Blood Orange Juice and Syrup

[sara]

Hi

I just picked up a bottle of blood orange juice from Trader Joes and am looking for cocktail recipes I can use it in...

I have vodka (unflavored), tequila, and cachaca on hand.

Any ideas greatly appreciated!! (Especially drinks that could be made in a pitcher for a crowd)

[JAZ]

Try this one: a drink I haven't named yet. You could make this with vodka instead of rum, as well.

[curlywurlyfi]

what about a cocktail my dear old mum used to make (still does) called Mary's Knees? she makes it in a large mineral water bottle (1.5litres) so all quantities approximate. She makes it with normal OJ but blood orange will give the most fantastic colour.

Mary's Knees

orange juice to 2/3rds of the way up the bottle

add an inch (approx) of Campari

add an inch (approx) of orange liqueur eg Cointreau, Grand Marnier

add the juice of 1-2 juicy lemons

top up with vodka

shake well and chill. this stuff is LETHAL. and no, I don't know why it's called that. good luck!

[Jason Perlow]

Blood Orange Juice, Pineapple Juice, Rum and some club soda/seltzer.

You could also try making a Flaming Orange Gully with it.

[redfox]

I have in my possession some delicious thick blood orange syrup (really more the consistency of a puree). I love it just mixed with water from the syphon, but it seems like it would be fantastic in the right cocktail. But I am an inexperienced mixologist, so I'm looking for someone cleverer's bright ideas to get me on the right track. Any suggestions?

[KatieLoeb]

I have in my possession some delicious thick blood orange syrup (really more the consistency of a puree). I love it just mixed with water from the syphon, but it seems like it would be fantastic in the right cocktail. But I am an inexperienced mixologist, so I'm looking for someone cleverer's bright ideas to get me on the right track. Any suggestions?

Blood Orange Mimosa.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Try this if you wish to use it in a drink:

Blood orange and Rosemary Daiquiri

or, if you want to use this syrup in a mimosa or in a cake there is this:

Blood orange Mimosas and Cake recipes just scroll down the page for the recipes...

[DRColby]

Add some Campari.

dave

[JAZ]

Since Katie's being modest, I'll give a plug for her creation, the Sicilian Martini.

[redfox]

Honestly, I'm at a loss for translating recipes calling for blood orange juice into recipes for my syrup. It's not concentrate; it doesn't turn into blood orange juice if you just add water. But the Sicilian Martini sounds great (though I have a suspicion I won't be running into blood orange vodka at my usual liquor hut). Also the nice basic Campari suggestion. I'll try that one tonight!

[KatieLoeb]

Since Katie's being modest, I'll give a plug for her creation, the Sicilian Martini.

Thanks JAZ!

Redfox, you could easily fake this with regular vodka and a splash of the Blood Orange puree. It's truly sublime with the Lillet. You could probably even dilute it a bit with club soda (or tonic if you prefer) and serve it as a highball drink rather than a very strong martini style up cocktail.

[tryska]

you could most likely make some good rum drinks with it. maybe rum, pineapple and a dash of syrup?

[redfox]

Thanks for all the ideas. I bought some Lillet today, and it's chilling away -- I'm looking forward to playing with Sicilianesqueries.

[KatieLoeb]

Thanks for all the ideas. I bought some Lillet today, and it's chilling away -- I'm looking forward to playing with Sicilianesqueries.

You must report back with the findings of your escapades. We keep blood orange puree at our bar for our mimosas (our signature brunch drink - the Rouge Mimosa ) so if you have some new applications bring 'em on! I hate to see those bottles taking up space for only one drink. We have a really small bar so space is at a premium. Anything to maximize usage, sales and revenue is a good thing.

[yellow truffle]

Try a negroni. I always ask for a garnish of blood orange, but I have never tried it with syrup. This sounds yummy. Gin (Bombay Sapphire), Campari and Sweet Vermouth (3, 2, 1 parts of each). Add a drop or two of the syrup and shake in cocktail shaker. Enjoy in your favorite martini glass.

I have in my possession some delicious thick blood orange syrup (really more the consistency of a puree).

BTW, Where did you acquire such an item? On the web?

