Strawberry Margarita Jell-O Shots

Here's another one of my quarantine Jell-O shot recipes. It does balance the quality of craft cocktails with the fun, levity, and nostalgia of Jell-O. It's super easy to make and makes a huge difference. I'm never going back in terms of my own creations. Fresh juice and quality spirits always beat out vodka and powder. 

6 oz Jose Cuervo Tradicional Tequila Plata

2 oz Fresh Lime Juice, strained

1 oz Orange Curacao, Pierre Ferrand

1 pack Strawberry Jell-O

8 oz Water

Boil water and add the pack of Jell-O. Stir until dissolved and uniform. Add the remaining ingredients and stir again. Pour into serving cups. 15 to 18 should give you decent portion sizes. Chill in the fridge overnight or until set.

Jell-O has quite a bit of sugar and sweetness, so I tend not to add sugar to Jell-O shots. Acid from fresh juice does really help bring out the potential of Jell-O shot cocktails. It's still classic fun but way more elevated than you got in college. 

Dream Maker in the Sky

This is one of the many drinks I came up with for the Chilled Toast the Industry competition. It was a brilliant idea to have a contest during the quarantine. Bartenders made up to 50 unique cocktails for this one, using a vast range of spirits from 10 brands. Scapegrace is an interesting gin from New Zealand, and I love any gin that does a Navy Strength. 

1 oz. Scapegrace Gold

0.5 oz. Luxardo Bitter Bianco

0.5 oz. Triple Sec (Combier)

1 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice

0.5 oz. Simple Syrup (1:1)

1 Large Egg White

Orange Bitters

Add all the ingredients aside from the bitters to a shaker tin without ice. Dry shake vigorously, add ice, and hard shake even more vigorously until the drink is chilled and foamy. Strain into a chilled coupe glass. Add a few drops of bitters on top of the foam for garnish and aromatics.

This started as a navy-strength Negroni Sour, but I really wanted to bring out the lemon, orange and dried tangerine in the gin. The vermouth got swapped for orange liqueur. Luxardo Bitter Bianco has always acted as a better balancing agent for softer flavors than the more aggressive Campari or Suze. Also, it gives a pretty white color you don't see in many cocktails. "Dream Maker in the Sky" comes from a song called "No Hopers, Jokers, and Rogues." A Scapegrace is a rogue. It fits.

"Come all you no-hopers, you jokers and rogues
We're on the road to nowhere; let's find out where it goes
It might be a ladder to the stars. Who knows?
Come all you no-hopers, you jokers and rogues."

- Fisherman's Friends

Tequila 301: Let's try some Tequila Cocktails!

Tequila is an amazing spirit to play with. There are sweet types, barrel-aged types, types that are infused with other flavors. It can be a little daunting but go out there and have fun with your spirits. Just remember, if a brand works great in one cocktail, it doesn't mean it's the best. It also doesn't mean it's great in every cocktail. Experiment, that's what life's all about, especially when you're drinking tequila.

Shot
Salt, 1 1/4oz Tequila, Lime wedge

Pour yourself a shot of tequila. Wet the back of your hand and shake some salt on it. 

Lick the salt, take the shot, and bite the lime. Enter any home in Mexico as a guest and you will probably be greeted with a shot of mezcal or tequila. This is a healthy thing to partake in and you should really know what tequila can taste like straight. This may not be the social style of shot seen in Mexico, but it's a common Americanized form that does have proper roots. Tequila used to be medicine; it would be prescribed by doctors. Some drinkers found the spirit straight a bit harsh. The salt opens up the palette and the lime helps cleanse it. Plenty of variations exist using sugar, lemon, or orange. 

Margarita
2oz Silver Tequila, 1oz Cointreau, ¾oz lime juice

In a mixing glass add all the ingredients with ice. Shake and strain into a salt-rimmed margarita glass with ice. Garnish with a lime wheel. 

