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Cocktail of the Week | Harvested Apple

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As we continue to seek out the delights of autumn, finding an autumnal themed cocktail that in not just about apples is not the easiest thing! That said, we did find one from Williams-Sonoma that was all about the apple and looked good enough to tempt us trying. After rummaging through the bar we found the ingredients we needed to make this week’s Cocktail of the Week, the Harvested Apple.

The key ingredient in this cocktail is Calvados. This is essentially an apple brandy that comes from Normandy region in France. We did bring back a bottle from our recent trip to France for Rich’s Dad (just don’t tell him we pinched some). Calvados is first recorded as being made in 1553. Over the centuries the drink has been subjected to taxation and prohibition. The production was important enough to the French that the area it is made in was called Calvados after the French Revolution; this is likely to be as the locals were already calling it this. World War II had an impact on the production of the drink where many factories were rebuilt. It also became the regimental drink of three Canadian regiments who passed through the area following the D-Day landings.

For this week’s cocktail you will need;

Champagne
1 measure Calvados
½ measure Elderflower Liquor
Thin slice of apple
Sprig of thyme

Take a champagne coop and add the elderflower followed by the calvados and top the glass up with the chilled champagne. Drop the slice of apple into the glass and give it a stir with the thyme leaving the spring in the glass. Once settled, you the cocktail of the week, the Harvested Apple.

The cocktail is a great way to enjoy the start of the autumn season. It has a great apple undertone and could be very easy to enjoy two or three of these!

29th September 2016

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Cocktail of the Week | Rhubarb and Rosehip Mimosa

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On a recent trip to Ikea, we did our usual thing and had a look through the food section of the store. In addition to our usual purchases, we found a bottle of rosehip juice. It has a great colour and we both thought it would be great to include in a cocktail. The next challenge was to work out a cocktail that we could use it for. We spent some time trying to figure this one out but came across the idea of mimosa’s that seemed to fit the bill. Adding in the rhubarb we came up with the Cocktail of the Week, the Rhubarb and Rosehip Mimosa.

A mimosa is traditionally made with equal parts of orange juice and champagne. It can be made with any fruit juice and identified by the name, for example, a grapefruit mimosa. The drink was invented as a drink around 1925 at the Hotel Ritz in Paris. Mimosas are now usually found at brunch, wedding receptions and when travelling first class.

For this week’s cocktail; you will need:

Champagne
1 measure Rosehip Juice
2 tsp Rhubarb Liquor

In a glass add the rhubarb liquor. You can use any suitable tall glass for this cocktail. The Add the rosehip and then the champagne to fill the glass. Once you have done that, you have this week’s cocktail, the Rhubarb and Rosehip Mimosa.

Given the ease of making this drink, it is understandable why it is used when a drink is needed to produce en mass. It is also a versatile drink to enjoy first thing in the morning or as an early evening drink. The only thing we ask is that you go for the adventure and try a Mimosa that doesn’t have orange juice. It is definitely another one to add to the list of quick and easy cocktails.

22nd September 2016

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Cocktail of the Week | Plum Sour

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As we are now in mid September, our thoughts have started to turn to autumn. Our first cocktail of autumn is making the best of the plums that are now in season. For our Cocktail of the Week we decided to go for a change from the sweet, summer inspired cocktails. We wanted to try something that could be enjoyed in the last of the sun or next to an outdoor fire. We found this one from Difford’s Guide that fitted the bill, the Plum Sour.

The Plum Sour is originally a Japanese cocktail made with sake that has evolved over many years. It falls into the sours family of cocktails. Sours were the original cocktail and classic sours, such as the margarita, kamikaze and the daiquiri can be dated back to the 1860s. The Plum Sour made its leap across from the East some time during the early 20th Century as more Japanese people moved across the world, taking the mix with them and finding an alternative to the sake to create the drink.

