Experiments with Tequila

These aren’t your average margaritas. Actually, they aren’t margaritas at all.

I was watching Alice in Wonderland while concocting these drinks. Please pardon the multiple references.

Also, special thanks to The Burrito Company and Mini Bar: Tequila by Mittie Hellmich for introducing me to the art of tequila infusion.

I’m a bit of a tequila novice and an extremely loyal consumer of Jose Cuervo Silver. Other un-aged tequilas will also do the trick.

Down the Rabbit Hole
This is sort of a gateway drug. Think of it as an introduction to all of the cool things you can do with tequila. Basic ingredients, easy to make, extremely delicious.

Handful of blueberries
1 ½ oz Jose Cuervo Silver Tequila
4 oz Minute Maid Lemonade

Muddle blueberries in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add ice, tequila, and lemonade. Shake and strain into a highball glass over fresh ice. Add a straw and a few fresh blueberries for garnish.

The Curious Oyster
“ ‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said/ ‘To talk of other things/ Of shoes and ships and ceiling wax/ Of cabbages and kings/ And why the sea is boiling hot/ And whether pigs have wings’”
Unless you’ve watched Alice in Wonderland very recently, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. But, anyway, that’s off topic.

I had my first ever oyster shooter about two weeks ago at the Providence Oyster Bar. I have to say, I’m a fan. Here is my own spiced-up version with homemade pepper-infused tequila.

1 raw oyster
Dash of horseradish
1 oz pepper-infused tequila*
1 oz tomato juice

Place oyster in the bottom of a shot glass. Combine horseradish, tequila, and tomato juice in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake vigourously and strain into shot glass. Keep shooter on ice until ready to serve. Chase with a lemon wedge.

*To infuse tequila with pepper, place a few chile peppers in a bottle of silver tequila and let stand for 2 – 5 days.

Golden Afternoon

1 strawberry, hulled and sliced
1 kiwi slice, cubed
1 ½ oz Jose Cuervo Silver Tequila
2 oz pineapple juice
Champagne to fill

Muddle strawberry and kiwi pieces in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add tequila, ice, and pineapple juice. Shake and strain into champagne flute and top off with champagne. Garnish with a fresh strawberry.

The Cheshire Cat
I’m actually extremely proud of this recipe. It’s part Burrito Company, part La Laiterie, and a little Guy Fieri. The results are sure to make you grin.

1 strawberry, hulled and sliced
3 slices fresh rhubarb
1 ½ oz Jose Cuervo Silver Tequila
2 oz fresh watermelon juice*
2 oz Riesling

Muddle strawberry and rhubarb in a cocktail shaker. Add tequila and ice. Shake and strain into a white wine glass over fresh ice. Add watermelon juice and top off with Riesling. For garnish, alternate three watermelon balls and two strawberry slices on a cocktail skewer.

*To make watermelon juice, simply blend fresh, cubed seedless watermelon with ice. Strain out pulp and chill until ready to serve.

Mad Tea Party
For an Alice in Wonderland themed entry, this one’s obvious. I first saw tea combined with tequila on an episode of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. His guest, mixologist Jim Meehan from the East Village’s Please Don’t Tell, made a Tea-quila highball with elderflower cordial and agave syrup. My hot tea cocktail is both traditional and refreshing.

1 strawberry, hulled and sliced
4 fresh mint leaves
1 ½ oz Jose Cuervo Silver Tequila
4 oz Twinings Earl Gray tea
Lemon and honey to taste

Muddle strawberry and mint in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add tequila and a little ice. Shake briefly and strain into a tea cup. (The goal isn’t to chill the tequila, just infuse it with strawberry and mint flavors.) Add freshly prepared hot tea and lemon/honey as necessary.

Painting the Roses Red
1 oz vanilla infused tequila*
1 oz Malibu Coconut Rum
1 ½ oz pineapple juice
½ oz grenadine

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry.

*To infuse tequila with vanilla, place some long vanilla beans in a bottle of silver tequila and let stand for at least a week.

A Passion for Vodka

New favorite flavor: SKYY Infusions Passion Fruit. Here are more great summer recipes!

Hyde Park
This flavor combination was inspired by my favorite fruit tart at the Crystal Palace.

1 ½ oz Skyy Passion Fruit
1 strawberry slice
1 raspberry
1 blackberry
Champagne to fill

Muddle strawberry, blackberry, and raspberry in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add ice and vodka. Shake and strain into champagne flute. Top off with champagne.

Moulin Rouge

1 ½ oz Skyy Passion Fruit
¾ oz crème de Banana
1 oz cranberry juice
Splash of Sprite
Dash of Grenadine

Shake vodka, crème de banana, cranberry juice and grenadine with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Top off with Sprite.

