mint

Frozen East Side Cocktail

July 11, 2018 by Natalie Leave a Comment

I love reinventing classics to fit the season. While the East Side Cocktail is such a perfect and refreshing Summer cocktail as is — I couldn’t help but wonder how much better it might be if I took all the ingredients and threw them in a blender. With the temperature being in the high 80s all week and not letting up for the foreseeable future, can you really blame me?

If you’re not familiar with the East Side Cocktail, it is basically a Southside Cocktail (gin, lime, sugar, mint) with added cucumbers. But they’re both really just gimlets, right? And a gimlet is just a daiquiri with gin instead of rum. I could go on and on but the point is they’re all delicious, simple, and easily quaffable. Now in all of its frosty glory, I introduce you to the Frozen East Side Cocktail. Your new favorite Summer drink.

Frozen East Side Cocktail, serves 1

2 oz. Gin

1 oz. simple syrup

3/4 oz. lime juice

handful of mint

5 cucumber slices

6-8 oz. of ice

Add all your ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into your desired serving vessel, I used coupe glasses, but double rocks glasses will do too. Garnish with cucumber slices and a sprig of mint.

That was super easy, right?

And it tastes like heaven?

Then I think you made it correctly.

When I develop frozen cocktails or reinvent classics as such, here is my rule of thumb; sugar content should always be greater. If I were shaking this drink and serving it up the sugar: citrus ratio would have been flipped (1 oz. lime, 3/4 oz. simple). With frozen drinks, sugar content should be higher to compensate for dilution which is always much greater in frozen drinks. Sometimes adding too little sugar means getting cocktails that turn out unbalanced and overly tart. Capeesh?

Now let’s talk about the blending of the mint and cucumber into this drink. If you’ve ever had an East Side Cocktail in its regular form, muddled and served up like a gimlet, then you know how deliciously refreshing it is. Blending it knocks these refreshing flavors right out of the park though. It’s like an explosion of minty, herbal, refreshing goodness. Honestly, after I shot these I kinda got a little cold sipping them in my kitchen. Talk about cooling down! Did I mention that gorgeous green hue? It’s a stunner ladies and gentlemen! 😉

The other great thing about the Frozen East Side Cocktail, or the East Side in general, is that if you’re not feeling like gin… that’s okay! This cocktail served shaken or made frozen, is outstanding with so many other spirits. Personally, I love it with tequila but it would also work great with vodka, rum, or your favorite whiskey. So pick your spirit of choice and get out that blender! I know this Frozen East Side Cocktail will not disappoint.

A Spring Classic: Sensation Cocktail

May 21, 2018 by Natalie Leave a Comment

A less known but delicious classic is the Sensation Cocktail. It’s a cousin of the more popular Aviation cocktail but replaces the Creme de Violette for mint. If I’m being honest, I tend to love the Sensation Cocktail more so. Creme de Violette can be a little too floral for my preference and the Sensation Cocktail is dry, more tart, and super refreshing! It first appeared in a book by Robert Vermeire in 1922, Cocktails: How to Mix Them, and the recipe is credited to James Berkelmans, Paris.

There has been so much going on behind the scenes that it’s been a struggle to update the blog over the last week or so. I have a ton in the works that I can’t wait to share with you soon. On top of a crazy workload, right after finishing the One Room Challenge, I jumped into repainting the kitchen and starting on the bathroom. These lemons you see as my backdrop is actually a new accent wall. As soon as I shoot it I’m going to do a kitchen tour post. Oh — I’m also fostering 4 adorable 4-week old kittens. Make sure to keep an eye on my Instagram stories, and starting today I’m officially using the hashtag #cocktailsandkittens. If you want to find out why keep reading. 😉

Sensation Cocktail, serves 1

2 oz. gin

3/4 oz. lemon juice

3/4 oz. maraschino liqueur

small handful of mint

mint sprig and lemon twist, for garnish

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker, fill completely with ice and shake. Strain into a coupe glass. Garnishing this drink with a brandied maraschino cherry is perfectly acceptable but I love to roll up a lemon twist and stick a mint sprig in it. It looks beautiful and adds so many aromatics. You can also double strain this drink if you don’t want mint in it. I prefer little mint floaters because I think it looks nice and adds texture but some people like a clean strain. To each their own!