[kvltrede]

I purchased and tasted my very first blood oranges yesterday. What a pleasant surprise. They're wonderful and I can't wait to go back and pick up more.

My primary reason for buying these was simple curiosity but I also had cocktails in mind. I was somewhat surprised to find a lack of recipes featuring blood orange juice. It seems that I had been thinking of the various threads here discussing bergamot oranges. Oh, well, I decided it wouldn't take a lot of imagination to find a suitable use for blood orange juice. While milder and a less tart than regular oranges the blood oranges are similar enough that most any recipe featuring orange juice shouldn't require too much reconfiguring to suit the blood orange juice.

We started with the only recipe at CocktailDB.com featuring blood orange juice, a Bronx variation called the Blood Bronx. I liked it pretty well but my cohorts were underwhelmed. I think part of the problem was the Brokers Gin that I used. Brokers is quite potent at 94 proof but it's also pretty heavy on the botanicals. I think a less obvious gin and/or a sweetening agent of some sort would have made a better drink. I think a good Triple Sec or Grand Marnier (or Gran Gala) would have helped. A dash of some type of bitters couldn't hurt either, I imagine.

With that in mind I opened up Joy of Mixology in search of a suitable orange juice drink to adapt. I found Gary Regan's Paradise Cocktail:

Paradise Cocktail

1½ oz gin

3/4 oz apricot brandy

½ oz orange juice

½ oz lemon juice

Shake and strain.

I don't recall if Gary specified Hungarian Barack Palinka as the apricot brandy style of choice or if he meant the more common sweet style but having just picked up a bottle of Zwack's Pescetes Barack Palinka I knew that's what I was going to use. Next I switched to Gilbey's gin so as not to overpower this drink. Then I opted for only 1/2 ounce of the palinka but upped the o.j. to 3/4 ounce to account for the mildness of the blood orange juice and the less-sweet nature of the palinka. I left the lemon juice at 1/2 ounce.

The result? Very, very nice. This is close enough to Gary's recipe that I think it should be called the Bloody Paradise or something along those lines. The mix of botanicals, the bite of the palinka and it's nice apricot flavor plus the mild sweetness of the b.o.j. and the tartness of the lemon juice made for a very enjoyable cocktail that will certainly be mixed up again at my house.

In fact, the Bloody Paradise was so good that we decided to have one more despite our now being low on b.o.j. For my next trick I came up with this:

1½ oz gin

1/2 oz apricot brandy (barack palinka)

½ oz Mandarin Napoleon

½ oz blood orange juice

½ oz lemon juice

1 dash each of Peychaud’s and Fee’s Old Fashioned bitters

Shake and strain

It was fantastic. Very similar to the Bloody Paradise but the cognac in the Mandarin Napoleon brought a nice undertone. Also, I chose the M.N. over Gran Gala due to the mandarin orange having a similarly mild & sweet profile as the blood orange. It worked as well as I had hoped. The bitters also worked the magic that bitters usually do. I'm not sure I could detect the O.F. bitters but the Peychaud's made it's presence known in a most welcome way.

I think the drink is sufficiently different from Gary's Paradise that it deserves it's own name. I'm thinking of calling it the Blood Oath. The name doesn't appear to be taken yet. My only concern is that something called a Blood Oath should probably have rum in it. Of course, "blood" doesn't have to be in the drink's name but I think the b.o.j. is important enough that it should be noted. Thoughts?

Kurt

[SushiCat]

thoughts over here are YUM! The Blood Oath, sounds like a truly delicious drink! Not sure about the name, it does sound kind of rough for what you have concocted. Nice to have these ingredients on hand and play around with the variations.

Would either of your new cocktails be improved by meyer lemon juice or is that just guilding the lily?

[slkinsey]

You could make a Blood Orange Cosmopolitan

1.5 oz : Charbay blood orange vodka (or other citrus vodka)

0.5 oz : Cointreau

0.5 oz : fresh blood orange juice

0.25 oz : fresh lime juice

There is the Mandarin Sunset

2 oz : Mandarin orange vodka

2 oz : blood orange juice

1 oz : Lilet Blanc

1 oz: lychee juice

[kvltrede]

thoughts over here are YUM!  The Blood Oath, sounds like a truly delicious drink!  Not sure about the name, it does sound kind of rough for what you have concocted.  Nice to have these ingredients on hand and play around with the variations. 

