Shirley Temple

This article is appropriate for all ages.

The Shirley Temple.

Made famous by... somebody, The Shirley Temple is a non-alcoholic drink that your little cousins can gulp down at family weddings so that they can look like the big people.  They are often so very sweet, that they can even be off-putting to adults, and Shirley Temple herself has said she hated the things.  But, to each their own, and so we are going to give this one a shot.








You will need:
Homemade Grenadine: Remember no HFCS.  It's not like our homemade stuff had any less calories, but HFCS just sucks for cocktails, or in this case mocktails.
Ginger Ale / Ginger Beer:  We are using Ithaca brand ginger beer, because it's got great carbonation and great taste.   Also because we always give favor to the home team here in New York (even if it is that "state" part and not the city).
Lemon-Lime soda: While we're not using it here, most recipes will combine ginger ale and something like 7up in this.  We can't really figure out why, so we left it out, but we recommend Green River sodas for that.
Orange Blossom Water: This is optional as well, and it gives this drink a mild bitter tang to it, which children may find strange but adults who don't like over-sweet tastes will welcome.  We will be using the easy to find (and totally worth having in your house) Alwadi Orange Blossom Water.
Citrus Juice:  We are using bai5 Costa Rica Clementine beverage, but traditionally this is made with a splash of orange juice.  There is also tangerine juice, mikan juice, or even pineapple juice might work.
Glass with Ice: You can make ice cubes out of juice or tea or other things as well.  Just remember that if your tap water tastes bad, then don't use it to make ice for this, otherwise it will just make everything taste bad.
Cherry Garnish:  They have that red dye made from those little bugs in the rain forest that you mash up.  We don't really care... we'd eat a handful of those bugs like they were Skittles if we thought it would taste good.  You don't have to use it. 


















There really is no substitute for a ginger soda made with real ginger, and Ithaca brings it to the table.  Not as dry and burn-tastic as some of the heavy Caribbean stuff, but not muted like Q or Fever Tree either.  The use of real sugar and glass bottles helps keep the carbonation up to snuff for any mixing you may have planned.  They come 4 to a pack and we have to admit, we used one for this demo and then just straight up drank the rest because they were quite good. 




























Like their rose water we used in a previous cocktail recipe, the presence of orange blossom water (from Alwadi)  is mainly felt via smell. This is where the carbonation of the ginger beer is very important.  By carrying those qualities up to your inner smelling-parts, the orange blossom water holds together the sweetness of the grenadine and soda as  it spins them together in a tie-die of taste.

While it is possible to make rose water at home apparently, orange blossom water is way out of our league (seriously, where are we gonna find a bunch of orange trees?), so we picked up Alwadi Orange Blossom Water at our local supermarket.  You can also buy it online. 

If you are not into sweet drinks, this orange blossom version is a good version to try.  You can even cut the sugar further by just using club soda instead of ginger beer.   


But let's say you're going for the sweeter thing... 



VERSION TWO:  USING BAI5 COSTA RICA CLEMENTINE














Isn't that just so spiffy?












We came across bai5, and it's pretty nice stuff.  It's got something of a Capri Sun flashback to your childhood taste quality to it, without all the unhealthy calories.  Because of that, it can float on the top of this (if you pour it slowly onto the ice), creating this lovely Rainbow Dash effect.






A little word of warning:  While we have been avoiding High Fructose Corn Syrup and other unhealthy additives, these drinks as you see them here are by no means low in calories, almost all of them from refined sugars and natural fructose.  That photo above is most likely pushing fast-food levels of caloric intake.  So just because they don't have alcohol or hfcs, don't go thinking that these are something you can just start chugging down on a frequent basis with no negative consequences.     ...they do really look cool though don't they?

Coming up next time:

The Renaldo Moon

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Grenadine

This article is appropriate for all ages.

Grenadine.

A while back, you may remember we made some apple-pomegranate  Grenadine back in our Jack Rose episode.  We didn't go into how we did it, but we promised one day we'd show you, and now that day is here.  

Grenadine is a mixology staple, and while it doesn't always make an appearance every night, the revelry can be brought to an abrupt halt if the need for it arises and it is naught to be fount.  So in to the end of making you a better mixologist, we show you how to have the real stuff ready to go.







You may have noticed that our background image took a bit of a punch to the face...  yeah it did.  If you would like to sponsor a new one, send us $1, because we buy these things at the 99cent store.

Also, you may notice we have a miniscule amount of pomegranate juice, and that's because we already made a large amount of this earlier and never documented it, so we don't need to make much at this point.  The amount that this portion yields is enough for between 8 and 12 drinks, depending on how you like it. 

