Here I am again, giving you an aperitif, when I don’t drink all that much. This one was so refreshing, though, that I had to share it with you.

This was served at the charitable event my friend Cherrie and I attended a couple of weeks ago. Wine was on offer, and two cocktails. This one hit the spot. It’s on the tart side, actually. You’d think, looking at the photo, that it’s sweet, but with grapefruit juice as its major component, it’s definitely puckery. Aperol is the liquor in it, and it’s not all that sweet either. It’s compared by many as a toned-down version of Campari. It’s really tart, so I’d agree with the assessment.

If you haven’t heard about Aperol, you should check it out. It’s a new alcohol-type aperitif, sold in some regular markets, but in most liquor stores for sure.

Aperol was launched by the Barbieri company, based in Padua, in 1919. The news is that it’s an aperitif with an alcohol content of only 11%. Aperol’s unique flavor and color are achieved through a subtle blend of bitter orange, gentian, rhubarb and an array of herbs and roots.

Aperol is a bit hard to find in some places – you may have to request they stock it. I don’t own a bottle of it yet, but the very next time I’m at my local warehouse beverage store, I’ll look for it.

A year ago: Layered Hummus & Eggplant (oh-so-good)
Two years ago: Chicken with Artichokes & Olives

If you enjoy margaritas, but prefer just a little bit of sweetness, this recipe is for you. It’s still got the margarita kick, but it’s not sickeningly sweet like some of the fruit concoctions made at restaurants. Usually they are simply too sweet for me. But this one, from a Phillis Carey cooking class, was just great. A little bit of fruit, a little sugar on the rim, and a goodly sock of tequila. [I had a 3 ounce margarita total, so don't get excited.] Don’t use frozen strawberries, as that will make the margarita more like a smoothie. As usual, photographing beverages is a bit difficult – I snapped this at the class, balancing a cafeteria tray on my lap with nothing but the printed recipes as my decorative backdrop!

When I pulled out these really stunning mint julep cups, my DH said to me, “Uh, where did THOSE come from?” Blithely I said “Oh, I’ve had these for a couple of years, but we’ve never had an occasion to use them.” That was a true statement. He did think they were sterling silver (they’re not), and he thought they were probably ridiculously expensive (they weren’t). But I HAD kept them snugly tucked away in a cupboard. Obviously he wasn’t home when I brought them into the house, so I just put them away (cheeky grin). My DH doesn’t think I ever, in my entire life, need to buy one more THING for the kitchen. But he’s learned, that’s probably not going to happen. They’re silverplate. And cute as bugs. Or cute as baby mint leaves. And I own four of them. My friend Cherrie also owns four, so we combined assets and had ample for our Creole Jambalaya dinner party. 

The recipe mostly came from the Food Network - but I did a slight variation. Since simple syrup (a necessity for juleps) was required, I wanted to make it with agave nectar instead. Why? No reason. Just because. So I patched together two recipes, the one from Sara Moulton, and another I found on the ‘net for an agave simple syrup.

What’s unique about this is that the mint leaves are infused in bourbon, then the whole mixture chills for hours or overnight. So the bourbon has a really good hit of mint before you even start. And everything gets good-and-chilled before you serve them. I liked this a LOT. I even made one more the next night with the little bit of leftover mint infusion. It was just as good; maybe better.

Now, I’m not much of a drinker of hard liquor. Despite the fact that you’ve read a few recipes here for some cocktails, I rarely drink them. That’s God’s honest truth. If I make them, I drink them, but I rarely make them. Does that make sense? But, last week I thought juleps would be perfect to serve before our feast of jambalaya, and they were. These go down easy. And I mean it - with the mint infusion, the agave/simple syrup, they slide. If you want them more powerful, add some more bourbon punch to it. I thought they were fine. Note that you sprinkle just a tad of powdered sugar on the top of the shaved ice and mint before serving. And now, my mint julep cups will go back into their clear plastic ziploc bag to retard tarnishing, and they’ll be returned to the dark corner in the dining room cupboard.

