LindyCat

Sounds to me like you are on the right track. Caparihas and beer were the general accompaniments to barbecue while my hubby was in Brazil. Churrasco is a bit different from American BBQ (no sauce) but smokey, grilled meats--same idea. It's not a cocktail, but we like Shiraz or Zinfindel and other spicy reds with BBQ.

I'm sure I can come up with an opinion on that just as soon as I stop laughing.

Kretchma Cocktail is our favorite pink drink here, and it's extremely easy to like for ordinary (non-cocktail) folks. It's 3 parts vodka, 1 part white creme de cacao, 1 part lemon juice with a couple dashes of grenadine, shake and serve in a cocktail glass. We like to garnish it with a cherry...when you get to the bottom of the glass, the cherry and the last mouthful of alcohol make a fun and delicious chocolate covered cherry kiss at the end.

Thanks for posting this! I'm a Chicago dweller and I've been wanting peach bitters. Definately check back when they will be on shelf for me. :)

How about cocktails using asian teas? I've been contemplating how to combine them with alcohol, but it seems like a troublesome pairing. Any suggestions?

Sazerac, where did you find your two-ounce cocktail glasses? Anywhere easy? Like you say, everything is gigantic. It's so unattractive to serve a small (reasonable, even) drink in a huge, oversized glass, but I feel like it's all I can find. I love the idea of mini-cocktails, but I agree it sounds like a major pain in the butt for the bartender.

Someone mentioned making kaffircello in one thread, garnishing with the leaves in another, but I've been looking for these limes all over for cooking Thai--with no luck. Does anyone know where in Chicago I can find these elusive fruits, or even what their season is? And would anyone care to recommend further uses for them once they are located?

Thanks for allowing me the benefit of your experience. Now I can't wait for pomegranate season to roll around again! I also want to try to make a pomegranate liqueur (ratafia). Erik ← Mmm...pomegranate liqueur! That sounds yummy. Do you have a recipe? There's one around here somewhere for a tangerine ratafia, which was the first I had heard of such things.

Actually, Three Musketeers original product was three pieces in strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla, like neopolitan ice cream. As for packaging changes...meh. It's a shame to see stuff go the way of the Dodo, but it also gives us lovely antique pieces.

I tried a couple recipes to get mine the way I wanted. The idea is to take pomegranate juice and sugar and heat them together to get a syrup. (I use a 1:1 ratio by volume.) Most of the recipes I found called for heating all the juice at once or even using a heat method to extract the juice from the seeds. I found this gave the syrup a "cooked" flavor, like the bottled juice has. If you want to bottle this to be sterile and put it on the shelf, you aren't going to have much of a choice; you will have to heat it all. However, I keep mine in the refrigerator, and do it this way, instead: Extract the juice from your fresh pomegranate seeds by crushing and straining through cheesecloth. I just whirled mine in the food processor and then filtered this juice. Pomegranates vary in size, of course, but probably yeild about a cup of liquid each if I remember right. Dissolve the sugar in as little of the juice as you can over heat in a big, flat bottomed skillet. Once the sugar has dissolved completely and you have a very thick syrup, pour in the rest of the juice and boil off the excess water as fast as you can manage. You should end up with something like slose to half of what you started with. By using a big shallow pan, you can steam off the excess liquid very quickly. This prevents the syrup from tasting cooked (in fact, it's quite tasty!), and you get that pretty red color without all that red dye. This makes great looking drinks. :) Mine has stayed good in the fridge for months now, but you could also freeze it into icecubes and then thaw those individually to have just a little bit on hand.

We served Aviations at our last party after I read about them here, and they were a big hit. I loved watching suspicious friends' (gin and what?) eyes light up when they took the first sip. A former bartender had never encountered one, and took a minute to complain about the "-tini" phenomenon while she made herself and husband more Aviations. eGullet...helping people drink better, one party at a time.

The red dye used in these babies is not very good for you, and I'd like to get away from it. I make my own grenadine for this reason, and have been very pleased with it. (It's also fun to explain to the guests that it's pomegranate syrup.) I've also heard that in days of yore, maraschino cherries were kin to brandied cherries and somehow made with alcohol, though I don't know if that's true. In any case, does anyone have a recipe for maraschinos that turns up a fun red product without red dye 40?

Actually, not quite true. While it does contain "empty" calories, high-alcohol content drinks with less sugar (or cream for that matter), like whiskey or vodka straight up, will actually lower your bloodsugar and help you absorb carbohydrates more slowly, thus avoiding turning them into fat. (Maybe this is why they get served as apperitifs?) Or so my diabetic aunt claims when I ask her what she would like to drink. White wine, no no. Bookers--that she'll drink. As for crimes against booze, I think we can all agree that if we can ever get an international tribunal organized on this, we can get Hiram Walker's CEO sentanced to death.

Tough question. Bottle of gin. I haven't been drinking gin long enough to settle on a favorite. Will I get lynched for uncouthness if I add creme de cacao as one of mine? Is uncouthness even a word? Not very sophisticated, I know, but I love chocolate. And my current fav party cocktail is .5 oz of the chocolate, .5 oz lemon juice, 1.5 oz vodka, dash of grenadine (does it help that I make my own?), shake and pour. Garnish with a cherry because everyone secretly loves them. And they taste good with the chocolate at the end of the drink...like a surprise chocolate-covered cherry. I suppose I better add vodka to this list to continue making this cocktail. I'm currently drinking Sobieski. I find that my favorite "secret" ingredient tends to be apricot brandy, but cassis is good for this purpose also. However, I just purchased my first bottle of maraschino, and I'm already starting to fall in love with the depth of flavor even a little adds to a drink. I know that's more than three. Sorry. :D

Thanks for the help! There seems to be a whole thread devoted to books now, so I'll just glom onto that.

Yes, while I was in France a gentian cordial was the local specialty liquor in the rural, mountainous area I was in. Most houses make some of their own, and every shop in the region sold it’s own variety. I am not a fan, but I don't generally like herb-flavored liqueurs. It was a very bitter, medicinal flavor in a lurid greenish-yellow sweetened liquid.

I love frothy drinks made with raw egg, as do most of the people to whom I've given them. However, they tend to have a rich character, even when just made from the white, something like a milkshake, not really a very light foam like what is being sought here. Surprisingly (and pleasantly), they don't taste of egg at all in the way you might expect. I think many of these drinks are called "flips," though, and a fizz is made with club soda? We are big fans of a Cupid Kiss, a sherry flip made with a Pedro Ximinez and a dash of cayenne. Shake until foamy, serve in a wine glass. I've noticed my liquor store sells "bar foamer." What is this for? Edited for spelling.

Hi there. Another Chicago dweller for the forum! My husband and I are fairly new to the world of cocktails, very pleased to have discovered the world beyond wine, and experimenting a lot with new cocktails. We have a few questions: For recipes calling for fruit brandies, like apricot brandy or cherry brandy, are they asking for a cordial-like flavored brandy (how we've been making them) or an eau-de-vie? We are currently making all our cocktails out of the Bartender's Bible, and a lovely coffee table book called Cocktails that someone gave us. There are so many other books out there...can someone recommend a few stand-outs? Finally, as we start to experiment with making up our own drinks, are there any general guidelines or properties that help make sure our concoctions are not undrinkable wastes of fine gin? Thanks!