest of the night.  As usual though, it was a lively time at the Klavier and we enjoyed ourselves immensely!

Cheers!

The Big 50

Day 346, Cocktails 353 & 354

If there’s one disadvantage to heading to my local hangout, Ivee’s on Main, for my 50th birthday it was that most of the guys there know me.  So when the offered to set me up with a stripper, I should have run, and run fast.  Crap, they couldn’t even come up with an ugly girl, instead settling for an ugly cross dresser.  I guess they figured after the shooters that I had been plied with I wouldn’t notice the difference.  But I did…

As for those shooters, two that I had were new and worthy of reporting here.  The first was an Ivee’s staple, the Cherry Bomb.  Very simple, really.

  Cherry Bomb

• 1 oz Dr. Macgillicuddy’s Cherry Schnapps
• 1 oz Red Bull

Mix them together in a shooter glass and down the hatch!

This is actually not too bad a shooter.  It is very sweet and picks up the unique Red Bull taste.  And it goes down very easy!

The second shooter I had that night worth mentioning is the Lunchbox

  Lunchbox

• 1 oz beer
• 1 oz orange juice
• 1 oz amaretto

Mix the beer and orange juice in a rocks glass.  Pour the amaretto into a shot glass.  Drop the shot glass with the amaretto into the rocks glass and then drink it down.

While the mix of ingredients sounds relatively gross, the combination works well.  The sweet orange juice and nutty amaretto combine nicely and the beer gives it a bit more bite.  And it’s not quite as deadly as an Irish Car Bomb (which was also consumed that night!)

So there you go, two shooters to celebrate your next birthday with!

Cheers!

Kevin’s 40th Birthday Bash

Day 328, Cocktail 334

Last Saturday our friend Jenny threw a surprise 40th birthday party for her husband Kevin.  They had just finished their basement, including a nice bar set up.  Naturally, our gift to Kevin was a variety of barware and a bottle of vodka, Cointreau, some ginger beer, lemons and limes.  To go with this starter package was a list of four cocktails that could be made from the box.  On that list were the Moscow Mule, Kamikaze, Lemon Drop and Caipiroska.  Another advantage of inviting me and Gwen to the party is that you get a built in bartender!

I actually started out the evening sticking with the Moscow Mule, which I’ve had before is in the index.  Simple and straightforward, it is the cocktail that turned America into a vodka drinkers in the 1940’s.  Using ginger beer instead of ginger ale really makes this a treat!  However, after a couple of the mules (and a Cincinnati loss to UConn in the tournament) I was ready for something different and tried out the Lemon Drop.

  Lemon Drop

• 1-1/2 oz vodka
• 1 oz Cointreau
• 1-1/2 oz lemon juice
• 1/2 oz orange juice

Rub the edge of a chilled cocktail glass with a lemon wedge and then rim with sugar.  Combine the ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake, shake, shake to chill and combine.  Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

I used Luksusowa, a good Polish potato vodka.  This is a nice, girly cocktail, with the lemon and orange flavors sweetening the vodka.  If you like Cosmopolitans then you will like this one as well.

A word about vodka.  Please, please, please, don’t overspend on vodka!  You can easily spend $40 to $50 on premium vodkas.  However, unless you are a master distiller who has spent a lifetime tasting and comparing distilled spirits, you will not be able to distinguish the difference between a $20 vodka and a $50 vodka.  If you want to keep one premium around, and in the freezer, for shots (which I sometimes do), that’s fine.  My current selection of vodka includes two premiums, Grey Goose (given to me as a gift) and Chopin (purchased on sale for $30, $20 off the regular price).  The rest of my vodka selection is Sobieski and Luksusowa, both value priced at around $20 for a 1.75L. 

Cheers!

St. Patrick’s Day

Day 326, Cocktails 330, 331 & 332

Ahh, it was finally here.  The day that separates the professionals from the amateurs.  The day that is our biggest excuse to consume prodigious quantities of alcohol (as if Wisconsinites needed an excuse).  The day that is always 65 plus degrees in the middle of freakin’ March (yep, its true – at least for the last three years).  And finally, the day I do the all day St. Patrick’s Day Pub Crawl with Mike and Brett (even though Brett bombed out on us this year). 

Mike and I got a relatively late start, getting to Bub’s Irish Pub in Germantown at about 7am.  Not only is Bub’s an Irish pub, but they are hardcore – the kind of place that has the count down clock to St. Paddy’s day going year round.  Erin (how appropriate) was our bartender (and no, that’s not her in the picture), and she was able to serve up two tasty Irish themed cocktails for my enjoyment.

The first was the Irish Float which consisted of Bailey’s Irish Cream, Captain Morgan rum and root beer (I believe it was Sprecher).  This was very tasty with a creamy consistency.  The root beer complimented the Bailey’s very nicely and, somewhat to my surprise, the Captain Morgan added a level of complexity that complemented the drink.  As Erin and I were talking cocktails I asked if she had added any chocolate liqueur to this to add more complexity.  She hadn’t, and, unfortunately didn’t have any.  However, Kahlua often lends chocolate notes, so we tried and splash of that and it did add a nice chocolate dimension as a variant of her original drink.

