Let Them Drink Cake

I’ll admit, for a long time I was at a loss over what to do with Pinnacle Cake Vodka.

Now you’ve heard of cocktail-inspired cupcakes. Pina Colada, Strawberry Daiquiri and Margarita cupcakes with key lime frosting are somewhat common varieties at gourmet cupcake shops. The Duck and Bunny in Providence makes a Guiness cupcake for St. Patty’s Day, and the Food Network has this delicious recipe for an Arnold Palmer cupcake by Paula Dean.

But what about the reverse – cocktails inspired by cupcakes? For help with cake vodka cocktail recipes, I turned to past recipes from my all time favorite cooking show, Cupcake Wars. Each of the cocktails listed below is inspired by one of the show’s top 70 recipes listed on their website. Click on the name of the drink for the cupcake recipe that inspired it.


Peach Berry Shortcake
1 strawberry, sliced
3 blackberries
1 ½ oz Pinnacle Cake
¾ oz peach schnapps
1 ½ oz apple cider (frozen)

First, make apple cider ice cubes by freezing about ¾ oz cider in 1 oz containers. (The cider will expand a bit when freezing, so make sure there’s some room left.) Place strawberry slices, blackberries, vodka, peach schnapps, and two cider ice cubes in a blender. Blend until smooth, then pour mixture into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a peach slice.

This is a delicious, refreshing drink that eliminates the need for ice by freezing the cider ahead of time. I used apple cider as a mixer since the cupcake recipe calls for apple cider vinegar.

Coconut Orange Chardonnay
1 ½ oz Pinnacle Cake
¾ oz Coco Lopez Cream of Coconut
2 oz orange juice
2 oz Chardonnay

Combine vodka, cream of coconut and orange juice in a shaker with plenty of ice. Shake and strain into a white wine glass. Top with chilled Chardonnay and stir. Sprinkle some shredded coconut on top for garnish.

Lemon Kiwi
1 ½ oz Pinnacle Cake
3 slices of kiwi
4 oz Minute Maid Lemonade

Cut kiwi into small pieces and muddle well in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add vodka, lemonade, and ice. Shake and strain into a highball glass over fresh ice. Add a straw and a kiwi wheel for garnish.

Lavender Cake
1 sugar cube
Scrappy’s Lavender Bitters
4 oz chilled champagne
Pinnacle Cake float

A new twist on the classic champagne cocktail. Place a sugar cube in the bottom of a champagne flute. Soak sugar cube with a couple of good splashes of Scrappy's Lavender Bitters. Add champagne. Sugar cube will start to dissolve. To “float” the vodka, gently pour a small amount as a top layer. Like the cupcake, garnish the cocktail with a couple of candy pearls and some edible lavender flower petals.

Chocolate Cherry Cola
1 ½ oz Pinnacle Cake
¾ oz Godiva chocolate liqueur
4 oz Cherry Coke

Combine vodka and chocolate liqueur in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a highball glass over fresh ice. Add Cherry Coke. Since the cupcake recipe calls for a red licorice filling, garnish with a piece of strawberry Twizzler.

Raspberry Champagne
1 oz pureed fresh raspberries
1 ½ oz Pinnacle Cake
Champagne to fill

Pour 1 oz raspberry puree into a champagne flute. Add vodka and then fill with champagne.

White Russian
This is a cocktail that inspired a cupcake that inspired a new twist on the cocktail. Since the cupcake recipe called for an Irish Cream filling, I used Bailey’s in addition to Kahlua.

1 ½ oz Pinnacle Cake
¾ oz Kahlua
¾ oz Bailey’s Irish Cream
4 oz milk
Chocolate cigarette garnish*

Combine vodka, coffee liqueur, Irish cream and milk in a highball glass with ice. Speed shake, add a straw, and garnish with a gold dusted chocolate cigarette.

*The cupcake calls for a gold dusted chocolate cigarette topper. To do this, mix equal parts vodka and gold dust to make a small amount of edible gold paint. Use a small round brush to paint the end of the chocolate cigarette. The edible paint will dry, leaving behind a gold finish.

Caramel Apple Vanilla Bean
Caramel sauce
1 ½ oz Pinnacle Cake
¾ oz homemade vanilla bean liqueur*
1 ¾ oz apple cider

Lace a cocktail glass with caramel sauce. Combine vodka, vanilla bean liqueur and apple cider in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into laced cocktail glass.