I love making classics at home because, for the most part, they are fairly simple (3-4 ingredients). The Sensation Cocktail is one of my favorites to drink this time of year, especially on a warm day. It’s crisp, refreshing, and quenches my thirst immediately. Maraschino liqueur makes this drink sharp and dry. If you tend to like slightly sweeter drinks you can add 1/4 – 1/2 oz of simple syrup to this recipe to sweeten it up.

Okay, now it’s time to meet the kittens. Meet Elsie, Murray, Gertie, and Ethel! They were not cooperating very much on set so I will have to keep practicing. I had to hold them to get some shots of them. They. Are. So. Tiny.

A few years back I frequently fostered with a local rescue, Jersey Cats. For about 2 years my old apartment was a kitten hotel. I’d get kittens, keep them for a few weeks or months, they would get adopted, and then I’d get new kittens. My life was definitely full of sweet, cute, cuddly moments — but fostering is hard. It’s a lot of work and sometimes you get attached to cats. The number one question I always get about fostering is how do you not keep all the kittens? It’s REALLY HARD but I like to remind myself of the bigger picture. The more cats or animals I have the harder it is for me to help others. There will be more kittens, and they will all be cute. I just want to save the world one kitten at a time!

So why am I fostering again? I originally stopped when I adopted my Chinese Crested dog, David Bowie. Having a dog was much more work, my apartment was tiny, and it was just too much. After my cat Phil died in October there has been a void. Now that I have more space I thought it might be fun to start at it again and Jersey Cats needed a foster. So happy to help again!

I hope you guys like kittens because I’m hoping to include them in some of my posts until they find their forever homes. If you’re local please check out Jersey Cats to stay updated. I hope you enjoyed my silly kitten and cocktail photos and I hope you will try the Sensation Cocktail this Spring/Summer. As always, I would love to hear from you, so chime in on the comments below. Either about the cocktail or these sensational kittens! xo

Aloe Cucumber Cooler

April 10, 2018 by Natalie Leave a Comment

I’m so happy to be teaming up with Tadin Tea for this next post. Tea is something I’ve always incorporated into my recipe developing at home and behind the bar. This Aloe Cucumber Cooler is so refreshing and the perfect cocktail for the warm months ahead.

Usually, when I use tea in cocktails I gravitate towards the more floral and fruity teas. The selection of teas Tadin has available was so impressive. Tadin has been creating unique tea blends since 1982 that are all naturally good for you. Immediately I knew I wanted to use the aloe vera cactus tea in a cocktail. Drinking aloe has numerous health benefits such as extra hydration, aids in liver function, healthy skin, and digestion. I guess healthy cocktails are kind of my thing lately. 😉

Aloe Cucumber Cooler, serves 1

2 oz. Hendrick’s gin

1 oz. aloe vera juice

1/2 oz. lime juice

3/4 oz. tea syrup (using Tadin aloe vera with cactus tea)

cucumber slices and mint, for muddling

top with club soda

cucumber ribbons and mint sprigs for garnish

Making tea syrup is so easy and such a great way to add extra flavor to your drinks and simple syrup. First, brew the tea. I used 3 tea bags in 1 cup of boiling water. Let steep for 5 minutes and then discard the tea bags. While the tea is still hot, add the same amount of sugar to make a 1:1 tea simple syrup.

Regarding the aloe juice, I bought mine packaged. I wanted to juice it fresh but the day I was looking for it, of course, it was nowhere to be found. I’ve linked to the one I used above. If you can find that brand I suggest using it. It is 99.8% aloe. Make sure whatever aloe juice you’re buying has no added sugars, is made from 100% pure aloe, and is made from the inner gel fillet. So many of the aloe drinks on the market are flavored and have lots of additives and sugar.

