Tag: Cocktail

REPOST from 2016 – The Black-Eyed Susan

“I am the star of screaming headlines and campfire ghost stories. 

I am one of the four Black-Eyed Susans. 

The lucky one”

Black Eyed Susan 1

Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin is the story of Tessa Cartwright.  As a teenager, she was abducted and left for dead in a field of Black-Eyed Susan flowers along with other dead and dying girls. They become collectively known as the Black-Eyed Susans.  Tessa is the only survivor.

Now, in her thirties, the man accused of the crime, the man whom Tessa’s testimony helped put away is facing death row.  And Tessa is having doubts about his guilt.  And if he’s innocent, then the real killer is still out there….

Black Eyed Susan 2
I came to this book in two ways.

It was one of the selections we had for our Crime /Thriller month in bookclub along with Maestra (the one we chose), The Method (which I am currently reading) and The Ex (which I just bought as I noticed it was super cheap as I was getting the link).

Then, the  very next day after we had made our choice,  Heather who writes the blog Meta’s Meals wrote a very positive review of Black-Eyed Susans on Goodreads and I promptly decided that it was going to the top of my reading list!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Black Eyed Susan’s. It was very suspenseful and the plot was original which is a really hard thing to do in crime fiction. I only hope Maestra which is our book club choice is half as good.  Mind you, last year we chose Girl on The Train which…urrggghhhh…I cannot even tell you how much I hated that book.

But this one’s good.  And it has a gorgeous cover!

Black -Eyed Susans

Whilst reading The Black-Eyed Susans, I discovered that there is a cocktail called the Black-Eyed Susan.  It is the official drink of the Preakness Stakes Horse race which is run in Baltimore each year as the winning horse is draped in a blanket made of these flowers.

This was delicious.  I love pineapple juice and St Germain in cocktails so there was no way I wasn’t going to like this.  The lime juice gave it a nice little kick of tanginess too!

The Black-Eyed Susan also got the thumbs up from resident bon vivant F Scott.

Black Eyed Susan 3Oh, and before anyone complains, I know the flowers I have used in my photos are not Black-Eyed Susans.  I am not even sure if they grow here, or, if they did when they would flower.  Anyhoo, the gerberas were the closest (only) thing my local florist had that came close!

Here’s the recipe.  Why not make one and have a sip whilst reading the book!

Print

Black Eyed Susan

A delicious refreshing pineapple and citrus cocktail with a hint of Elderflower.

Ingredients

Scale
  • 45ml Vodka (The Preakness recommend Finlandia)
  • 15ml St Germain
  • 60ml pineapple juice
  • 7.5 ml lime juice
  • 22.5ml orange juice

To Garnish

  • Orange Slice
  • Amarena cherry

Instructions

  1. Combine all the drink ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker.
  2. Shake, baby, shake.
  3. Pour over ice into a Collins glass
  4. Garnish with an orange slice and an Amarena cherry

Notes

  • I used Amarena cherries for this because their darker colour looked more like a black eye than a Maraschino.

Thank you Heather for the recommendation.  If anyone else would  like super book recommendations from Heather, why not follow her, or me on Goodreads!

Have a wonderful Easter!

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The Salty Gin Hound

As you may already know, in our family we have a scent hound, Lulu and a half greyhound, Oscar.

Oscar Lulu 2

And now we have a third.  Welcome the Salty Gin Hound!

Salty Gin Hound

Mmmmm….the 6 week no alcohol challenge is over.  Welcome  back booze!   Possibly.  To be honest, I think having that break has changed the way I feel about alcohol and certainly the way that I want to re-engage back with it.  Oh, and we went to the dog beach, so whilst I prattle on about my six weeks of ahem “no” boozing whilst I sip my Salty Gin Hound, how about I show you some photos of our day at the beach?Dog Beach 280220162

The challenge was a lot easier to do than I thought it would be – I did take Valentine’s Day weekend off and I had the wine I spoke about last week which were both good breaks.  The February Fast website says that quitting alcohol can help you to increase focus, sleep better and lose weight. I  experienced all of that albeit not nearly as much weight loss as I would have liked  – primarily due to a dodgy foot that has limited my ability to go to the gym.

Dog Beach 280220163I felt really good not drinking – fitter, healthier, more focussed.  Having said that, I think it also made me a bit more moody.  I think feeling more in control of myself made me less tolerant towards people around me acting like dicks – whether they were drinking or not.  I feel it also made me a bit more introspective – which, you know,  it’s not like I wasn’t already halfway there to start off with!