Lower East Side – Second Avenue

1 ½ oz Skyy Passion Fruit
4 oz Ginger Ale
¾ oz DeKuyper Watermelon Pucker

Build ingredients (in order) in a highball glass over ice. Serve with a straw.

Blue Heron

1 ½ oz Skyy Passion Fruit
¾ oz blue curacao
Splash of peach schnapps
Dash orange bitters
Pinch of grenadine

Combine vodka, blue curacao, peach schnapps, and bitters in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Add a bit of grenadine (you only need a hint of cherry flavor!) and allow it to fall to the bottom. Garnish with a Swedish fish.

La Rambla

1 ½ oz Skyy Passion Fruit
¾ oz Crème de Casis
1 ½ oz fresh lemon juice

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon wedge.

Word of warning: Whatever you do, NEVER mix Skyy Passion Fruit with tequila and grapefruit juice. Like seriously.

Jumping on the Cotton Candy Craze

I spent the better party of Fall 2010 searching for Pinnacle Cotton Candy in liquor stores. But while my friends back in RI seemed to have no trouble finding it, Pinnacle Whipped was the only new flavor available at the Walgreens/Walmart liquor stores by my apartment in Lake Buena Vista. I finally came across the Cotton Candy flavored vodka this past January at Mc K’s Tavern in Daytona. I was obviously extremely excited, but when I asked the bartender what I should mix it with, his response was “I don’t know, whatever you want.” Now it was an Irish pub, so I’ll give the guy a break, and this answer was actually extremely liberating, giving me maximum freedom to experiment with my own creations.

Cotton Candy vodka is delicious - sweet, but not cloying - and smells exactly the way cotton candy should smell. (I used to wish I could capture the flavor of Jelly Belly's Cotton Candy jellybean in a cocktail - now I can!) The flavor is also a great staple for carnival or Candy Land themed cocktail parties.

If you ever find yourself at a bar wondering what to mix with Pinnacle Cotton Candy, here are a few of my favorite recipes.

Sweet Trip to the Candy Shop
This cocktail is inspired by Shirley Temple, both the drink and the child star. (It’s named after her trademark song “On the Good Ship Lollipop”.)

1 ½ oz Pinnacle Cotton Candy
4 oz Ginger Ale
Dash of Grenadine

Build ingredients in a highball glass over ice. Garnish with a cherry.

Pink Floyd
Inspired by my favorite Jelly Belly flavor combination, and named after my former roommate and cotton candy making extraordinaire, Leslie Floyd.

1 ½ oz Pinnacle Cotton Candy
4 oz Pink Lemonade

Build ingredients in a highball glass over ice. Serve with a side of cotton candy and lemon flavored Jelly Belly jellybeans.

Lollipop Princess

1 ½ oz Pinnacle Cotton Candy
Splash of Grape Juice
Splash of Sour Mix

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a stick of rock candy (preferably purple or yellow).

Cotton Candy Cosmo
Blue cosmos are one of my go-to drinks (see my Blue Hawaiian Cosmo with Three O Mango). I used Sprite instead of lime juice to make this drink a little more bubbly and fun.

1 ½ oz Pinnacle Cotton Candy
¾ oz Blue Curacao
1 ½ oz White Cranberry Juice
Splash of Sprite

Shake vodka, blue curacao, and cranberry juice in a shaker with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Top of with Sprite and garnish with a cherry.

Candy Land Kamikaze

1 ½ oz Pinnacle Cotton Candy
¾ oz Triple Sec
½ oz Rose’s lime juice
1 strawberry

Slice up and muddle strawberry in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add ice, vodka, triple sec, and lime juice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a piece of strawberry Twizzler.

Circus McGurkus

1 ½ oz Pinnacle Cotton Candy
2 oz Coco Lopez Cream of Coconut
2 oz Pineapple Juice
1 oz Chambord
1 cup crushed ice

Pour ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into a Collins glass and garnish with a piece of pineapple and a cherry.

On Tap at the Leaky Cauldron

This entry has been a long time in coming.

The final installment of the Harry Potter film series will be released on Friday, July 15th. When this happens, Muggles all over the country will be showing up at theaters decked out in oversized spectacles and red and gold scarves with lightning bolts drawn on their foreheads. But some of you may wish to precede this visit to the theater with a classy cocktail party – you know, one where you screen the other seven movies in order to get up to date and where you serve only food and drink specifically mentioned in the books.

Now anyone can open a bag of Jelly Bellies and call them “Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans”. English Trifles and Cauldron Cakes (in the form of chocolate lava cakes) aren’t extremely hard to make. And when I threw a Harry Potter themed birthday party back in 2009, I made pumpkin pasties by baking pumpkin pie filling wrapped in crescent rolls. But in order to throw the kind of Harry Potter party that will have your guests falling off their broomsticks, here are five great drink ideas.

