The Noble Experiment

Tag: Summer

July 4, 2010

Cocktail Recipe: Strawberry + Basil + Cachaca

I’ll keep this short and sweet for you.  This cocktail is lovely.  And cachaca is a delicious spirit.  I like Ypioca cachaca partly because it’s delicious and partly because it’s wrapped in wicker and has a creepy old man on the label.  But enough about that.

For this cocktail I combined the classic combination of strawberries and basil. I added some honey syrup (I’ve been on a honey kick lately) and a splash of lemon juice, and topped it all off with a generous amount of cachaca.  It was delicious.  And now you can make it wherever you are.  Enjoy.

Strawberry Basil Cachaca

2 Strawberries

1 Large basil leaf

1.5 oz Cachaca

0.75 oz Honey syrup

0.50 oz Lemon juice

Muddle up the basil and strawberries with the honey syrup.  Add your cachaca and lemon juice and shake with ice.  Pour it out over fresh ice and enjoy on the rocks.  To make honey syrup, follow this link.

1 comment
June 27, 2010

Champagne Cocktails in the Summertime

Champagne cocktails in the summertime can’t be beat.  They’re crisp, refreshing and perfect for those lazy afternoons on the patio.

But if you’re the kind of person who has ever found a class of sparkling wine a little bit boring, I’m hoping that these cocktails will change your perspective.  With the addition of a few additional ingredients sparkling wine can be transformed into something enirely different.  Check out the recipes below, make some cocktails and let me know what you think!

French 75

The French 75 is one of my favorite cocktails of all time.  It’s such a brilliant combination and it’s so lovely as a summertime sipper. The simple combination of gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup works great on its own and even better when topped off with a little sparkling wine.  Here is what you should do.

1.5 oz gin

0.75 oz lemon juice

0.50 oz simple syrup

3 oz sparkling wine

Mix up the gin, lemon and simple syrup in a shaker and shake until chilled.  Put it in a champagne flute and top it with sparkling wine.  Garnish with a lemon twist and enjoy!

Classic Champagne Cocktail

The classic champagne cocktail is just a fun way to spice up your sparkling wine. It’s simple and quick with great visual appeal.  Perfect for entertaining.  Here’s what you do.

Take your champagne flute and drop in a sugar cube.  Next coat that sugar cube with bitters.  You’ll need one to two dashes of bitters to properly coat the sugar.  You can use Angostura, Fee Brothers, or any other type of bitters you may have. Finally, top it all off with some sparkling wine.

It’s that easy and it is a lot of fun.  The sugar cube help keep your sparkling wine bubbly and the combo of the bitters and sugar balances it all out nicely.

1 comment
June 4, 2010

Summer Cocktails!

Once the nice weather hits, everyone is looking for something they can enjoy while sitting on their deck/patio/stoop.  Something that helps you beat the heat, that’s light and refreshing, and in my case, something that has a reasonable amount of alcohol so you can sip all day.

This is why drinks like the Pimms Cup (a simple combination of Pimms No. 1, lemonade, and 7up) and the mojito (via http://intoxicologist.wordpress.com who, by the way, makes spectacular cocktails and has a great site) have become summer staples.  They fit all of the above criteria.  Following the lead of these summertime cocktails, when the warm weather arrives I leave the bourbon on the shelf and reach for the white rums, vodkas, and blanco tequilas.  That’s just how I roll.

So, you ask, what should I drink? Good question.  Let’s dig right in.  Summer cocktail iterations are endless, so I’ll just get you started with two cocktail recipes that you’re certain to enjoy.

Painkiller – A classic summertime/island time cocktail, this drink just screams summer.

2 oz white rum (try Dogfish Head or Rogue rums for a nice alternative to the big guys)
1 oz pineapple juice
1 oz cream of coconut
0.75 oz orange juice (fresh squeezed, please)
I like to shake this drink and then serve it over ice.  Getting the coconut cream to co-mingle with the other ingredients is important.

French 75 (ish) – A spin on the classic French 75, a brilliant summertime sparkling cocktail

1 oz gin
0.5 oz St. Germain
0.25 oz lemon juice
0.25 oz simple syrup
3 oz sparkling wine
Shake the gin, St. Germain, lemon and simple syrup in a shaker. Strain into a champagne flute and top with sparkling wine.  Garnish with a nice, long lemon twist.  In case you haven’t tried St. Germain, it’s a vibrant brandy based elderflower liqueur from France.

Here is another great reference on summer cocktails from liquor.com, a ridiculously wonderful site chock full of everything cocktail related you could ever need.

2 comments
April 7, 2010

Beers and Summer and Beers!

This is one of my favorite times of year for beer.  As much as I enjoy a nice stout or porter, my beer happiness typically peaks in the summertime.  I’m a sucker for hefeweizen, flavorful lagers, and summer beers of all kind.  There is something about a 70 degree day and a refreshing summer lager that just go hand in hand for me.  And lucky me, it’s that time of year.

But I don’t discriminate.  It’s not only lagers this time of the year.  Ales have their moment too and they’ll get their due. I do thoroughly enjoy a chilly Rogue Dead Guy Ale this time of year.  Or, for that matter, the Rogue American Amber.  Those beers have enough body and flavor to satisfy my palate without being too malty, which is what I try to avoid in the early spring and summer.

One of my favorites this year is the old standby, Sierra Nevada Summerfest.  This beer is a pilsner style lager, which typically means higher carbonation, a crispness at the finish and a medium body.  This particular beer also has a nice citrusy undertone without being too fruity.  It’s a perfect summer beer, in my humble opinion, for all of those reasons.  The crispness makes it refreshing on a hot day, the citrus notes make it FAR more interesting than many boringgggg lagers, and although it’s light, it’s not too light.  It’s really quite lovely.

So, what are you waiting for???

1 comment
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