I also really started to think a lot more about events from my past and try to resolve a few unanswered questions.  For instance, I spent way too many hours thinking about my first boyfriend, the one I spoke about in the Valentine’s Day post – why did he dump me?  How has that impacted the rest of my life and the choices I have made since then?  Etc, etc.  Ad nauseam.   It’s not like I came to any life changing (or even just any) conclusions about any of the things I was navel gazing about.  Except maybe that I’m ok with not knowing and I am totally ok with the way things have turned out.

Dog Beach 5Another thing I noticed after the sneaky vinos with my friend Aiden was how much alcohol can depress me.  Not in a way that makes me sad or maudling but just sucks my energy and motivation.  That evening I was like a zombie.  I had no energy or drive to do anything except veg out in front of the tv.  Not that I am averse to vegging out in front of the tv but I guess I want to do that when I choose to not because I can’t be arsed to so anything else.

Dog Beach 6

Another benefit was that we returned to one of our favourite  restaurants.  It is an Indian/Pakistani restaurant which, last year decided to become an alcohol free zone.  I  like to have a glass of wine when I go out for a meal; I think it helps to add to the ambience and the enjoyment of the meal, so we had not been there for some time.  Not drinking was the perfect opportunity to head back there for some of the best tandoori in Melbourne.

Dog Beach 7One of the tough points for me was cooking. Particularly on the weekend, if  I need to add some wine to a sauce or something, I will generally pour a glass for me.  Then we would have a glass or two with our meal.  Not pouring that “glass for the cook” was really hard the first few times!

Socially was also hard. Going out for meals or even to people’s houses for a meal. There was one evening we went to my mum’s and everyone else had a glass of wine with their meal and I had a Fanta, like a six year old.  Othertimes, I felt like I had to explain why I wasn’t drinking.

Next time maybe I’ll be cooler about it.

Dog Beach 10Because there will be a next time.  The benefits far outweighed the negatives.  I’m thinking I might do a four- six week stint every season.

Oscar & Lulu Dog BeachYou might  be wondering why, given the obvious benefits why I am not quitting altogether.  One reason is that I do enjoy the social aspect and I love doing the research and making the cocktails for history happy hour.

However, I think that I will be a lot more mindful about how I drink from here on in.

Dog Beach 17

Speaking of which….let’s talk about the Salty Gin Hound!

Gin, grapefruit juice and lemon with a splash of sweet vermouth!  Yum!  That is the Gin Hound.

Dog Beach 50

I had an awesome merlot salt which I used to rim the glass making it a Salty Gin Hound.  I also increased the lemon from the initial recipe, just cos that’s how I like it.

Dog Beach 19The Salty Gin Hound was delicious.  Just the right blend of sweet, salty, bitter.  So refreshing for a hot summer day!   It would have been perfect down at the beach with that tang of salt air on the breeze.

And speaking of salty hounds…we had the two schnooziest of schnoozers on the way home.  So tired after so much fun!

Dog Beach 20Salty Gin Hound 2Salty Gin hound 4

Print

Salty Gin Hound

Ingredients

Scale
  • 3/4 cup fresh squeezed grapefruit juice
  • 2 tablespoon lemon Juice
  • 4 ounces gin
  • 1 ounce sweet vermouth
  • Vintage Merlot or other salt to rim the glass

Instructions

  1. Sprinkle the salt on a plate.
  2. Wipe the rim of your cocktail glass with the lemon rind.
  3. Swirl into the salt to rim.
  4. Fill a cocktail shaker with ice.
  5. Add the gin, lemon and grapefruit juices.
  6. Shake, baby, shake.
  7. Pour over ice.
  8. Add a splash of sweet vermouth.
  9. Enjoy!

Have a wonderful week!

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Nuwara Eliya & A Tea Punch Cocktail

If you were looking to write a Gothic novel, your first choice of location would most likely not be tropical Sri Lanka.  Because the tropes of Gothic novels include storms, rain, mist and fog and Sri Lanka is all sunshine, white sand, blue water and palm trees right?

Wrong, so wrong.  Welcome to Nuwara Eliya.

Nuwara Eliya WeatherSituated “up country” Nuwara Eliya is about as far away most people’s idea of a “tropical” country as you can get.  This is a famous tea growing district  – all of the bushes you can see in the photo above are tea plants.  We were there for three days and the weather was like this the entire time, all low swirling clouds, fog, mist and rain.