A year ago: Caramelized Onion & Sage Puffs (an appetizer)

Not everybody likes these new martini concoctions. On the other hand, I don’t like the “real thing,” the gin with a drop of vermouth. Or one made with vodka, either. But put a little sugar or fruit in it (or fruit juice) and it sounds more appealing. For many years I never even tried one, then one night we were out with friends and somebody said, “Oh, Carolyn, I know you’d like a lemon drop.” Well, okay, I tried it. It was delicious. Puckery, but sweet all at the same time. Not that I order them very often, but I do, maybe once a year. So when Phillis Carey gave a class a couple of weeks ago about martinis (and food with them) it didn’t take me long to say yes, I’d go. One of the three martinis I didn’t like – one made with Midori. My friend Cherrie liked it a lot, but then she likes Midori. If you’re interested in that one, here’s the recipe: Melon Tequini (it’s actually a margarita): 1 1/2 parts gold tequila, 1 part Midori, 1 part Cointreau (not Triple Sec), 1 part fresh strained lemon juice. Combine, shake, pour over ice with a melon wedge on the edge.

I already posted the recipe for the Pear Martini a week or so ago. But I’d forgotten about this one, the Blueberry Lemon Drop. It requires a bit of an investment in one of the intense flavored vodkas (either blueberry, or lemon). Once you have that, you can whip this out in a jiffy (providing you have a blender, some fresh lemons, Triple Sec, some fresh or frozen blueberries and some lemonade). Phillis strongly recommended the Stoli brand vodka. And she also recommended the Bols brand Triple Sec above all others.

She also gave us the recipe for one of her favorites – a Raspberry Lemon Drop: 6 parts lemon vodka, 2 parts fresh strained lemon juice, 1 part triple sec, 1 part simple syrup, a dash of Chambord and a few fresh raspberries to drop into the finished drink. Phillis told me she reads my blog (wow, thanks, Phillis), so if that recipe isn’t right, she’ll chime in and correct it.

So, go dig out your blender and mix up something refreshing! And oh, by the way, I just ordered a new blender. My 27-year old Hamilton Beach finally bit the dust, and it happened that Cook’s Illustrated magazine just did an article about them. I bought the #1 on the list, the Kitchenaid KSB580. It’s $142 (chrome) at amazon.com, and until July there’s a $20 rebate. The #2 on the list is a Kalorik brand (a “best buy” at $70). Only reservation on that one was a slower motor. The article focused on each blender’s ability to chop ice and puree hummus. There were other factors too, but those two were the most important.

A year ago: Sopa de Calabacitas (a Mexican soup composed of zucchini, chiles and corn) – really delicious

What is it about beverages – they just don’t photograph very well. Of course, I was in our daughter’s kitchen, using ambient light, no background to speak of. And she didn’t have martini glasses (neither do I, for that matter). You’ll just have to trust me that this recipe is worth reading about and trying yourself. I don’t like a salt-rimmed margarita, so my glass was just kinda plain looking.

It was about 5-6 years ago when I read an in-depth article in Cooks Illustrated about margaritas. And because the prose about it was so grand, I decided I had to try it. I’m not a fan of bottled margarita mix. It’s got some kind of off flavor to my palate. It’s certainly easy; but I’d almost rather do without than have to imbibe the ready-made mix. So this recipe for the real thing, using JUST fresh lemon and lime juices plus some sugar (plus the tequila and triple sec) is SO, SO much better. I made a huge quantity (to serve 10 adults for our son-in-law’s birthday) and had about 2 cups of the lemon/lime juice leftover. The next night we invited our friends Sue and Lynn over for dinner. Lynn said, after he’d downed two of them, “this, I think, is the best margarita I’ve ever had in my life.” I concur.

