Fun Cocktails for Discerning Drinkers

Picture this:

It's just before Christmas, and you are at a party surrounded by all of your coworkers.  The night has been going great so far, everyone seems to be having a great time, and you aren't making too much of a fool of yourself.  You have just finished eating dinner, and its time for the Secret Santa gift exchange!  Everybody starts exchanging gifts, and you open your gift which is a bottle of tequila....  It seems your coworker overheard you talking about tequila and assumed that you liked it, which is the exact opposite of reality!  You hate tequila!  Ever since that one night in college, where that guy you were talking to convinced you to take so many Jose Cuervo shots that you lost track of everything!  Your purse, gone.  Your keys, gone.  The rest of your night, gone from your memory.  Ever since that day, you have sworn off tequila, and now you have another bottle in your possession.  What should you do with it?  Re-gift it?  That's not a bad idea, but that's not the reason I'm here today.  What if I told you that there are all sorts of drinks you can make with those bottles of alcohol that you hate, and they end up being some spectacular drinks!  These drinks may be so good in fact, that they totally change your thoughts on that spirit!

Before we get moving on making drinks, I have a few rules that I always follow when I'm making drinks which I think are pretty important.

Rule 1: Always start with a full glass of ice.  I cannot stress this enough.  There is an important reason why you always get a ton of ice at the bar, and its not because they always want to water down your drink.  First, you never have to worry about always having cold ingredients.  If you are like me, your fridge is full of beer and maybe some food if you are lucky, so there is never any room to keep a bunch of sodas and mixers cold all of the time.  However, if you always use a full glass of ice, your drink will always be cold when you want to drink it.  Secondly, it lets you save money on your mixers.  Any good bartender will always put your alcohol in your drink first, then your mixer.  This ensures that you have a drink that is as strong as you want it.  When you use a full glass of ice, you then use less mixer, and in turn, you are putting a lot less sugar in your body while still getting a tasty, refreshing drink.

Rule 2: Glassware.  Good glassware is essential for good cocktails.  The first glass you should always have plenty of is the mixing glass, which is known as the pint glass to all of you beer drinkers out there.  This glass is wonderful.  It is a great glass to build your drinks in and many of your drinks can be served in this as well.  Whenever I go to a new brewery, I make a point to buy another pint glass, because I can't have enough.  Also have a few rocks glasses or tumblers as well.  These are good for any small cocktails, or just drinking spirits neat or on the rocks.  In a few of my recipes, I use highball glasses, and while these are nice, you can just use a pint glass filled 3/4 full.

Rule 3: Mixers.  When you are making a drink, most people are only concerned with the alcohol going into it, and while that is very important, it is not the only thing going into your drink.  Your non-alcoholic mixers are also extremely important, so don't be afraid to spend an extra couple of dollars on those as well.  I always recommend Fever Tree brand mixers.  They always use all natural ingredients which will always lend a better flavor to your drinks.  Also, I recommend using real fruit juice in all of your drinks.  As in, juice that you have squeezed from the fruit yourself.  Its a bit of a pain, but all of the juices that you can buy have additives which detract from the quality of the cocktail.  Alright, now that we have that out of the way, lets make some drinks.

Tequila

Paloma
2 oz tequila
1/2 oz grapefruit or lime juice
Grapefruit soda

Fill a mixing glass with ice.  Add tequila and juice, then fill with grapefruit soda and serve.  Garnish with a grapefruit wedge if desired.

The Paloma is my favorite tequila drink after the margarita and is so easy to make!  It's so refreshing with plenty of sweet/tart citrus in there, that this drink works great for all people regardless of how much you hate tequila.  One quick thing I would like to address with this recipe is the grapefruit soda part.  If you can find Jarritos Toronja, that is ideal, however Squirt works out great as well.

Whiskey

Big Ginger
2 oz whiskey
Lime wedge
Lemon wedge
Ginger ale

Fill a mixing glass with ice.  Add whiskey and squeeze the juice of both the lemon and lime juice into the drink, and drop the wedges straight in the glass.  Fill with ginger ale and serve.

Traditionally made with 2 Gingers Irish Whiskey, this drink honestly does well with most types of whiskey.  Subtle citrus notes blend well with a little ginger spice to make another refreshingly easy to drink cocktail.  I have been drinking this one a lot lately with Jameson's new Caskmates IPA whiskey.  They finish the whiskey in barrels that were used to barrel age an IPA, which lends a nice orange note to the whiskey, and this cocktail.

