Gift Guide: Booze Hound

Ok we all have them, or maybe we're that friend. The booze hound. Just embrace it. It's the person who has the stocked bar, the not even that expensive but so delicious wine, the generally awesome cocktail recipes off the top of his/her head.

Here's what to get them.

Mason jar cocktail kit/Cocktail stirrer print/Shoe bottle opener

Wine sign/Champagne stopper/Fairisle decanter

Cocktail salt/All in one bartender tool/Embroidered cocktail napkins

Be fabulous today!

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Friday Foodday

It's Friday and today is all about the NYE cocktail. Hope these champagne cocktails inspire!

Ginger Sparkler

℅ Martha Stewart

Ingredients

2 teaspoons of finely grated peeled ginger

1/2 cup of sugar

1 bottle of champagne or prosecco

Directions

1. Set a fine-mesh sieve over a small bowl; set aside. In a small saucepan, boil ginger, sugar, and 1/4 cup water until syrupy, about 2 minutes. Pour through sieve into bowl, discarding solids.

2. Pour 1 tablespoon syrup into each of 8 tall glasses. Top with sparkling wine, and gently stir.

Sparkling Apple Cocktail

℅ Epicurious

Ingredients

1 oz apple juice

1/2 oz cognac

1/2 ounce simple syrup

4 small chunks of red apple

3 oz of champagne

Directions

Combine the apple juice, cognac, simple syrup, and apple chunks in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake vigorously and pour into a cocktail glass. Add additional ice, if needed. Top off with champagne. Stir and serve.

French 75

℅ Bon Appétit

Ingredients

1 cup gin

1/2 cup no cook simple syrup (see directions)

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

champagne

lemon twists

Directions

• To make our No-Cook Simple Syrup, combine 2 cups each superfine sugar and water in an airtight container. Cover and shake until sugar dissolves. Makes 3 cups.
• Stir gin, No-Cook Simple Syrup, and fresh lemon juice with ice in a medium pitcher for 10 seconds. Strain into Champagne flutes or coupe glasses.
• Top with chilled Champagne. Garnish with lemon twists.

Friday Fooday

Happy Friday! Here are some great holiday cocktail recipes.

Sparkling Apple Cider Sangria

c/oThe Kitchn

Ingredients

2 apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
1/2 cup cognac
2 cups apple cider
750ml bottle cava (or other dry sparkling wine), chilled
1/4 cup pomegranate seeds

Directions

Add the apples to a large pitcher reserving about 1/2 cup for garnishing. Add the cognac, apple cider, and chilled cava. Stir.

Fill the pitcher with ice. Pour the sangria into glasses filled with ice and top with sliced apple and pomegranate seeds.

Sloe and Frosty

c/oFogged in Lounge

Ingredients

• 2 oz gin
• 1/2 oz sloe gin
• 1/4 oz blackberry brandy
• 1/2 oz lime juice
• 2 dashes Fee Bros orange bitters

Directions

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

The Cherry Goody Goody

c/oFive O'Clock Cocktail Blog

Ingredients

1 3/4 ounces Ketel One vodka

1/2 ounce Creme de Cacao (white)

1/2 ounce Pimm’s

1/2 ounce cranberry juice cocktail

3 or 4 dashes Fee Brothers Rhubarb Bitters

2 or 3 dashes Fee Brother Aztec Chocolate Bitters

Coca-Cola

Pomegranate seeds

Directions

Muddle a handful of pomegranate seeds into the bottom of a highball glass.

Fill glass with ice.

Add all liquid ingredients except the Coca-Cola. Stir well.

Top off with Coca-Cola and stir again.

Be fabulous today!

Friday Foodday

Happy Friday lovebugs! Today's post will be for New Year's cocktails!

The Rickey (the official cocktail of Washington, DC)
c/o Delish

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 ounce(s) Tanqueray London Dry Gin
• 1/4 ounce(s) lime juice
• 1 ounce(s) soda water

Directions

1. Stir together Tanqueray London Dry Gin and lime juice.
2. Serve over ice in highball glass.
3. Top with soda water.

French 75

c/o Bon Appetit

Ingredients

1 cup gin

1/2 cup No-Cook Simple Syrup (see below)

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

Champagne

Lemon twists (for garnish)

Directions

To make our No-Cook Simple Syrup, combine 2 cups each superfine sugar and water in an airtight container. Cover and shake until sugar dissolves. Makes 3 cups.

Stir gin, No-Cook Simple Syrup, and fresh lemon juice with ice in a medium pitcher for 10 seconds. Strain into Champagne flutes or coupe glasses.

Top with chilled Champagne (Prosecco or other sparkling wine works in a pinch). Garnish with lemon twists.

Cranberry Prosecco Cocktail

c/o Makezine

Ingredients

1 cup frozen cranberries, thawed
1/4 cup sugar
1 bottle (750 milliliters) prosecco, chilled 

Directions

Place the cranberries and sugar in a bowl and macerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 6 hours. Stir the berries occasionally, lightly mashing them. Place 1 tablespoon of macerated berries in each of six champagne flutes. Fill the flutes with prosecco and serve.

Don't try too hard

I am by no means a cosmo connoisseur nor would I consider myself a person that makes a great mixed drink of any kind; however I appreciate one. Especially on these last days of summer, before football/beer season starts, who doesn't appreciate a well concocted mixed martini?

One of my favorite things of summer are happy hours with a great cocktail menu. Something different and flashy to fill your glass with instead of your usual do-it-yourself vodka tonic. But then there are those restaurants or bars-very few of them but you know them- that have the most ridiculously expensive (even at happy hour) and unappetizing martinis. They're just trying too hard. Take for instance a restaurant the bf and I will be visiting tonight, which shall remain nameless- their cocktail menu features:

-Wasabi and Amaretto sour $9.00 Amaretto di Saronno, lime, Angostura, sugar
and wasabi paste topped with wasabi almonds
-Lychee and roses $11.00Bombay Sapphire, rose petals, lime and lychee juice
-Passion fruit and almond $10.00Martell cognac, Amaretto di Saronno, passion fruit puree’, almond and cardamon seeds

Seriously? Who enjoys seeds in their martini? And Wasabi paste? (pictured above) Blech, nasty.

So after looking at that menu, I decided to write about a more appropriate cocktail menu. Here are some of my favorite summer cocktails:

-Acai of Relief (Commissary): Absolut Berri Acai Vodka, Blueberries, Pom Juice, Sprite
& Lemon...on the rocks
-Ruby Slipper (Commissary): Absolute Ruby Red, Triple Sec,
Passion Fruit Juice & Pom Juice...straight up
-The Clementine (Founding Farmers): A delicious blend of fresh lime juice, pineapple juice, agave nectar and Siembra Azul Reposado Tequila that has been infused with Clementines and Fresno chiles. Garnished with a flamed orange twist.
-Basil Bell (Acadiana): Tanqueray Rangpur Gin, muddled basil, fresh lime, simple syrup and a splash of lemon-lime soda
-Salty Dog(Farmer and Fishers): Cap Rock Organic Vodka and grapefruit juice served on the rocks with a salted rim

See? These are delicious, refreshing and I can pronounce every ingredient. So cheers to this beautiful weekend everyone!