The first Margarita was arguably made by Carlos "Danny" Herrara in 1938, but that's not my favorite story. My favorite story is more about how the Margarita became popular. There was a bartender by the name of John Durlesser who competed in and won the 1949 All American Cocktail Contest with a drink called the Margarita. He did not explain the name of this drink. The drink became wildly popular across the globe. Over twenty years after the competition he revealed the true story about why he named the drink Margarita. 23 years before the competition he had gone hunting with his girlfriend. She was shot by a stray bullet and died before she could get medical care. In my opinion, the most amazing thing is that the drink gained so much popularity without the story being out.

Tequila Sunrise

2oz tequila, 4oz orange juice, 1/2oz fresh grenadine

In a highball glass with ice, add the tequila and the orange juice. Slowly dribble the grenadine around the inner rim of the glass. The denser grenadine will sink. Garnish with an orange and cherry. 

The original tequila sunrise was actually made with tequila, creme de cassis, lime juice, and soda water. This was back in the '30s at the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. From the '70s to the present day the common recipe is what you see here.

Paloma
2oz Blanco tequila, 3oz grapefruit juice, 1/2oz lime juice,  Club soda

Rim half a highball glass with salt and fill with ice. In a mixing glass with ice, add all the ingredients except the club soda. Stir all the ingredients together and strain into the highball glass. Top with about an ounce of club soda. Garnish with a lime wheel. 

Paloma, meaning dove, is another fairly simple highball cocktail. In Mexico, these drinks are even more popular than the Margarita. Ideally one would use grapefruit soda (Squirt), which you can find in the right stores. Commonly in America, one would use white grapefruit juice in this with club soda to get a similar result. 

special mention to: bee sting

“I’ve created a new drink! I'm calling it the Piñata Colada! It’s sweet and tasty, but when you wake up the next morning your head feels like it’s been hit with a stick.” 

- José N. Harris

Photo Credit: Wikimedia, pixabay

Orange Liqueurs 101: What's the difference?

There is a large variety of orange flavored liqueurs available for a number of different applications. Triple Sec, Blue Curacao, Cointreau, Grand Marnier, X-rated, and Solerno all have an orange flavor. Each one of them is a bit different, of course.

The most abundant style of orange liqueur is triple sec. You will find a cheap brand of triple sec in the well at most bars. Brands like Jacquin's, Bols, Hiram Walker, Dekuyper, and many others all make a triple sec orange liqueur. Triple sec is called triple sec due to typically being distilled three times and tending toward a drier (sec) orange.

Cointreau was seen as the original premium orange liqueur. The original orange liqueur was a product called Combier. Distribution of Combier is fairly limited, however. Cointreau is seen as one of the best, widely distributed, premium orange liqueurs on the market today.

The direct counterpart to Cointreau is Grand Marnier. The two products have almost exactly the same price point depending on your region. Where I live, they both cost $35 a bottle. Grand Marnier is quite distinct in that it is an orange liqueur that is blended with cognac. This changes it to having a brown color and creates a fairly unique blend of flavor that some people will drink straight.

Curacao is another style of orange liqueur. Curacao takes its name from the island of Curacao off the coast of Venezuela. The oranges used in curacao tend to be those from the island, but there is no such legal requirement. The fun thing about curacao is the color palette available. Americans have blue curacao everywhere. There is also green, red, and orange curacao. This is literally just food coloring and dye added to the liqueur. We like the blue color because bartenders are creative people and people love pretty drinks. We already had other liqueurs in all the other colors, so when a blue liqueur came to be available it caught on like wildfire.

There are a few other orange liqueurs worth mentioning quickly. Solerno is a premium liqueur made from the blood orange. Campari is a bitter liqueur that uses just the peels of oranges as one of it's many flavors. Campari should not be used as a substitute for any other orange liqueur. X-rated is a liqueur made with french vodka, blood oranges, and passion fruits. Many other recent liqueurs use orange and other fruits as well, like Gran Gala and Patron Citronage.

“Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.”
- Ogden Nash

Photo Credit: Wikimedia, Needpix