As we climbed higher and higher into the hills, the weather changed from hot and sunny, to cold and gloomy.  It was as if you were entering a different, very isolated world – even though the nearest town was only a few kilometers away and you could usually get a decent wifi signal.

As well as the weather, a good Gothic novel should be set in a (preferably haunted) old mansion or manor house.  Nuwara Eliya is nicknamed Little England and The Hill Club, where we stayed,  would not look out of place on the Yorkshire Moors.

Hill Club, Nuwara Eliya

I’ve read enough Agatha Christie and watched enough episodes of Midsomer Murders to know that the English Manor house is actually a hot bed of murder and sexual intrigue.  If it’s not a pyromaniac mad woman in the attic, it’s something nasty in the woodshed!

Hill Club3The Hill Club may well be the one place where the sun hasn’t set on the British Empire.  Staying there is like taking a step back in time.  I suspect that not even in Britain today are there many hotels where one wall in the bar is adorned with a large portrait of the Queen and another with an equally large photo of Winston Churchill.  And this is not someone’s idea of a decorating a hotel with some kitschy memorabilia from the days of Empire.  This is a Hotel from the days of Empire.  Actually, sorry, not a hotel at all.  A gentlemen’s club.

Hill Club
The olde-worlde atmosphere only contributed to the feeling that you had somehow strayed into either some sort of time slip stream or parallel universe.  I would not have been entirely surprised to wake and find myself back the 1940’s or to see a ghostly figure roaming the halls. Speaking of which, there was also a long corridor which could have come direct out of The Shining:

Hallway CollageAdd to this some flickering lights and power outages caused by the storm and you have almost the perfect place to gather around the fire in the reading room either to read your favourite Gothic novel by candlelight or to see who can make up the spookiest story.  Who knows, it may even be the next Frankenstein!

Hill Club4But telling ghost stories can be thirsty work, so whilst you are doing that you need the perfect libation to not only wet your whistle but give you some Dutch courage in the event that a large hound starts baying outside or the tap, tap, tapping on the window turns out not to be a tree branch but your dead lover come to woo you from the grave.

All of which, after the longest intro, ever means, I made us a cocktail.

Tea Punch Cocktail I wanted to make something with tea to highlight the wonderful produce from Nuwara Eliya. And, in a wonderful piece of serendipity, the very next chapter of The A-Z of Cooking contained a recipe for a tea punch. (Yes, we are still only up to D – Dips and Drinks).

Tea Punch Cocktail 2

Sadly, the Tea Punch in The A-Z of Cooking was non-alcoholic.  So, I boozed it up.  Because in my mind, a punch needs to have a little punch if you know what I mean.

My only dilemma with this was what to use as the “spike” for my tea.  Absinthe would have been the Byronesque choice however I can’t bear the taste of it nor the big shirts with frilly collars.

Tea Punch Cocktail 4

Arrack was my next choice because I brought a bottle home with me, but that would be no fun for any of you.  Arrack is a Sri Lankan spirit made from toddy, which is the fermented juice from a coconut palm.

Tea Punch Cocktail 5

I then found this wonderful article in Gothicked which confirmed not only spiked tea as a Gothic drink of choice but also whiskey.  I still had some Jameson’s from when I made the Emerald Presse so I used that.

The original recipe called for Orange Bitters, I had Rhubarb Bitters so I used them instead.

Whether you are in a Gothic Manor house or at home just reading about them,  this is a really nice drink –  the combination of the tea, whiskey and ginger give it a dark, smokey flavour whilst the peach and orange adds some sweetness and a lovely bright tropical colour!

If you are a reader and you were interested in learning a bit more about Sri Lanka, particularly the civil war that tore that beautiful country apart in the ’80’s and ’90’s you might want to take a look at this book:


I read it when we were there which made the story that much more real, particularly as completely by chance we stayed at two of the places, Mount Lavinia and Havelock Town which feature in the book.

And if anyone is inspired by this post to write a spooky Gothic tale or locked room murder mystery set in Nuwara Eliya, please let me know, I would love to read it!

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Print

Tea Punch Cocktail

A tropical cocktail with a dark heart

Ingredients

Scale
  • 50ml strong Ceylon tea
  • 30ml whiskey
  • 30 ml peach juice
  • 30 ml orange juice (about 1/2 an orange)
  • 5 drops Rhubarb Bitters
  • Dry Ginger Ale
  • Orange and peach slices to garnish

Instructions

  1. Mix the tea, whiskey and fruit juices.
  2. Top with the dry ginger ale.
  3. Add the bitters and stir to mix.
  4. Garnish with orange and peach slices

 

Birthday Cocktail – The Rum 007

Well, hello there,

So remiss of me, we’ve been celebrating a while now and I haven’t offered you a drink.  Well, my parched friends, this is worth the wait.  Meet the Rum 007!