Now you can build your cocktail. Add aloe vera juice, lime juice, tea syrup, cucumber, and mint to a cocktail shaker and muddle lightly. Next, add your gin then shake with ice and strain into a highball glass. Top with soda and garnish with a cucumber ribbon and mint sprig. To make cucumber ribbons I used a mandolin slicer.

This Aloe Cucumber Cooler turned out way better than I anticipated. It’s:

Cold

Refreshing

Fizzy

Earthy

Herbal

Hydrating

I was a little nervous how well the tea and actual aloe juice would work in a cocktail but the results are amazing. The tea is super herbal and earthy which goes so well with muddled mint and cucumber. Also, I decided to use Hendrick’s gin to add extra cucumber and floral notes to this drink. Feel free to use any gin or even vodka if that’s your preference. I will certainly be consuming a lot of these this Summer. Can we hydrate our livers and drink at the same time? I’m not sure but it’s worth a shot!

Also, make sure you head over to Instagram to enter the giveaway I’m hosting with Tadin Teas. One lucky winner will win Tadin Teas entire collection. That’s 33 different teas! I’d love to see you mix up your own Tadin Teas cocktails at home. Good luck everyone!

Hibiscus Gin-Gin Mule

August 14, 2017 by Natalie 2 Comments

With all the recipe developing for menus and blog posts, my refrigerator becomes a graveyard for fruit, herbs and miscellaneous syrups. I try my best to eat and repurpose most of it for cooking, smoothie bowls, or other recipes throughout the week but sometimes there’s a little waste. I’m implementing a new rule that if I make it, I have to use it! I made syrups for posts on A Beautiful Mess and Palm Springs Style last week and was wondering what my next cocktail would be on my own blog. Fresh ginger and hibiscus, does that work? You bet it does!

One of the first cocktails that came to mind was one that I learned when I worked behind the bar at Flatiron Lounge, the Gin-Gin Mule. It was created by Audrey Saunders of Pegu Club in 2000 and was a milestone drink of the 21st-century cocktail renaissance. It has inspired countless spin-offs and heavily influenced the use of fresh ginger and homemade ingredients in cocktails. It’s a drink that I still find myself making for people at Dutch Kills when they request a bartenders choice, “I’ll have something with gin that’s refreshing”, I pretty much immediately make a Gin-Gin Mule.

This cocktail is essentially a fusion of two classics, the Mojito (rum, lime, sugar, mint) and a Gin Buck (gin, lime, fresh ginger, soda). I’ve replaced the call for simple syrup in this recipe with hibiscus syrup. You can find out how to make ginger syrup here and my hibiscus syrup here.

Hibiscus Gin-Gin Mule, serves 1

2 oz. Gin

1 oz. Lime Juice

1/2 oz. Hibiscus Syrup

1/2 oz. Ginger Syrup

Mint

Club Soda

Add lime juice, hibiscus syrup, ginger syrup, and mint to your shaker and muddle. Lightly tapping the mint is sufficient. When muddling a good rule to follow in the words of Sasha Petraske is “bruise don’t abuse”. Add gin, ice, and then shake. Strain into a highball glass over ice and top with club soda. Garnish with a mint sprig and ginger candy.

I’ve always loved this cocktail but the hibiscus syrup adds a tart, fruity, and floral element that makes this drink even more perfect for summer (if that’s even possible). The sweet floral element of the hibiscus blends perfectly with the spiciness of the ginger and freshness of the mint. More than 10 years later and this cocktail is so good it still influences how I develop cocktails. Some of the most delicious drinks are so perfect just because they’re simple. Less IS more. What’s your favorite modern classic? Do you ever put your own spin on it? Tell me about it in the comments below.

mint

Frozen East Side Cocktail, serves 1

Sensation Cocktail, serves 1

Aloe Cucumber Cooler, serves 1

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