You will need:
Pomegranate Juice: From concentrate is completely ok, but avoid anything that is a combination of juices like pear, grape, apple, etc.  We're making grenadine here not... something that's not grenadine.  And stay the hell away from anything with preservatives in it, because we'll be heating this stuff and they get nasty when that happens.
Sugar: Equal in weight to the amount of pomegranate juice, until you get up to about a liter, then you can back it off a bit to like 60-75%.  Traditional recipes call for molasses, so you could use brown sugar, but that does effect the overall color, and since grenadine is so often used as a visual, we are opting to keep it as red as we can, so we'll be using cheap-o store brand bleached sugar for this.  Seriously, you end up with brown grenadine and that Tequila Sunrise is gonna end up looking more like Montezuma's Revenge.  
Salt: You don't need a lot of this.  Something like 0.5 grams per 500ml of juice.  But a tiny pinch of salt really enhances the flavor.
Saucepan: Do not use something like a skillet or some super-wide surface area thing.  You'll scald the juice, scorch the sugar, and spill everything everywhere.  Just use a saucepan. 
Lemon/Lime: Add this towards the end of the simmering.  Sometimes pomegranate juice actually has citric acid added to it already, so you may feel you don't need it and that's fine.  But it's good to have half a lemon or lime for every 250ml of juice.

















"Reducing" and "boiling" are often thought of as equals in the kitchen, but in reality, to reduce a solution by removing water, you could just as easily use rapidly moving dry air that is room temperature and a lot of surface area.  Since we don't have that, we'll be using heat, but just like the taste of a cooked tomato is quite different from an uncooked one, the same thing applies to just about all fruits and pomegranate is no exception.   So do remember that A) it's going to be thick enough thanks to the sugar, and B) in 15 minutes plenty of water will find its way out of the thing even on the lowest simmer.





Find the Yankee Rose here.





It really is just that simple.  There's no excuse to not have this good stuff around.  Remember, commercial products like Rose's "grenadine" don't even list pomegranate on the label.  It's full of high fructose corn syrup and red dye.  Besides being disgusting, Rose's Grenadine just kills a cocktail dead faster than Carrie Nation because it's just HFCS and food coloring.  

Our home-made version is a great way to sweeten a up summer iced tea, or even add to cupcake icing for a little bit of fruity tang.  It's even a great alternative flavoring for milk, when the kids want strawberry Nesquick and you're all out (or you just don't feel like giving your children something with: 
SUGAR, WATER, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, LESS THAN 2% OF MALIC ACID, PROPYLENE GLYCOL ALGINATE, ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS, POTASSIUM SORBATE (PRESERVATIVE), XANTHAN GUM, RED 40, SALT, BLUE 1)...
 That's seriously what's in Nesquick according to their own website... not much of that is in what we just made, now don't you just feel better about yourself?


Next up, we put our grenadine to good use with:

The Shirley Temple

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Gin Fizz

Santa Fe Spirits: Wheeler's Gin Fizz

After all that, we actually had some gin left, and so we decided to Iron-Chef a cocktail on the spot. What we came up with was the Dry Grapefruit Gin Fizz.






What you’ll need is:
Gin: We are using Wheeler’s Gin from Santa Fe Spirits.
Grapefruit Seltzer: We are using Polar Brand.
Lime: ...it’s a lime.
Simple Syrup: Optional, depending on how sweet you want it.
Bitters: Also optional.















Q brand sodas makes a very nice grapefruit soda which would be great with this as well.  It will be sweeter, and because we were going for something that wasn't very sweet at all, we went with just the seltzer instead.

Gin and Tonic

Santa Fe Spirits: Wheeler’s G&T

(Gin and Tonic)

The G&T is another one of those drinks where London Dry style gin has reigned supreme far and wide.  Wheeler’s gin makes an excellent one however, and it’s really just the need to walk your inexperienced friends through this the experience of a craft gin that isn’t trying to be like Bombay Sapphire in a more fancy-schmancy bottle.

No look into a craft gin would be complete without a look at the Gin and Tonic.  Keeping with the mantra of garbage in = garbage out, we have gone to great normal lengths to ensure that we don’t corrupt the final product with one bad ingredient in a sea of otherwise awesome stuff.  The G & T need not be over-complicated, but it is important to remember to keep both hands on the wheel when making a proper one.

Now we’ll admit that we’ve violated that mantra in the past once or twice and have had one bad ingredient slum down an otherwise higher level drink, but we’re trying to minimize that happening in the future.  If you’d like to help, um ...send us booze (or whatever). 





So what we’re using is

Gin:  You need a gin that’s made well, but doesn’t necessarily have to be one particular style.  Anything from super-dry to very fragrant can work, as long as it’s something you like.  Mass produced gins have an advantage of being consistent year to year, but often lack depth, character, and sometimes they’re just crap.  Craft and micro distilled runs often have much more complexity, can be of stellar quality, but can sometimes vary from batch to batch.  We are once again using Wheeler's Gin from Santa Fe Spirits. 
Tonic Water:  First is first;  No High Fructse Corn Syrup.  That’s non-negotiable.  With its distinct flavor coming from Quinine extracted from the bark of the Cinchona tree, it was once drank to prevent malaria and tasted so bad, that gin was added as a mixer to make it go down easier.  While the U.S. government severely limits the amount of Quinine that can be in tonic water (because it can give you poor little babies a tummy ache), you can cross the border to get some Canadian stuff, or you can try making your own.  While it’s difficult to poison yourself with Quinine, it’s not impossible, so take care if you try to do this.
Lime:  Traditional G&T recipes often call for an actual squeeze of lime or lemon juice to go into the drink rather than just serve as a garnish.  We got these limes from some organic hippie-market, so we hope you’re happy.
Ice:  In your mixology adventures, you should always treat ice as an ingredient.  It’s important to realize that no matter what, it is gonna melt in there and become part of the thing.  So waters that a have funk to them (whether it’s the bad kind of the good kind of funk) should probably be avoided, as those elements will make its way into whatever you’re mixing.  We get to use NYC water, which is better than yours.