Brandy

Brandy and Lemonade
1 1/2 oz brandy
Lemonade

Fill a rocks glass with ice. Add brandy and fill glass with lemonade.

Alright, this may be a bit of a cop out, but after working in a bar for a good while now, I have never served one of these, and I simply don't understand it.  With all sorts of gentle fruit and floral notes from the brandy, the pairing is simply a no-brainer. The best part about this drink is that it is endlessly customizable as well.  If you want strawberry or blueberry lemonade, add strawberry's or blueberry's.  If you want peach lemonade, add peach brandy.  Make a spectacular spiked Arnold Palmer by adding iced tea.  Just make this drink!

Gin

Tom Collins
1 1/2 oz gin
3/4 oz lemon juice
3/4 oz simple syrup
Club soda

Fill a highball glass with ice.  Add gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup to a shaker filled with ice.  Shake well and strain into your glass.  Fill with club soda and garnish with a lemon wheel and a cherry if desired.

Well, I told myself that for these recipes I would only do easy recipes that didn't require a shaker, and I failed in the end.  Oh well, this is a pretty good recipe regardless with a fun story behind it.  Back in the 1870's when the drink was invented, the hoax of the century was born.  Essentially, Person A would go to the bar and ask Person B, "Have you seen Tom Collins?"  Person B would then be confused and say, "I don't know anyone named Tom Collins."  Person A would then say "Oh!  He was just over there, and he was talking smack about you!"  Lots of anger and confusion ensued, and it ended up being one of the best (worst) practical jokes I have ever heard of.  Regardless of the story, its a light, fizzy, and lemony drink.

Rum

Dark and Stormy
2 oz rum
Ginger beer
2 lime wedges

Fill a highball glass with ice.  Add rum and squeeze the juice of one of the lime wedges into the drink.  Top with ginger beer and garnish with your other lime wedge.

This one is for all of you Moscow Mule fans out there.  This drink is essentially just a rum Moscow Mule, but I think the addition of rum adds a little extra flavor.  The sweetness of rum just lends itself perfectly to the spice of ginger beer.  The combination seems to be just perfect to get the taste of the tropics without all of the fruitiness that tends to come with a lot of other rum drinks.  While I recommend using either a dark rum or a spiced rum for this drink for a little more complexity, any rum will do.

Vodka and Cocktail of the Month

Dean's Chocolate Dipped Raspberry Russian
1 oz vodka (Tito's Handmade Vodka)
1 oz coffee liqueur (Meukow Xpresso)
2 dashes chocolate bitters (Fee Brothers Aztec Chocolate)
1 oz heavy cream
1/2 oz raspberry liqueur (Chambord)

Fill a rocks glass with ice.  Add vodka, coffee liqueur, and bitters.  Slowly pour the heavy cream on top to layer it, and then layer the raspberry liqueur on top.

I swear, vodka was the bane of my existence for this post.  I had the worst time trying to figure out a drink that would fit the bill.  I tried racking my brain for drinks I could do and I got nothing.  I googled "good vodka drinks" and I got so many drinks that were literally just vodka and different juices with fancy names, that I gave up there too.  So I thought, "Let's whip up something crazy and put it in the cocktail of the month space."  This was my thought and I'm pleasantly surprised to say that the drink I thought up an hour before the post is quite tasty.  This cocktail has everything, coffee, chocolate, raspberry, and a little bit of cream to wrap things up nicely.  Sweet, but not overwhelmingly so, this would be a perfect valentines day drink!  Just use a smaller glass than I did and your raspberry liqueur will layer perfectly right on top.

There it is.  Lots of different drinks to try the next time you get a gift from somebody who didn't read my Holiday Buying Guide.  All of these drinks are so good that even the most critical of drinkers should say, "Alright, that's pretty okay."






PS:  Please drink responsibly.  Please.
PPS:  Also, don't drink and drive.
PPPS:  I am not paid for anything on this blog.  All of the products and services I recommend are not sponsored by anyone.
PPPPS:  Wow! My second post is done!  I honestly never thought I would make it to this point, but with all of the views of the first, I knew I couldn't just blow it off.  Thanks so much to everyone to reads these.  It makes me quite happy.
PPPPPS:  I was gonna write something funny here, but now I won't.  Life is full of small disappointments.