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Posts with tag martinis

Cocktail Ingredients Quiz

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?

  • Bourbon
  • Vodka
  • Rum
  • Tequila

Editor's Picks - Best of the Rest: Our Bloggers

gazpacho
Gazpacho. Photo: Emily Farris, Fifty Bucks a Week.
Each week, we round up the top food articles we've spied Web-wide. This week, a special edition of our own bloggers' primo pieces from elsewhere on the Web.

Pervaiz Shallwani boards a bus with a stripper pole alongside a bunch of bartenders to harvest rye in upstate New York ... for Gourmet ... really.

"Mad Men" fiend Eric Diesel reveals his recipe for perfectly "clean" martinis -- a 2-to-1 gin-to-vermouth concoction at his Urban Home blog.

Mike Pomranz on the phenomenon of a cat opening a jar of food at Comedy Central.

Bruce Watson reports at sister site DailyFinance that the United States may "run out of sugar" in the next year!

Cook and film buff Monika Bartyzel notes that Michael Moore might be done with the documentary style that made him famous, for Cinematical.

Gretchen Roberts, our savvy sommelier-in-training, offers freebie gourmet treats at her wine blog Vinobite.

CoffeeMeister Erin Meister makes peace with the five-second-rule over at her culinary blog, the Nervous Cook.

Joshua M. Bernstein visits Scores, a Manhattan strip club, to eat steak (again, really!) for the New York Press.

Emily Farris tries to toe the budget line with a basic, beautiful gazpacho at Fifty Bucks a Week.

'Mad Men' Party Guide

martini
Photo: Heath Fradkoff
Been seduced by "Mad Men" yet? Have Frankie Valli on repeat on the Hi-Fi? Find yourself buying dusty vintage TV trays decorated with mallards? Drinking a gin martini, up, for dinner?

OK, we're projecting. Half the Slashfood staff is enamored with the show (see New York Magazine's handy primer) that is about to plunge into its third hard-drinking, heavy-philandering, Gotham-glamorizing season this Sunday. We are over the moon about the style, the cocktail culture, and those insane retro recipes.

It's the perfect excuse for a cocktail party (especially a costumed one), so bust out the pearls and heat up the curlers -- or grab the fedora and tiepin -- because it's totally OK to drink with friends on a Sunday night. No one batted a heavily lined eye at such a thing back in the day.

Our party primer, with tune selections, deviled eggs and LeNell's perfect martini, after the jump.

Continue reading 'Mad Men' Party Guide

Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth to Change US Formula

"Noilly Prat is a necessary component of a dry martini. Without it you can make a Sidecar, a Gimlet, a White Lady, or a gin and bitters, but you cannot make a dry martini." -- W. Somerset Maugham (1958)

Are you A. a cocktail purist or B. a lucky stiff with a climate-controlled storage space? It's time to pair up and start stashing, 'cause the Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth you've been mixing into your Martinis since time immemorial is about to go the way of the Concorde. The Wall Street Journal reports that the makers of the august aperitif plan to expand the distribution of their "original formula," the European standard, to the exclusion of the current US version. Problem is, dry Martinis are a uniquely American construct, and the Euro version is, well, not exactly an ideal swap-in. It's regarded as a stand-alone beverage, rather than a cocktail ingredient, and from all reports, shies far from dry and subtle in several recpects.

"How sugary is it? If you took an old bottle of the dry vermouth and mixed it half-and-half with the Sauternes-sweet aperitif wine Lillet, you'd have a pretty good approximation of what to expect.

With the European Noilly Prat you won't get the crisp and untinged visual clarity now expected of a Martini unless you dial the vermouth back to about an eighth or a tenth of the mix." -- Eric Felten, Wall Street Journal

Yeeks! I've all but entirely shifted my loyalty toward Vya Vermouth over the past few years, but this news has me a tad shaken up. Anyone have a bit of cellar space to spare? I'll bring the olives and the D.H. Krahn.