The second of Erin’s drinks at Bub’s was called an Irish Flag and was served as a shooter.  This consisted of green Creme de Menthe, Bailey’s Irish Cream and Midori.  The color turns out to be the minty green of mint chocolate chip ice cream, and so does the flavor, much to my delight.  This would be an excellent shooter to have around for next St. Patrick’s day or as a chilled shooter on a hot summer day out by the pool.

Our second stop of the day was the old Rusty’s in Richfield and is now something Ed’s.  In addition to the Irish Buck I sipped on there I also had my first corned beef meal of the day, opting for a deconstructed sandwich.  The beef was very tender and tasty and complimented the Irish Buck.

Our third stop was Sheryl’s Place in Ackerman.  Nikki was our barmaid (yes, that is her in the picture, holding my Twilight Lounge business card, if you can pull your eyes away from her shamrocks) and she sold us on a cocktail with the delightful name of Leprechaun Piss.  Now, I’ve never had leprechaun piss before, so if it really tastes like this, then it’s not half bad.  Not great, but not bad either.  It consists of Island Punch Pucker, UV orange, 7 up and sour mix.  The color is this iridescent green that looks like it might have leaked out of the cooling system of your car.  Fortunately, it did taste better than that!

After finishing our piss and leaving some of our own behind it was on our ultimate destination for the day, the Tally Ho in Erin (the town, not the bartender).  The Tally Ho sets up a couple of tents and draws hundreds after the Erin parade, especially with the weather as mild as it was.  At this point I pretty much stuck to … well, I’m not sure what I stuck to.  Mike was driving, so I didn’t worry too much about it.  I do know that I stopped taking notes and just concentrated on having fun and not falling down (which is more than I can say for some of the folks who were there). 

So there’s the St. Patrick’s day report – and I promise, no more Irish drinks until next March!

Cheers!

Tiki Night at the Twilight Lounge

Day 321, Cocktails 324 & 325

Patti and Gwen were out shopping Saturday when Gwen texted me “Patti wants to know if the bar is open?”.  Of course the Twilight Lounge is open!  If I’m awake (even at 2 pm on a Saturday afternoon) then the Lounge is open. 

So when the girls arrived I busted open a couple of tiki cocktails on them.  Hey, it was sunny and almost 40, which passes for spring around these parts.  I could see the tiki torches in mind, and in a few short weeks I’ll see them for real around the Patio Lounge and Swim Club.

My first cocktail was the Trader Woody, which is yet another TikiBar TV recipe (and is pictured above).

  Trader Woody

• 2 oz dark rum
• 1 oz amaretto
• 1 oz pineapple juice
• 1 oz orange juice
• dash of lime juice

Combine all the ingredients in a shaker with ice.  Shake, shake, shake to combine and chill.  Strain into a tiki glass and add cracked ice to fill the glass.

For this drink I used my Appleton Estate V/X rum and the Disaronno amaretto.  It’s a nice, basic tiki style drink with the rum and pineapple being the dominant flavors.  There’s a bit of nuttiness that normally would be provided by orgeat in this thanks to the amaretto.  By the time I was done with this I was thinking mai tai junior.

Patti and Gwen approve of the Trader Woody

The second cocktail is courtesy of Beach Bum Jerry’s Intoxica recipe book.  Called the Cesar’s Rum Punch, it was created by Joseph Cesar, the head bartender of the Grand Hotel Oloffson in Haiti in the 1960’s.  During its heyday in the ’70’s you could find Mick and Bianca Jagger, Michael York and other assorted celebrities at the bar.  Your first Cesar’s Punch was on the house, accompanied by the warning “You won’t like it here.”  Let’s see how we like it at the Twilight Lounge!

  Cesar’s Rum Punch

• 2 oz dark rum
• 2 oz lime juice
• 1 oz grenadine
• 1/8 oz bar syrup
• 3 dashes Angostura bitters

Combine the ingredients in a shaker with ice cubes.  Shake, shake, shake to mix and chill.  Strain into a tiki glass filled with crushed ice.  Garnish with a pineapple wedge, maraschino cherry, lime and orange wheels speared together with a mint sprig.

The original recipe called for Rhum Barbancourt, which I did not have, so I substituted in my Appleton Reserve V/X.  I’m not sure that it makes that much difference as this has an almost overwhelming lime presence at first, followed by the fruitiness of the grenadine and then the rum.  And when I say overwhelming, I mean it.  This was in your face lime taste, although there was enough grenadine and bar syrup to tone down the sour component of the lime.  Overall, a fun drink, and it does break the typical tiki flavors of rum and pineapple.

After two tiki drinks the girls and I were in the mood for something different, and the night was still young (who am I kidding, it was still afternoon!).  So for the next two drinks you’ll just have to wait for the next post!

Cheers!