Butterbeer
This recipe is courtesy of Jessie Cammack. It tastes EXACTLY like butterbeer should taste – butterscotchy, slightly alcoholic, warms the drinker up inside. At the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal, they top off their non-alcoholic, cream soda tasting version with a bit of melted whipped cream. This gives the appearance of foam.

2 oz Butterscotch schnapps
5 oz Cream Soda

Chill ingredients beforehand and combine in an Irish coffee mug. Top off with whipped cream, if desired, and allow it to sit out, so that whipped cream spreads out evenly and looks foamy.

Ogden’s Old Firewhiskey
Firewhiskey is said to burn when going down and has the power to fill the drinker with courage. I came up with this recipe a few years ago, and I think it captures the mouth feel perfectly (plus it looks magical with the little flecks of gold floating around).

2 oz Goldschlager cinnamon schnapps
4 oz Ginger Ale

Chill ingredients beforehand and combine in an old fashioned glass. Serve with a swizzle straw.

Pumpkin Juice
This is one of my more complicated recipes, since the pumpkin syrup requires a bit of prep time, but the results are pretty delicious.

1 ½ oz silver tequila
½ oz orange curacao
2 oz pumpkin syrup*

Rim a cocktail glass with brown sugar. Shake ingredients with ice and strain into glass. Garnish with a cinnamon stick.

*Directions for pumpkin syrup:
(This recipe is based off of the Food Network Magazine's Pumpkin Punch. Batch makes enough syrup for about 16-20 servings of my pumpkin juice cocktail).

Two 15 oz cans pumpkin puree (about 3 ½ cups total)
12 cups of water
2 cups packed brown sugar
4 cinnamon sticks
2 limes

Combine water, sugar, and cinnamon sticks in a large pot and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Add pumpkin puree and the zest of two limes. Bring heat to a simmer and continue stirring for 15 minutes. Allow mixture to cool and refrigerate for 3 hours so pulp sinks to bottom. Strain mixture as needed to remove pulp, lime zest and cinnamon sticks. Return cinnamon sticks to mixture and keep refrigerated until serving.

Polyjuice Potion
Recipes for Polyjuice Potion can obviously take many forms (especially since ingredients would vary depending on who you’re trying to become), but I like to think of it as some sort of dark colored heterogeneous mixture with lots of things floating in it. Hence, I usually make some type of red sangria. Here is one my newer recipes.

1 bottle cheap red wine (750 ml)
1 bottle Simply Lemonade (1.75 liters)
2 cups Three Olives Pomegranate vodka
2 lemons
1 jar maraschino cherries

Combine wine, lemonade, and vodka in a punch bowl with ice. Add lemon wheels and stir. Spoon in cherries and pour residual cherry juice into mixture as well. Ladle into punch cups. Makes about 16 – 20 servings.


Veritaserum
Veritaserum is supposed to be clear, odorless, and tasteless, akin to pure water. After about three drops, the drinker will answer all questions truthfully. The easiest way to achieve this effect is to serve your party guests shots of pure vodka with some type of chaser “antidote”. However, if you were looking for an actual cocktail, here is a refreshing, clear, somewhat neutral tasting option that I recently concocted. Special thanks to Rebecca Ruscito for introducing me to St. Germain.

1 ½ oz Rain Organics Cucumber Lime Vodka
¾ oz St. Germain elderflower liqueur
1 ¾ oz fresh lemon juice

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. The truth never tasted this good.

The Summer Line-up

The summer has officially started. Aside from barbeques and beach trips, this weather also calls for some of the best cocktails around, featuring seasonal flavor profiles and refreshing fruit juices.

I tried Three Olives Mango vodka for the first time at Sick Boys Bad Habit Lounge in Daytona. While this biker bar didn’t maximize the full potential of the spirit (I had mine with ginger ale, and even that smelled like cigarette smoke), it was enough to get me hooked on the mango flavor. I continued working with Three O Mango in Florida and found that it mixes extremely well with almost any other fruit flavor. You really can’t go wrong. It's also sweeter, smoother and not as overpowering as other Three O flavors (Bubble or Root Beer). That said, here are four cocktails to start off Summer 2011.

535
1 ½ oz Three O Mango
¾ oz PAMA Pomegranate Liqueur
1 ½ oz ginger ale

Build ingredients over ice in a rocks glass. Serve with a swizzle straw.

Blue Hawaiian Cosmo
¾ oz Three O Mango
¾ oz Cruzan Pineapple Rum
¾ oz Blue Curacao
1 ½ oz white cranberry juice
¼ oz fresh lime juice

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lime wedge.

Summer in the Sunshine State
1 ½ oz Three O Mango
¾ DeKuyper Peachtree
1 ¾ oz orange juice

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry.