*The vanilla bean liqueur should be prepared about a month ahead of time. Combine three vanilla beans (split lengthwise and cut in half) in a screw top jar with one cup sugar and 2 cups vodka. Put top on jar and shake until sugar dissolves. Store in a cool, dark place for one month. Strain out vanilla pieces before use.

Let the celebrations begin!

Creating a Masterpiece, One Cocktail at a Time

I first tried Van Gogh Vodka in Orlando, where it was prominently featured on the Disney World signature cocktail menu. The Acai-Blueberry, Coconut, Wild Appel and Vanilla flavors were main ingredients in several cocktails at the Polynesian Tambu Lounge and Rix Lounge at Coronado Springs.

Van Gogh boasts the world’s largest line of flavored vodkas, all hand crafted in small batches using natural ingredients for their infusions. I was drawn to the brand because of the Coconut and Mojito Mint varieties, flavors rarely seen in today’s already packed flavored vodka market. This family owned business has been passed down from father to son in Schiedam, Holland. Master Distiller Tim Vos and his team are constantly working on developing new, innovative flavors, all sold in bottles designed by George Miller and inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s impressionism.

Here’s a large sampling of my recipes. Several require muddling fresh fruits and would be great summer cocktails. The last two are variations on sangria and would be better for fall.

I know that naming cocktails after Van Gogh’s masterpieces when using this brand is probably a little cliché, but I couldn’t resist. Click on the drink name to see the work that inspired it.

Starry Night
Naming a Van Gogh Vodka drink “Starry Night” is definitely something that's been overdone. Mine uses Van Gogh’s classic vodka in a simple blueberry martini.

1 ½ oz Van Gogh Classic 80-proof Vodka
8-10 medium blueberries
2 oz fresh lemon juice

Muddle blueberries in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add ice, vodka, and lemon juice. Shake and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a few blueberries on a cocktail skewer.

Strolling on the Beach
The extremely cold people in this painting probably wish they were drinking coconut vodka with strawberry and lime.

1 ½ oz Van Gogh Coconut Vodka
2 medium strawberries, sliced
2 oz fresh lime juice

Muddle strawberries in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add ice, vodka and lime juice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a strawberry slice.

Fourteenth of July Celebration in Paris
1 ½ oz Van Gogh Dutch Chocolate Vodka
8-10 raspberries
¾ oz Grand Marnier
4 oz ginger ale

Muddle raspberries in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add ice, vodka, and Grand Marnier. Shake and strain into a highball glass over fresh ice. Top with ginger ale and garnish with a pair of fresh raspberries.

Flying Fox
1 ½ oz Van Gogh Dutch Caramel Vodka
¾ oz Godiva Chocolate Liqueur (Original)
1 ¾ apple cider

Combine vodka, chocolate liqueur, and cider in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a fresh apple slice dipped in caramel.

The Lying Cow
1 ½ oz Van Gogh Double Espresso Vodka
¾ oz Kahlua French Vanilla Liqueur
4 oz milk

Fill a highball glass with ice. Add vodka, Kahlua, and milk. Speed shake, add a straw and serve.

Green Parrot
This is a Dirty Apple Mojito Royale, my combination of three different mojito variations, but with vodka instead of rum. Perfect for any time of year.

1 ½ oz Mojito Mint Vodka
¾ oz apple liqueur
Champagne to fill
Dash of brown sugar

Combine vodka, brown sugar, and apple liqueur in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass and top off with champagne. Consider first rimming the cocktail glass with brown sugar, if desired.

Poet’s Garden
The flavor combination was also partly inspired by this Still Life with Grapes, Pears and Lemons.

1 ½ oz Van Gogh Vanilla Vodka
¾ oz Poire William
½ oz fresh lemon juice
Sparkling wine to fill

Build ingredients in a champagne flute. Drop in a pair slice for garnish.

Pink Peach Tree
This is basically a melon Bellini without the puree.

1 ½ oz Van Gogh Melon Vodka
¾ DeKuyper Peachtree
Sparkling rosé to fill

Build ingredients in a champagne flute. Garnish with a peach slice.

White Orchard
This is a white sangria. The color will actually be much darker with the addition of the liqueurs.