What sets this recipe apart from other margarita recipes is the marinating time. What? Marinating? Yes, you marinate the juices along with some of the lemon and lime peel to give it a much more intense flavor. Indeed it does. I marinate for 24 hours, always, but the recipe says 4 hours or up to 24. The second thing about these is the use of Reposado tequila. This isn’t the cheap-cheap stuff you use here, but the aged agave Reposado variety. Maybe a little harder to find, and a bit more expensive (but not a lot). However, the liquor is more mellow, if you can say that anything that’s 70+ proof alcohol is mellow. I’ve made these 4 or 5 times in the ensuing years and have heard good reviews every time. Don’t be lazy and use just lemon juice – the drink needs both lemon and lime juices. Perfect for a warm afternoon or a dinner outside!

A year ago: Chocolate Chunk & Dried Cherry Oatmeal Cookies

Well, I suppose this photo doesn’t look like much. But then, a regular, ordinary martini with gin and vermouth plus an olive doesn’t have much “color” character either. I don’t happen to like gin or vodka martinis at all. But the newer-fangled boutique martinis, that’s another story altogether.

The other night I attended a very fun cooking class with Phillis Carey. She teaches a few classes a year about margaritas and martinis (always to sold-out crowds). This one was no different! Packed. It wasn’t JUST martinis, of course – Phillis made three possible entrees and a dessert to go with the three different martinis. This martini was my favorite.

If you have the ingredients on hand, this has got to be a cinch to make. Usually Phillis doesn’t serve this with a sugared rim on the glass (in our case, plastic cups), but the cooking school staff got carried away dipping in lemon juice and dunking in superfine sugar. So you can eliminate the sugar if you’d prefer. The drink really doesn’t need it as it’s sweet enough. You can barely see a little wedge of pear floating in the bottom of the cup – I took it off the rim and let it soak - ooh, it was tasty after it had been in the martini for 10 minutes. Probably just ONE of these drinks would be enough before dinner or you and your guests might be, well, lying supine for the rest of the evening.

Pear Martini
Servings: 4, I think, if each part below is a jigger
4 parts Absolut pear vodka
2 parts Triple Sec (Bols brand is best)
2 parts canned pear nectar
1 part fresh strained lemon juice (measured after straining)
1 canned pear slice
1. Pour all the liquids in a shaker over ice. Shake and serve in a martini glass. (You can serve the martini over ice if you prefer.) Press a pear slice on the edge of the glass.

My happiest moment is when I prepare a glass of hot, strong tea, and then sit down with it to read, think or write a letter. I’ve become a fanatical devotee of Earl Grey, which in England, as everyone knows, is consumed only by little old ladies during afternoon tea parties, and which the English tea lover scorns as a perfumed, old-maidenish drink. …Václav Havel, Letters to Olga  

Ha! Havel bucked tradition in many things – not just tea, but the politics of his country (he was the first elected president of the Czech Republic and the above line is from a letter he wrote to his wife, Olga; he died in 1992). 

I was so happy the other morning – it was cool enough at about 10 am that I craved a pot of Earl Grey tea. The scent of the oil of bergamot in Earl Grey is what draws me to it. And I drink it with both milk and sweetener. The house still had that chilly edge. It’s been unseasonably cool here in Southern California for the last week (thank you, Lord!). Normally September is our hottest month, and I dread it. Our summer has been unusually humid – most mornings the humidity is up in the 80-90% range. The dense air dries out a bit later in the day, but we’re just not used to this sweating routine. I mean – we’re dry, desert terrain, you know? But when the weatherman said we’d be having temps in the 60’s and 70’s for a few days, I didn’t believe him. But he was right. I l-oved it. Every minute of it. Weather for a cuppa.  So, Mr. Havel, I salute you.

It was 2001, and watching Oprah one afternoon, she just went bonkers over a recipe for white sangria. Having only had red sangria to that point in my life, and hearing Oprah rave about it, I decided I had to try it. It is credited to a restaurant in New York City called Pipa. I had to go out and buy a great many of the special ingredients in this beverage – well, only three of them actually – since I had some of them on hand already. I remember my dear hubby saying to me “what’s all THIS for?” I think I was entertaining a group of women, and thought this would be a nice change.