See Santa Fe Spirits Apple Brandy in the Stormy Orchard (a variation on the Dark n Stormy).

















Ta-daaaaa!

Gin Sour

Santa Fe Spirits: Wheeler’s Gin OG Sour
(The Gin Sour) 

The gin sour is a long forgotten popular drink of the pre-prohibition era. Simple, strong, and easy going, this version from Santa Fe Spirits adds a dash of bitters and aromatics of the American desert. While gin is all too often passed over in sours these days for things like bourbon and tequila, its aromatics make it a nice change of pace from the oak and smoky notes of the other ones.





This one is simple, and you’ll need:

Gin: We are using Wheeler's Gin from Santa Fe Spirits.
Lemon: Aperture Science non-combustible lemon.
Lime:  Black Mesa limes.
Simple Syrup: Homemade
Bitters:  We are using Angostura Bitters.
Optional Garnish: you could use mint, rosemary, catnip, or anything else really.


















The juice yield from lemons and limes will always vary from fruit to fruit.  It's best to have one or two extra around to use on an as-needed basis.










Yes, you can use catnip in cocktails.  It's got a mild mint scent with none of the burn that mint usually has.  Check out our catnip julep we made for the derby.














Santa Fe Spirits Wheeler's Gin OG Sour.  A nice looking drink to have in your hand as the sun goes down. And whether the you’re looking at the sunset through desert cactus or from the top of a big city high-rise, you’ll be ready to enjoy the night with the OG Sour from Santa Fe Spirits.






...Yeah we got a little corn-ball there, but it was fun.




Next up, we continue to look at Wheeler's Gin in the classic G&T.


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Tom Collins: Colin's Collins (Cherry Collins)

Santa  Fe Spirits: Wheeler's Gin Colin's Collins
(Cherry Collins)

Welcome Back as we continue our look at Wheeler’s Gin from Santa Fe Spirits.  Today we are going to make a variation of the Tom Collins called Colin’s Collins.  This was specifically given to us by Santa Fe Spirits themselves, and so we hope to do it proud.  We’re assuming that this was invented by someone named Colin, but in a world where uncertainty lurks around every corner, one can never truly know. 





Colin’s Collins ...or should it be The Colin’s Tom Collins ...or Tom Collins by Colin ...anyway, this variation relies on Gin and some other stuff.  Here’s what you’ll need:

Gin:  Such as Wheeler’s Gin from Santa Fe Spirits.
Lime:  Limes that yield a good amount of juice.
Soda Water:  It should be high carbonation and unflavored.  Unless you have a soda-gun at home, we recommend using something from a glass bottle, as it holds better carbonation.
Luxardo Cherry Syrup:  This dark and sweet syrup comes in jars of Luxardo cherries but is also sold separately by Luxardo.  This should not be confused with Luxardo’s Maraschino liqueur, which is a clear, cherry flavored liqueur.
Optional: Simple syrup (tastes may vary).










While the original recipe for a Tom Collins called for a large wine-glass full of gin (no, really it did), 3 ounces is where you'd wanna set a maximum for this one. 

As you can see, there is no ice in the glass.  One of the reasons is that your gin should already be chilled a bit, but it is also because we're going to use a thick syrup here, and ice has a tendency to harden it up and prevent proper mixing.










Made from Marasca Cherries, Maraschino should be pronounced Mara-ski-no, so keep that in mind.





While you can find Luxardo Cherries cheaper online, it should be no surprise that since we live in the most expensive city in North America, the store that sold this to us charged us $25 for it.  We know some of our fans aren't exactly at the point where they don't have to care about spending that on a whim, so let's look at alternatives...

Now the cherries you see near the ice cream toppings at the grocery store are total crap, so don't think you can just use that and get away with it.  Also, don't just put some cherries in a blender, it's probably not a good idea.    

There are many different ways to make these at home, with recipes ranging from extremely simple (cherries + Luxardo maraschino + sugar), to complex ones which add sugar, spice, and everything nice.  But yes, you still need to buy at least something from Luxardo.  There are also some videos on youtube which show the steps involved.  So when cherries go on sale, this might be something you'd want to try.

Recipe 1,  Recipe 2,  Video.  













Now, the only warning here is that the cherries are slathered in thick maraschino syrup, which will stain anything it touches.  With that in mind, you may want to hold off on them as a garnish if you want to keep that brunch-tastick outfit of your white polo shirt and khakis safe from cherry-red destruction.

Our thanks again to Santa Fe Spirits for their participation with Wheeler's Gin.  Check out our next entry where we will once again feature Wheeler's Gin in the Gin Sour.