Straight from the 12BB book, another IBA official cocktail:
Shaken with ice, strained into a martini glass.
This one is nicely balanced, but we couldn't really taste the grapefruit. Maybe the grapefruit we got wasn't too flavorful? Either way, we'll try this one again.
Although a regulation Tom Collins calls for Old Tom gin, the 12BB book recommends using genever. As fortune would have it, a friend of mine from Belgium gifted me a bottle of Bols Genever on a recent visit. He apologized profusely for giving us "Dutch crap" (apparently the Belgians have a better take on genever!) but I still think it's very tasty!
Stir genever, lemon and sugar with crushed ice until sugar has dissolved. Top with soda and garnish with a lemon slice.
This one turned out really nice, and it's easy to appreciate how distinct genever is from gin (as used in the John Collins). I'm looking forward to trying more genever drinks!
One of the few drink recipes I've seen that use both gin and rum. Pulled from the 12BB book.
Shaven with ice, served in a martini glass.
This is a very tart drink. I ended up garnishing with a lemon twist which helped take the tart edge off the drink.
Found this one in the 12BB book and, despite not having quite all the ingredients, went for it anyways.
Shaken, served in a Collins glass with ice.
Fantastic drink. Spices come through nicely and compliment the rum. Will have to try again with the recommended garnish.
Another one from 12BB, made exactly per the book's instructions:
Shaken, then served in a martini glass.
As the book suggestions, this is a very tart drink. A little to tart for me, but pleasant enough. In the future, I might try adjusting the Cointreau to lime juice ratio to sweeten it up.
This was the first drink we made after picking up a proper bottle of rye. Old Overholt gets great marks, especially for cocktails, while being priced at less than $18 a bottle here in Boston.
Shaken. Served in a Martini glass with with a lemon garnish.
Good drink. The 12BB book says that the key to this drink is to only use just enough grenadine to take away the sharp sourness of the lemon juice, but that it is supposed to remain tart.
Another IBA official cocktail, although the proportions below are slightly different. The official recipe uses less grenadine, but I think our grenadine has less sugar than most.
Shaken. Served in a martini glass, garnished with lime spray.
Great drink. Would definitely make it again. Maybe next time try with only grenadine (1 oz) as the sweetener to bring in more pomagranate flavor.
We were in the mood for gin based cocktails, so to make use of our newly brewed grenadine, we made Zelli's Special from the 12BB book. It's sort of half way between a martini and a sour.
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker, shake vigorously. Strain into a martini glass.
This one was too tart for our tastes. This is likely due to the fact that the 12BB book recommends a much sweeter grenadine (4X more sugar). We bumped the grenadine up to 2 tsp and that seemed to balance it out quite nicely.
Next time, I would also forego shaking the lime shells as I think this imparted a bitterness on the drink. Instead, I would just spray with some lime oil from the rind.
I had no clue as to what I should do with the Vana Tallinn, so I fell back on what I learned in the cocktail class about classic proportions: 2 parts strong, 1 part sweet, 1 part sour. The Vana Tallinn itself is really sweet though, so I just dropped the sweet.
Garnished with lemon spray. The drink came out pretty sweet, but I still like it.
Made the bee's knees from the 12BB book. Subbed simple syrup (half jaggery, half regular) for the honey syrup
Garnished with lemon spray. Nice drink!
Slightly reduced the amount of sweetener in this blueberry themed whiskey sour because the Blueshine has maple syrup.
Garnished with lemon spray. I think this is the best drink we've made with the Blueshine thus far.
Whipped up two versions of daiquiris tonight. One with standard simple syrup, the other made from (light) jaggery syrup
We used the "light" jaggery nuggets we brought back from Burma to make a simple syrup. The daiquiri made with this syrup was much darker (a medium brown) and had a nice caramel overtone. The second daiquiri was made with standard 1:1 simple syrup and had a lighter flavor. Both were good, but I probably prefer the one made with jaggery.
Took a second stab at making some White Lady's. Last time, I tried the recipe in the 12BB book and came up with something way too tart. Ratio on that recipe was 2:1:1.
This time, I did as follows:
Shaken with ice. Served straight, garnished with spray from lemon rind.
This one turned out great. It's not the official IBA ratio (4:3:2) though so I might have to give that one a shot next time.