Rum 007 2This may be my favourite cocktail EVER.

It’s sooooo good.

And to think, because of the apricot brandy,  I was a bit scared of making it.  A few years ago I needed to buy some cherry brandy for a cocktail and it was disgusting.  Like that revolting fake cherry cough syrup you had to drink when you were young.  I was a very sickly child and I must have drunk a ton and a half of that stuff and the thought of it still gives me the horrors.

Thankfully, Apricot Brandy is utterly delicious.  Almost too good if you know what  I mean.

Of course if anything is called 007, you automatically think of Bond.  I could find no links to this recipe and JB although a Rum Collins apparently features in Thunderball.

So, when in doubt, make it up…that’s totally a thing isn’t it?

Rum 007

My explanation for the story behind the name has nothing to do with a certain spy.  It’s simply that when you take you first sip, thinking the Apricot Brandy will be disgusting and cloying and sickly sweet, you say “Oh”…then the nutty sweet, tangy pineapply, rummy wonderfulness hits you and you say “OH”.  Then you want six more.  Because it’s THAT good.

I found this recipe in the Margaret Fulton Cookbook which happens to be the selection current selection over at The Cookbook Guru.  My edition of this book, which incidentally is STILL in print dates from 1977 which is the same year The Spy Who Loved Me was released.

For those of you not familiar with Margaret she is a complete cooking Australian legend. It says so right on the Margaret Fulton stamp.  And Australia Post does not lie. Or make stamps of just anyone.  This lady is the grande dame, the mec plus ultra of Australian cooking.

Margaret Fulton StampAnd, as a heads up, back in the day, she made the most amazing cake, which I will attempt to replicate for my own birthday later in the year. You’ll have to wait til August to see that but, if I can pull it off it will be worth the wait.

There are many reasons to love Margaret Fulton, but in terms of inventing an awesome cocktail, possibly based on James Bond?

Nobody does it better!

And because it’s my favorite Bond song, here it is

‘Kay, I’m done here, I have another six  five 007’s to drink….I like to call it quality control.  I couldn’t possibly give you a recipe that I hadn’t personally tested multiple times.

Here’s the recipe.

Rum 007 recipe Enjoy and have a fabulous week!

Eight days to Pieathalon 2….I can hardly wait!!!

Two weeks still to go in the win a vintage cookbook comp!  Sign up, tell your friends!

Rum 007

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Whiskey in The Jar – The Emerald Presse

I was so disappointed with my attempt at an Irish Potato Salad Roll that it drove me to drink.

Quite luckily as it happened because that particular cab on the road to rack and ruin drove me right up to the Emerald Presse.  And you know, if there’s one other thing the Irish are famous for outside of potatoes, corned beef and cabbage, it’s drinking. And the Emerald Presse will tickle the tastebuds of even the most fastidious of Fassnidges.

Emerald Presse1

Emerald Presse1

I’m not normally a whiskey drinker so I was not sure how this would taste.  I liked the idea of the mint, apple and lime even though they seemed a weirdly light combination for what I always think of as being a heavy drink.

Anyhoo….Put  ’em together and have you got? Not bibbidi-bobbidi-boo but…My new favourite drink!!!!

Emerald Presse2
Emerald Presse2

The flavours worked really well together.  That little frizzante from the sparkling apple juice also added some lightness to it. In my best Irish accent this was the fooking craic!!!! I can’t even begin to tell you how delicious this is.  You need to make it immediately and come back to me.

Go  on

I’ll still be here when you get back.

Now, take that first sip and “Ohhhhh…..Yeah, sooooooo good”

Then we’ll have a sneaky second.  Just because that sparkling apple juice isn’t going to sparkle forever.

Emerald Presse3
Emerald Presse3

The original recipe for this called for 45 ml of Jameson’s.  When I measured this out, it looked like a huge amount of whiskey.  I scaled mine back to around 30mls and found it about right for my taste.  You can scale up or down according to your preference.

Styling Tip

If you really wanted your whiskey in a jar, this would look really cute served in mason jars – in which case you probably could use the full  45ml of Jameson’s.

 

[yumprint-recipe id=’27’] Happy St Patrick’s Day, may the road rise to meet you!

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