Can you identify the ingredients in a martini, cosmopolitan, Manhattan, Mai Tai, Long Island Iced Tea, Harvey Wallbager and more? See how well you know your cocktails.
Cocktail Ingredients Quiz
Crazy for Cosmopolitans? You'll need vodka, Cointreau or triple sec, lime juice, and one other ingredient to shake 'em up at home.
Grenadine
Orange juice
Cranberry juice
Pink grapefruit juice
Some folks get fancy with the recipe, but a traditionally-made Mai Tai gets its signature flavor from lime juice, dark rum, grenadine (or simple syrup), curacao and what other key ingredient?
Almond syrup
Mango juice
Coconut milk
Orange juice
Shaking up vodka, cream, and this variety of liqueur results in a White Russian.
Coffee
White chocolate
Vanilla
Peppermint
The rim of a Sidecar glass is coated in what tasty substance?
Sugar
Salt
Cocoa
Honey
The non-alcoholic classic Shirley Temple contains ginger ale (or lemon-lime soda), orange juice and a sweet splash of what?
Fruit punch
Cranberry juice
Grenadine
Pineapple juice
Vodka or gin would need just this ingredient to be shaken or stirred into a gimlet.
Roses Lime Juice Cordial
Olive juice
Fresh lime juice
Pickle juice
Rye (or bourbon), vermouth, bitters and a cherry are the components of which classic cocktail?
Negroni
Old Fashioned
Manhattan
Rob Roy
Mix up rum, lime and Coca-Cola to make this drink.
Cuba Libre
El Presidente
Bronx
Corpse Reviver
Mint, sugar, lime, soda water and this liquor come together to be muddled into a mojito.
Cachaca
Tequila
Rum
Pisco
Standard ingredients in a Negroni include gin, vermouth and what other liquid?
Lemon juice
Egg whites
Angostura bitters
Campari
It's not just a punchline -- the Harvey Wallbanger is a fern bar staple featuring vodka, orange juice, and this odd liqueur.
Goldschlager
Rumplemintz
Galliano
Peach Schnaaps
When this is popped into a Martini in lieu of an olive, it becomes a Gibson.
Jalapeno pepper
Lime wedge
Gherkin
Cocktail onion
James Bond may be more commonly associated with the Martini, but writer Ian Fleming also had him slugging down Vespers, which are concocted from Lillet Blanc and which two liquors?
Brandy & Scotch
Gin & Vodka
Vodka & Bourbon
Bourbon & Brandy
Mix orange juice and this spirit for a hard-hitting Screwdriver.
Rum
Vodka
Champagne
Whiskey
Sure, you could ask for a vodka & cranberry with a lime wedge, but it's much more festive to order it this way:
Greyhound
Salty Dog
Cape Cod
Madras
If you've got bourbon, mint, and a splash of soda, you're on the right track to make the Derby Day classic, a Mint Julep. What's still missing?
Lime
Sugar
Bitters
Nothing
The Bloody Mary is a brunch standard, but this addition transforms it into a hearty Bloody Bull.
Beef broth
Red Bull
A whole hot pepper
Pepper vodka
Creme de menthe and cream are terribly tasty together, but if you want a Grasshopper, hop to the store for a bottle of:
Vanilla vodka
Creme de Cacao
Green food coloring
Mint extract
A Greyhound gets its distinctive flavor from vodka and this mixer:
Sweetened lime juice
Pineapple juice
Cranberry and orange juice
Grapefruit juice
We all know that a Long Island Iced Tea has no tea in the mix, but what liquor isn't part of the standard recipe?
When I think of the word "Bonecrusher," I don't usually think of a champagne cocktail, but that's what this is.
It's from WineIntro.com (I like how they have a pic of the ingredients you'll be using - more sites should do that), and even though it has champagne, it also includes rum, gin, and vodka, so maybe that's where the crushing of bones begins. This drink is a lot stronger than it looks, even if it does also include grenadine and Sprite.
Every time I hear the name of this drink I think of that Seinfeld episode of the same name that had Newman getting into trouble with a judge over unpaid parking tickets.
We conclude Boston Bartender Week with The Scofflaw, the signature drink of James Dorsey, who tends bar at Sorellina on Huntington Avenue.
After making margarita cupcakes, I started to wonder what other cocktails would transfer well into cupcake form. The tequila/citrus combination worked so well in the first batch that I decided to try for another, similar drink: Tequila Sunrise. A tequila sunrise is typically made with orange juice, tequila and a splash of grenadine and was easy to adapt to my recipe.
The results were great. The cupcake was moist and lightly orange flavored with a small hint of tequila. These cakes are not particularly sweet, but the icing is, so while it is a good idea to keep the layer of frosting on the thin side, you really need it to make the cocktail-cakes work. Both the orange and the tequila flavors are brighter in the frosting and you can really taste the small splash of grenadine, which I kept to a minimal amount to avoid a pink-colored frosting, that brings the cupcake and the cocktail together.
This is a great cupcake recipe for a party, like New Year's Eve, and can even be brought out for a brunch if you have no objection to cupcakes in the morning.
Grenadine is the most popular fruit syrup used by bartenders. Unfortunately, the most popular and easy-to-find brand of grenadine, Rose's, has no acutal fruit in it at all. It's high fructose corn syrup with red food coloring in it.
Yum.
Grenadine is actually supposed to be a sweet syrup made from pomegranate juice, which lends it a distinctive color and flavor, though the corn syrup version has become so prevalent, that a straw poll I did revealed that many people believed grenadine was cherry flavored. It can be difficult to find a bottle of the real thing, but the Sonoma's Syrup Co sells an all natural, pomegranate grenadine that I was able to pick up at Williams-Sonoma, despite the fact that it is not listed on their website. The taste is worlds away from the corn syrup stuff and you can feel good about eliminating one more source of high fructose corn syrup in your diet.