1 ½ oz Van Gogh Black Cherry Vodka
½ oz apricot liqueur
½ oz plum wine
½ oz amaretto
4 oz white wine

Build ingredients in a white wine glass over ice. Add some maraschino cherries and small plum slices. Stir and serve with a swizzle straw.

Red Vineyard
Apple pumpkin sangria? Yes, please. Think this year’s Thanksgiving punch.

1 ½ oz Van Gogh Wild Appel Vodka
¾ oz pumpkin simple syrup*
½ oz fresh orange juice
½ oz fresh lemon juice
4 oz dry red wine (Bordeaux, for example)

Build ingredients in a large red wine glass over ice. Add an orange and lemon wheel and stir.

*Recipe for Pumpkin Simple Syrup:
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
¾ cup pumpkin puree
2 cinnamon sticks

In a saucepan, combine water and sugar and bring to a boil. When sugar has dissolved, add pumpkin puree and cinnamon sticks. Let simmer for five minutes, remove from heat, and allow mixture to cool. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Vodka Fit for a Princess

While living in Florida, I paid a visit to the Orlando Ice Bar where I had the distinct pleasure of trying Diaka, the self-proclaimed “world’s most expensive vodka.”

Now Diaka doesn’t claim to be the world’s best tasting vodka (though it was good) and it isn’t advertised as the world’s smoothest vodka (though it was extremely smooth). It’s simply the world’s most expensive, charging about $100 for each Swarovski crystal-encrusted bottle. But the packaging isn’t what ups the price. Unlike other vodkas which are filtered through coal, Diaka is filtered through DIAMONDS. (So super heated, pressurized, 10 million year-old coal. Not really, but you get my point.) The Diaka patented filtration process filters its Polish, rye-based vodka through 100 cut diamonds as large as one carat each. (The name Diaka is actually a combination of the words Diamond and Vodka.)

The diamond filtration process is supposed to lend a spirit with an “unsurpassed clarity and smoothness”. It’s unclear if this refined taste is worth the price, and consumers of luxury goods are most likely willing to pay more for the image. I was certainly willing to pay $20 for my cocktail, just to say that I had once tried the world’s most expensive vodka. My drink was called “The Billionaire” and it consisted of Diaka, Welch’s White Grape Juice, and a splash of champagne. Honestly, it was delicious – possibly the best vodka cocktail I’ve ever had. But I think this had more to do with the fact that it was super-chilled (keep in mind, I was in an Ice Bar) and extremely well mixed.

Will I spend $100 on my own bottle? Probably not anytime soon. But if you ever find yourself with your own Swarovski encrusted bottle, here are a few of my recipes you can use.

Hope
I have a fascination with blue diamonds, so this is the first of two recipes using blue curacao. Unlike its namesake, I promise this cocktail is not cursed.

1 ½ oz Diaka
¾ oz blue curacao
Champagne to fill

Chill ingredients beforehand and build in a champagne flute.

Heart of the Ocean
As in that blue diamond from Titanic. The egg white gives this cocktail a nice frothy, almost ocean-like consistency.

1 ½ oz Diaka
¾ oz blue curacao
1 ½ oz lemon juice
1 egg white

Shake ingredients well with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a twist of lemon.

A Girl’s Best Friend
Named after the song made famous by Marilyn Monroe, this is an extremely expensive vodka cranberry (which has been every girl’s go-to drink at one time or another) with a hint of pear flavor.

1 ½ oz Diaka
¾ oz Poire William (pear brandy)
1 ¾ oz white cranberry juice

Combine ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a lime or lemon wedge.

Ruby Slippers
Despite the feminine name, this is very much a gentleman’s cocktail. It is an updated version of an old-timey drink called the Princeton, which was made with 1 ½ oz gin, ¾ ruby port, and 1 tsp orange bitters.

1 ½ oz Diaka
2 oz Ruby Port
Dash orange bitters
Orange slice
Splash of ginger ale

Build vodka, port and bitters in a red wine goblet over 2 large ice cubes (perfect cubes work best). Give orange slice a good squeeze and dunk it. Stir drink well, then top with chilled ginger ale.

Emerald City
I really didn’t mean for this entry to take on a Wizard of Oz theme.

1 ½ oz Diaka
1 oz Midori
1 ½ oz passion fruit juice
1 ½ oz mango juice

Build ingredients in a highball glass with ice. Speed shake and garnish with a melon ball size piece of honey dew on a cocktail skewer.