Would either of your new cocktails be improved by meyer lemon juice or is that just guilding the lily?

Well, Meyer lemons and any number of other "specialty" fruits and things remain on my list of stuff to try when I have the opportunity so I'll have to leave that question for someone else to answer. Personally, I like the idea of using the juice of two somewhat out-of-the-ordinary fruits in a cocktail. The produce store didn't have any Meyer lemons last night but I'll check again when I go back for more blood oranges.

As for the name, I know you're right. Blood Oath is a little heavy for what is a darned refreshing and light cocktail. I came up with Blood Moon but it seems that blood moons are associated with October and that's not exactly prime citrus season.

In doing a little more "research" I found quite a few apricot brandy drinks at DrinksMixer.com. DrinksMixer seems to define apricot brandy as the Hungarian Barack Palinka more often than not so I'm working my way through some of the 172 apricot brandy reipes they have listed. I found one called the Red Cloud. It's similar to my new cocktail and I'm trying to decide whether I want to coopt the name. How do you like the Blood Red Cloud? In this case the b.o.j. subs for the grenadine and the Mandarine Napoleon and the bitters are additional. I dunno.

How about the Albany Terrace? I'd prefer to acknowledge the importance of the blood orange juice but maybe naming it after the place it was created--our condo building--is the way to go. It's not as snappy a name as those drinks named after swank cocktail lounges but it may do.

How is it that naming our punches in college was so easy? Too bad I already used "Red Death" for that lovely combination of Everclear, Hawaiian Punch and, um, I forget the rest...

Kurt

[bakerboy]

I actually bought some blood oranges a while back and was playing with recipes. my drink of choice is tequila and am a big fan of sangrita. My base recipe for sangrita has always been equal parts of tomato juice and orange juice. Sunday night, had a few friends over and made my sangrita with blood orange juice instead of regular OJ. Wow. It not only tasted good but it looked fantastic.

Tomato juice 2 Cups

Blood orange juice 2 Cups

Onion(minced) 1/8 cup

Red jalapeno 1 (roasted)

Lime juice 2 Tbsp

salt

pepper

Throw all this in a blender and buzz. I've tried this with all kinds of different ingredients and there's alot of recipes for sangrita out there. I don't care for sangritas made with grenadine, just a personal preference. The blood orange juice gave it a great color as well as a nice fruitiness. I topped each chaser with a bit of cilantro.

[ludja]

I actually bought some blood oranges a while back and was playing with recipes.  my drink of choice is tequila and am a big fan of sangrita. 

...

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Thanks, that looks like a great sangrita recipe! Do you ever mix your sangrita (like this one) with tequila; i.e. to make something like a Vampiro?

[bakerboy]

yes ludja, i do that sometimes with cheaper tequilas. The better tequilas i like to sip with a sangrita on the side....but i like that name "vampiro". Its better that "mexican bloody mary" which is what i call it.

[kvltrede]

For anyone still paying attention I've decided to go with Blood Red Sky as the name of my little cocktail. I think the image of a blood red sky at dusk is a pleasant one and matches the drink quite well. I'm pleased to keep "blood" in the title but without any of the usual dark connotations. As an on-and-off U2 fan going way, way back I don't mind that association either.

As I was searching cocktail websites checking on the originality of Blood Red Sky I was quite surprised to find a recipe for a cocktail at KingCocktail.com called Red Death. I'm glad to report that Dale DeGroff's version is not the Everclear punch from my college days.

I can't wait to try bakerboy's sangrita. It sounds fantastic.

Kurt

[eje]

I purchased and tasted my very first blood oranges yesterday.  What a pleasant surprise.  They're wonderful and I can't wait to go back and pick up more. 

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Not juice, per se; but, a slice of blood orange muddled with the bitters and simple syrup in the bottom of an old-fashioned gives a slightly different flavor and a little extra aromatic zip to the drink.

Erik

PS. I also experimented with wedges of Satsuma mandarins in Old-Fashioneds. While the blood oranges were interesting, I think I may prefer the mandarins. Further study is obviously necessary.

Edited March 4, 2005 by eje (log)