For this week’s cocktail, you will need:

1 fresh plum
1 plum piece for garnish
2 measures of vodka
1 measure of fresh lemon juice
½ measure of sugar syrup
½ a fresh egg white
ice

Take the plum and roughly chop it into small pieces. Use a muddler to crush the fruit into a mush. Add a good amount of ice to the shaker and add the remaining ingredients. Give the mix a good shake to cool it well. Take a glass and add some ice before pouring the cocktail in. Add the plum garnish and there you have our cocktail of the week, the Plum Sour.

If you like a sour drink, this is a good cocktail to enjoy. The egg white did make it a slightly unusual drink and something we would probably leave out if we made it again. We would also use sweeter plums to draw out a stronger plum taste.

15th September 2016

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Cocktail of the Week | Margarita

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We have been doing the cocktail of the week for a few months now and are just making a dent in the spirit collection! It seems Calum did spend much time buying spirits for no real reason! As it is now September and the last of the summer days are on us, we are squeezing the last out of them by wearing shorts and making typically summer cocktails. This week we went for a classic summer drink for Cocktail of the Week, the margarita!

The history of the margarita seems to hold many owners and no one theory or ownership sounds disputable. There are versions dating the cocktail back to 1938 and as recently as 1961 and appears to have been ‘inspired’ by many women, including Margarita Henkel, the daughter of a German Ambassador to Mexico or popularised by various people including the Hiltons (of the hotel fame). It is likely the drink comes from Mexico, although the Peggy Lee history myth has the drink coming from Texas. One thing for certain is that the drink under the name ‘margarita’ first appeared in Esquire magazine in December 1953. A cocktail called ‘Tequila Daisy’ appearing in 1930’s cocktail book, which could be an early contender for the drink as Daisy in Mexican is Margarita.

For this week’s cocktail, you will need;

2 measure tequila
1 measure triple sec
1 measure lime juice
salt

To make the cocktail, pour the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice and shake. Once you have done that, take a plate and pour some salt on to it. Take the glass and place the rim in a few millimeters of water before placing the glass in the salt to rim the glass. Carefully place some ice in the glass without knocking off the salt and pour in the mixed drink. Garnish with a lime and you have the cocktail of the week, a Margarita.

In recent years there has been a desire for frozen margarita’s and we can safely say this is a better version of the cocktail. The lime cuts through the tequila giving you a refreshing drink perfect to soak up the last of the sun!

8th September 2016

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How to host a British Tea Party

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We make no bones about this, we are very proud to be British! This year marked The Queen’s 90th Birthday which was cause for celebration. Also, Team GB did amazingly well at the Olympics. If we gloss over the mess that is politics it is a good year to be a Brit! With a patriotic spring in our step, we decided to celebrate with British tea party!

Traditionally tea would include sandwiches and scones, but we decided to head straight for the good stuff, cake! We made a Victoria Sponge with blackberry and blueberry jam. Our second cake was a batch of lemon and poppy seed mini bundt cakes (using this awesome Nordic Ware cake tin). Finishing off our trio of cakes was the Hummingbird Bakery recipe for Strawberry Cheesecake cupcakes.

To set the table we used a mix match of red white and blue crockery. Our blue crockery is the willow pattern, we found a set at a charity shop and we love them. (The white plates are the Arv series from Ikea and the red plates are part of the Bosa range from Argos in case you were interested?). We have some lovely willow pattern cups and saucers, and we borrowed Rich mum’s teapot and cake stand in all their old-school glory.

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Cocktail of the Week | The Bee’s Knees

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On a recent trip to the Cinema, we stopped off at Bill’s beforehand to have some dinner. Whilst perusing their cocktail menu to gain a few ideas for the future cocktail of the week, we came across a cocktail called the Bee’s Knees. We were interested in this as every drink ordered; 25p is donated to the Royal Botanical Gardens campaign to highlight the importance of bees. Whilst we were not in a cocktail mood that night, we did want to try it and took a sneaky pic. To be fair to the Kew Gardens and Bill’s collaboration project, we will still be donating to the Kew Gardens Hive project.