California Dream Drinks

A year ago this week, I started work at the California Grill at Disney’s Contemporary Resort. In addition to introducing me to a Snake in the Grass roll (barbeque eel and avocado sushi) and Tanzanian chocolate crème brulée, the restaurant yielded one more amazing find – Charbay vodka. Like the bulk of the Grill’s award winning wine list, Charbay is a product of California – St. Helena in Napa Valley, to be exact.

What makes Charbay different is its flavoring method. Unlike many of today’s popular vodka brands which use commercially produced essences, Charbay uses only whole, organic, fresh ingredients to achieve their vodka flavors. The flavor and color of the fruits and herbs are fully extracted by crushing them whole, “skins and all”. This lends an array of colorful and extremely flavorful results – juices that are then integrated into Charbay’s clear vodka.

The Charbay Winery and Distillery is owned and operated by the Karakasevic family in St. Helena. Son Marko is a 13th generation distiller and was named “Vodka Visionary” by Food and Wine Magazine in 2005. In 1996, Marko predicted that flavored vodkas would become the next big thing. He saw a need for fresh ingredients in a market soon to be dominated by artificial flavoring.

In Florida, I had the opportunity to try and experiment with the Charbay Pomegranate and Green Tea vodkas. The California Grill used the Pomegranate flavor in their Pomegranate COZ, a cosmo comprised of Charbay Pomegranate vodka, Cointreau, cranberry juice, and a splash of lime. A version of this cocktail (using lemon instead of lime) is also featured on the Charbay website. The Green Tea was used in our signature mixed drink, The 19th Hole, featuring Charbay Green Tea vodka, iced tea, and a splash of sour mix.

Here are a few of my recipes. Charbay is currently available in around 40 states.

Green Dream

1 ½ oz Charbay Green Tea vodka
¾ oz Midori
2 oz Ginger Ale
5-7 mint sprigs

Muddle mint in the bottom of a rocks glass. Add ice, vodka, and Midori. Speed shake and top off with chilled ginger ale. Add a swizzle straw and some additional mint for garnish.

Flower Drum Song

1 ½ oz Charbay Green Tea vodka
¾ oz PAMA Pomegranate Liqueur
1 ¼ oz pineapple juice

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Add a fresh purple orchid for garnish.

This cocktail is a guilty pleasure that pairs well with Chinese food.

Curse of Nefertiri

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t watching The Ten Commandments when I concocted this drink. (It was Easter Weekend, what else would I be doing?)

1 ½ oz Charbay Pomegranate vodka
Several blueberries
Teaspoon of honey
½ oz fresh lemon juice
Sparkling white wine to fill

Muddle blueberries with honey and lemon juice in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add vodka and ice. Shake and strain into a champagne flute. Fill with sparkling white wine. Garnish with a pair of fresh blueberries.

Jewel of the Nile

This drink is made up exclusively of flavors that were available in Ancient Egypt. (Think Ramses II, New Kingdom, way back in the day.) I wanted to combine the pomegranate with grape juice and some type of fig flavor (See the description of the Promised Land in Deuteronomy 8:7-8. Pomegranates, figs, and grapes were all hot commodities in Biblical times.) A fig liqueur has to be brewed at home, which requires a little extra forethought for this cocktail.

1 ½ oz Charbay Pomegranate vodka
¾ oz fig liqueur*
2 skinless slices of cucumber
2 small chunks of honey dew melon
1 oz Welch’s Sparkling White Grape Juice

Muddle cucumber and melon in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add vodka, fig liqueur, and ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Top with sparkling grape juice and garnish with three frozen red grapes on a cocktail skewer. (I got the idea for a frozen grape garnish from this Ciroc recipe for a White Grape Martini. Frozen grapes are delicious – creamy and sweeter than normal grapes. I’ve even heard some low calorie snack lovers say they’re better than ice cream. Simply place some red grapes in the freezer for a few hours.)

*Here is a recipe for making your own home-made fig liqueur. It was developed by mixologist Christ Tunstall from Sonoma, California’s The Girl and the Fig. The recipe calls for 6 oz fresh black mission figs, 1 liter vodka, and 8 oz sugar. The vodka needs to be infused with figs for about a week before cooking. Make sure you have good ventilation when heating vodka over an open flame.