This has now become my go-to recipe for white sangria. It’s just so refreshing. And EASY. You do need a few pieces of fruit (apple, peach, lemon, orange), and you need all the liqueur stuff. They were not bottles I had kept on hand (now I do). But the original bottles I bought back in 2001 I still have, although they’re all getting low. Drinking this sangria, you can’t quite figure out what’s in it. It would take a really good taster and sniffer to figure it out without some help. I have changed the recipe slightly since I started making it years ago – the fruit usually gets thrown out afterwards, so I use less peach and less apple. And sometimes I add more 7-up. You can use your own discretion about this – if it tastes too strong to you, just add a bit more 7-up. I always use Diet 7-up for this since there is already enough sugar in it, to my taste.

Even living in a large suburban city, I had to go to several stores (including a liquor-only one) to find a couple of the liqueurs. But perhaps you’ll be lucky and find everything you need in one location. Once you have them on hand, you won’t need to replace them for a long time; unless you start drinking this every week . . .  So, you’ll need Grand Marnier, Peach Pucker schnapps (tart flavored, sort of), Peach Schnapps, apricot brandy, Amaretto and Chambord.

This looks like some sweet cream-based blended cocktail. It’s not. And it’s not really all that sweet, either. What it has in it is egg white (raw) which is shaken with the other ingredients, so when it’s first poured it does have a bit of a cloudy look. This is kind of a martini. Or kind of like a margarita, in a way.

I had all the ingredients standing ready, and you could easily make two of them at a time. You need fresh lemons, triple sec (or Cointreau, which is what I had), very good gin (Cherrie brought Bombay Sapphire, which in the opinion of many, the best out there), egg whites (which I very slightly whipped so I could actually use a measuring spoon to dip into it) and some ice. The ingredients go into a shaker and you pour it out. The recipe said to strain out the ice, but this is one gutsy drink, so I left the ice cubes in the drink. Your choice.

Several people had two of these cocktails, they were that good. The recipe came from Bon Appetit, January 2006. And it’s a drink concocted by the Pegu Club (a bar) in New York City.

At the dinner party last weekend, we decided to offer not only wine, but a cocktail too. This was yet another recipe that found its way to the top of the “try me” file. And it was scrumptious, if you can describe a cocktail by that word. I’m looking forward to making it again. Even just for myself. The glasses are my friend Cherrie’s. I don’t own any martini type glasses. I need to look for some, but oh, dear. Where in the world am I going to store them? They’re an awkward shape to store with any efficiency.

At least 20 years ago I was wanting a hot drink to serve when we went up to our local mountains for Thanksgiving, to a cabin we had rented for the weekend. I had enjoyed hot buttered rum, although it seemed like the butter floated on top (which I didn’t like since that got sipped first). I guess I found it “wanting.” So, as I was glancing through an issue of Bon Appetit (don’t know the date), this recipe popped up.

This is hot buttered rum, but it’s taken to a different dimension altogether. Maybe when I read the ingredient list in the recipe I was a bit dumbfounded that this would be anything like hot buttered rum. Mixing ice cream with brown and white sugar and butter? What is this

Well, what I’ll tell you is this mixture just WORKS. The mix can be made ahead and just refrigerated. And this keeps for absolutely months. Amazing, but true. Even without any alcohol in it, it’s just dandy for a long time. It would also make a lovely gift for friends, or to take to someone’s home if you’re celebrating there. According to the recipe, it originated at a Montana ski resort in Big Sky. You scoop some of this mixture into a mug and pour in some rum and hot water. Done. I may yet make it this year, but I don’t have a photo of it. However, I wanted to post it for the holidays, since it makes such a delicious Christmas seasonal beverage.

This drink is just scrumptious – soothing on a cold day, and particularly festive around the holidays. My only caveat is: It’s very filling, so don’t plan a heavy meal to follow. If you’d like a little toddy before dinner, this makes a lovely one. And I never add the whipped cream. It doesn’t need it.

If the mixture isn’t hot enough, warm the mug with the cream mixture and rum in the microwave briefly before adding the hot water.

(Photo from the food network)