The bees knees cocktail is a gin based cocktail that dates back to the prohibition era in the 1920’s and 30’s where a ban on alcohol was in place. The phrase ‘bee’s knees’ was a colloquial term at the time for ‘the best’. The poor quality bathtub gin was mixed with citrus, honey and other mixes to improve the taste and hide the smell of the gin. The cocktail comes in various measures and combinations depending on where you ordered the drink, for ours, we stuck with the cocktail that came from Bill’s.

For this week’s cocktail, you will need;

1 measure of gin (bath tub gin is still available if you wish to have the authentic mix!)
2 tablespoons honey syrup
Juice of one lemon
Pink lemonade
Sprig of thyme

Firstly, to make the honey syrup, use the sugar syrup I describe before on the Raspberry Collins. Replace the sugar with the same quantity of honey. In a tumbler glass, add the gin, honey syrup and lemon over ice and stir. Fill the remainder of the glass with the pink lemonade. Add the sprig of thyme and you have the bee’s knees of our cocktail of the week the Bee’s Knees!

You can have this as a virgin cocktail and tastes the same without the gin, which is useful as it was designed to hide the taste of the gin! It is a good, flavoured cocktail and definitely one to try if you don’t like gin.

1st September 2016

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Creating a Summer Blue Table Theme

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We’ve got the summertime blues! Well we’ve got a gorgeous summer blue table theme, which is actually much better!

We recently celebrated Calum’s Birthday with a french themed dinner party for a dozen of our friends. I know it seems like we were celebrating his birthday for the whole of August, but we don’t see a problem with that, do you? Calum did a great job of being the chef for the evening, and Rich got on with laying the table and creating the vibe! We’ve got a good division of labour going on.

For our french inspired dinner, we decided to go with a Summer Blue Table Theme. We have a lot of blue and white bits and pieces about the place so it works well.

With 12 people for dinner, we had to borrow a couple of trestle tables to fit everyone in. These ugly tables are hidden under crisp white linens. To add interest we laid a beautiful blue ikat table runner down the centre, we picked this up from Sainsbury’s during our weekly shop, you wouldn’t believe it, would you? The table was set with mismatch crockery, mixing up blue willow pattern plates and a basic white plate. The napkins were a mixture of a white linen set and some repurposed tea towels from Ikea. The glassware is all a bit of a mix, we only have sets for up to eight people so we had to improvise with whatever odd glasses we can find about the house. Add in a couple of blue water bottles and we are halfway there.

For the flowers Rich ask his mum, a retired florist, to make up half a dozen small posies to run down the centre of the table, we mixed this in with some of our collection of blue and white ceramics. We found some vintage candle stick holders to give the scene a bit of elegance. A word of warning about using candles outdoors, dinner candles like this can only be used on the stillest of days, as soon a the wind gets up you will end up with the candles being blow out, and getting wax everywhere!

Lastly, Rich likes to print out a nice menu and do place settings. He is a Graphic designer by vocations so enjoys doing things like this. We strung up some fairy lights and had a soundtrack of Edith Piaf and some gypsy swing. This all adds to the atmosphere for a lovely evening with friends, we had a great time.

So there we have our Summer blue table theme, It was mainly improvised using things we had around the house, but we think it worked out really well. What do you think?

26th August 2016

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Cocktail of the Week | Caipirinha

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With the Olympics ending, we thought there would be no better way to celebrate the Olympics, and the rather splendid efforts by Team GB than to enjoy a Brazilian themed BBQ on Saturday night. You can read about the food we cooked here. The only cocktail to accompany anything Brazil-based has to be the Caipirinha, Brazil’s national drink. As such it became our cocktail of the week.

The origin of the Caipirinha is unknown and did not appear in São Paulo until 1918 as a remedy for the Spanish Flu. It was originally made with only lime, garlic and honey with a spirit added to the home concoctions. It is still commonly used in this format as a cure for common colds. As with all cocktails, someone decided to experiment! Removing the garlic and honey and adding sugar helped make it a ubiquitous drink across Brazil. The word Caipirinha comes from the word caipria, which in Portuguese refers to someone from the Countryside. A similar word in English would be a ‘hillbilly’.

