Poached Pear Garnish

Enjoy this seasonal poached pear garnish with bourbon or rum this fall -- recipe at the link.  

A New Direction

Check out my new tumblr site for a different spin on cocktail posts:

http://rejiggered.tumblr.com/


I hope you enjoy it.  This blog will still be around as well. 

Bourbon Challenge

Can anyone recommend -- or even identify -- a 21 year-old bourbon?  A good friend of mine is looking for a very particular gift.  It has to be 21.  Not 20 or 23, fellow Pappy heads.

SB-60

SB-60 Cocktail
1/2 oz freshly squeezed lime juice
1/2 oz minted syrup 
2 oz vodka
Stir with ice in a double old-fashioned glass.  Use cranberry juice ice cubes if you like.  Top with sparkling wine.

Minted Syrup

Minted Syrup

1 cup white sugar
1 cup boiling water
Leaves from 12 or more sprigs of mint (err on the side of more, not less)

Stir sugar into boiling water until dissolved. Add mint leaves and muddle. Allow mint leaves to steep an hour or more, up to overnight. Strain leaves from syrup and discard.

Pink Sand Cocktail

The credit for this drink goes to Justin of Tucker Point Resort in Bermuda, where my wife and some of her friends discovered it on a recent trip. It's a sweet rummy concoction that matches the pink sand of the island -- hence the name he gave it on the fly.

Pink Sand Cocktail

1 oz banana rum
1 oz mango rum
1 oz pineapple rum
1 oz dragon berry rum
1 oz Rose's lime juice
Splash of grenadine

Shake ingredients together with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Because I am unable to leave any cocktail recipe alone, I swapped fresh lime juice for the Rose's and finished the drink with a healthy pour of champage -- either rose for a deeper pink color, or brut to balance the sweetness of the other ingredients.

St. Croix Cocktail

As always, many thanks to Lindsey of Brown, Bitter and Stirred for hosting the August edition of Mixology Monday. Of course, let's also raise a glass to Paul for rallying the party.

My taste for bourbon has drawn me to brown, bitter and stirred cocktails for decades. However, in the summer, I have a taste for rum, so I morphed a Manhattan into a lower-latitude version.

St. Croix Cocktail

3 oz gold rum (I used Cruzan Single Barrel)
1/6 oz (1 teaspoon) ruby port
1/6 oz (1 teaspoon) Grapefruit Tea Bitters

Stir ingredients together with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.