Polynesian Sangria
1 part Three O Mango
1 part pineapple juice
2 parts Chardonnay
Slices of strawberries, chunks of pineapple and mango

Combine chilled liquids and fruit in a pitcher and stir. Let mixture sit (covered) in refrigerator overnight to maximize fruit flavors.

“I’ll have a spicy tuna roll and a vodka soda…..actually, make that Skyy Ginger and soda”

I first heard about Skyy Infusions Ginger vodka last April when I read Gail Ciampa’s review of the spirit in the Providence Journal. I was particularly excited for the chance to create cocktails that I could pair with one of my favorite dishes – sushi.

Everyone knows that ginger and sushi go great together, but I usually avoid the pickled pink root when it’s on my plate, finding it to be too strong. Now I can compliment my barbeque eel and avocado with a ginger flavored beverage. Here are five refreshing original recipes.

Sushi With My Girls
Although I don’t have the upbringing or the educational background to be a real sushette, I’m pretty addicted to this site. While a Ginger vodka soda is the obvious choice if you’re counting calories, this recipe will pair perfectly with your California Roll.

1 ½ oz Skyy Ginger
¾ oz sake
1 ¾ oz pineapple juice

Shake ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry.

Cucumber Ginger Martini
At the Crystal Palace in Magic Kingdom, one of our signature dishes was a cucumber ginger salad. That inspired this cocktail.

1 ½ oz Skyy Ginger
¾ oz dry vermouth
small chunks of cucumber

Muddle cucumber. Add ice, vodka, and vermouth. Shake vigorously with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a fresh cucumber wheel. (While I am normally a fan of stirring traditional martinis, this needs to be shaken to better release the cucumber flavor.)

Ginger Rogers
Like a Roy Rogers. But with alcohol.

1 ½ oz Skyy Ginger
4 oz Coca-Cola
Dash of grenadine

Build ingredients in a high ball glass over ice. Garnish with a cherry.

Raspberry Ginger Lemonade

1 ½ oz Skyy Ginger
4 oz lemonade
6-8 raspberries

Muddle raspberries. Add ice, vodka and lemonade. Shake and strain into a high ball glass over fresh ice. Garnish with two additional fresh raspberries.

Ginger Gitters

1 oz Skyy Ginger
1 oz X-Rated Fusion liqueur
Champagne to fill

Chill ingredients beforehand. Build in a champagne flute.

In Celebration of My Return to the Land of Mobsters and Lobsters....

As part of my final project for my Spirits and Mixology class last spring, I submitted this list of Rhody themed cocktails. I thought it would be appropriate to publish this list now, since 1) I'm back Rhode Island, and 2) a Rhody themed cocktail contest was held at Local 121 this past April. Each of the drinks either includes local ingredients or is somehow inspired by places or events in Rhode Island. Because this entry is so long, I've omitted the recipes and just included a brief description of ingredients. Exact recipes are available upon request.

The Bristol Parade
Tequila and Del's Lemonade -- a great addition to your 4th of July BBQ

Rhody Russian
This is a white Russian with a local twist - vodka, Kahlua, Rhody Fresh milk, and Autocrat Coffee Syrup

Bloody Cianci
Think your typical Bloody Mary with a dash of the ex-mayor's signature marinara sauce

The Ocean State
vodka, grapefruit juice, and blue curacao with a salt rim

Brunch at the Breakers
Skyy Pineapple vodka, DeKuyper Peachtree, champagne and orange juice -- a classy Sunday brunch cocktail

The College Hill Cosmo
Inspired by Brown alum Sydney Frank and first published in my blog last summer, this drink includes Grey Goose L'Orange, PAMA pomegranate liqueur, cranberry juice and a dash of lime

Sex on Scarborough Beach
Stoli Raz vodka, DeKuyper Peachtree, OJ, pineapple juice, and creme de noyaux

Waterfire
Vanilla vodka, peach schnapps, blue curacao, pineapple juice, Creme de Casis sinker and a splash of Sprite. Garnish with a flaming orange peel.

"No School Foster-Glocester"
1 part Pinnacle Whipped, 2 parts hot coffee and 2 parts hot chocolate. Serve in a mug topped off with whipped cream -- a great way to get through the day when you're snowed in!

The Cardi Brothers
Bacardi Limon, Bacardi Coconut and Bacardi O mixed with orange juice, pineapple juice, and Sprite. Works best mixed in large batches and served as a punch.

The Independent Man
Inspired by Stephen Hopkins, Rhode Island's delegate to the Second Continental Congress -- rum, Cointreau, Coke and lime

Old Fashioned Roger Williams
Muddled apples and blueberries (locally grown, of course) with a dash of Charlie's Sugar House maple syrup, Maker's Mark, and club soda