For this week’s cocktail, you will need;

Crushed Ice
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 lime cut into 8 parts & a slice for garnish
1 large measure of Cachaça

To make this week’s cocktail add the chopped lime and the sugar to a sturdy glass. Use a muddler and crush the fruit and mix the sugar together. Add the cachaça and give the mix a stir. Top the glass with ice and stir again. To finish place the garnish on the glass and lá vai vocé de uma caipirinha (there you go, a caipirinha).

The caipirinha is a great drink if you like lime and sweetness. We would be happy to continue drinking these in the sun watching the Olympics; sadly, all good things must come to an end!

25th August 2016

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How to host a Brazilian Barbeque Party

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Over the two weeks in August 2016, the Olympics were hosted in Rio de Janeiro. The city hosted 207 nations with 11,500 athletes competing for just over 800 medals. We both love the Olympics, the sport and the Olympic spirit that brings a positive force of friendship. The great herculean efforts by the athletes competing reminded us of the 2012 Olympics in London. With this Olympics coming to an end, we decided what better way to celebrate than to have a Brazilian Barbeque! Surely nothing says Olympics better than eating?

To start, we poured ourselves the first (of a few) caipirinha. It is always best to start with the cocktail! For the BBQ, we prepared some chicken a few days before to mature in a marinade. To do this, we added a cup of rum, two crushed limes (including the rind), 4 cloves of crushed garlic, salt, pepper and a pinch or two of chilli flakes to a bag and added 6 chicken thighs. We then froze it before allowing it to thaw on the day we had the BBQ.

We added some sides to the meal including prawn skewers, using an easy recipe from Morrison’s that can be found here. A Brazilian rice dish that we found on Life in the Lofthouse blog found here. This rice will become a staple for any tropical themed meal we have in future. Lastly, a great zingy Salsa Verde we found here on Olivia’s Cuisine.

To finish, we put some pineapple on the BBQ, yes, you did read that correctly! It is really easy to do by chopping the pineapple into large chunks, sprinkling a good dose of cinnamon on them as they cook. You need to BBQ both sides for about four minutes or until they start to char before pouring on about a tablespoon of toffee sauce.

After setting the table, and with a few more caipirinha flowing we tucked into the food. The food combination tasted wonderfully of lime and the flavours in the prawns and salsa enhanced the flavours. Our Brazilian Barbeque made a great accompaniment to watching the last of the Olympics and the fantastic performance from all the athletes.

Cocktail of the Week | Kir Royale Champagne Cocktail

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To top off the week long celebrations for Calum’s birthday we hosted a french style dinner party for a dozen of our friends. Like any good meal, it should always start with a cocktail as a welcome drink. As we went for a French theme dinner, we pulled out the Crème de Cassis, a blackcurrant liqueur, and the champagne that we picked up on our recent trip to France and created our cocktail of the week, a Kir Royale.

The Kir Royale is based on the Kir cocktail, in which white wine is used rather than champagne. The Kir was originally called a blanc-cassis and can be dated back to 1841 following the increased production levels of the Crème de Cassis. It was usually made with red wine, but after a man called Fèlix Kir, who was the mayor of Dijon after World War II, made the drink popular by presenting it at hosted events to visiting dignitaries, it was renamed. There are thoughts to suggest that the drink was reintroduced as the German Army ‘confiscated’ all the red in Burgundy during the war and left with a large amount of white. The drink has evolved greatly in recent years with the inclusion of many other versions with different liqueur such as peach, or different drinks such as beer, cider and even milk.

For this week’s cocktail, you will need:

Crème de Casis
Champagne or other sparkling wine
Flute glass

To start, make sure the sparkling white you use is chilled. Add two teaspoons of crème de casis to the flute and fill the glass with the sparkling wine. Then sit back and enjoy this week’s cocktail, the Kir Royale.

It is a perfect drink to use as an aperitif and to add a slight difference to serving just champagne.

18th August 2016

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