Thanks to our pal Chess Ninja for this timely tip.

[via: The Wall Street Journal]

The New York Times in 60 Seconds: Pub crawls, crispy tofu and cannoli ice cream cones

Look of Love: Cucumbers

cucumber martini
Is that a cucumber in your market totebag or are you just happy to see me?

I would say that more so than any of the other phallic foods, the straighter, thicker cucumber is probably the most, in my humble opinion of course, accurate. However, shape and size aren't the only things that matter when it comes to turning on a woman with a cucumber. Aside from its phallic shape, the scent of cucumbers is believed to stimulate women by increasing blood flow to the vagina.

That must be why so many of us love those cucumber melon scented bath products!
backnext

Halloween Happy Hour: Almond Joy Martini (encore)

almond joy martini
You know that on Halloween, it's all about candy for the costumed kids, but for those of us who are beyond the age of trick-or-treating (but not beyond dressing up!), the treats come in the form of drinks. Specifically for Halloween, we are talking about what my friends and I call "Booze Candy" -- cocktails made from candy- and chocolate-flavored liquors that are inspired by candy.

The Almond Joy Martini is something I've posted about before, but since it's Halloween, thought I'd bring up the drink named after one of my favorite candy bars. The cocktail mixes chocolate, coconut, and nutty flavors, resulting in a ridiculously delicious drink that could double as a dessert. I suppose if you left out the nutty liquor, you'd have a Mounds Martini since sometimes, you don't always feel like a nut!

Shake 1 oz. each of coconut-flavored rum (Parrot Bay or Malibu), Frangelico, Godiva or other chocolate-flavored liqueur, Hershey's chocolate syrup, and vodka. Add 4 oz. half and half or light cream, shake with ice, then strain into a chilled glass. Garnish with shredded coconut.

Burgers, Blueberries, and BBQ: Food & Wine in 60 seconds

What drink are you?

DrinksMost of these "what _____ are you?" quizzes you find online are often inaccurate but a fun way to waste a few minutes of your day. And they often reinforce some aspect of yourself that is true, or maybe you wish was true, and you get a little icon to put on your web site to make other people think you're that way too.

This one asks you a bunch of questions (though not enough, I feel) to find out what type of drink you are. Are you a hard drink like whiskey? Are you a drink with a little umbrella in it? Are you a martini person? Or maybe you're not an alcoholic person at all. The questions revolve around what activities you do when you drink (playing quarters? lying down? vomiting?), what snack you like to eat when drinking (peanuts? olives? nachos?), and the type of taste that appeals most to you.

For the record, the quiz said I'm a beer person. Which is odd, since I rarely drink beer.

Friday Happy Hour: 10 Autumn Cocktails

Hot CiderFall is my favorite season, for so many reasons (I'm a poet and I didn't even...well, you know the rest), and one of them is the food and drink options available. Fine Living has a list of 10 cocktails you can drink on those chilly fall days and nights. Maybe after a day of Christmas shopping, or when everyone is over your house on Thanksgiving Day and you're trying to figure out some way to have all of your family members get along.

Continue reading Friday Happy Hour: 10 Autumn Cocktails

Drink Porn: Almond Joy Martini

almond joy martini
It's Halloween night and the kids have gone out, made out like candy-bandits, come back, and are now safely in bed. Now it's your turn, so what better way to turn in for the evening than a sweet, candy-inspired cocktail, or what we like to call "booze candy?" Normally, I stay away from such sugary, syrupy drinks, but on Halloween, I make an exception for this, the Almond Joy Martini, of which I have written before but hadn't yet tried. Instead of the suggested garnish of shredded coconut, though, we did a swirl of chocolate syrup.

I'll just say that it's pretty damn good. If you feel like a nut, that is.

Lichido lychee flavored liqueur

lichido liqueurSay that five times fast!

Flavor-infused vodkas are all the rage these days, particularly as the base to fancy cocktails. While lemon and other citrus fruits have been around for a while, infusers are becoming increasingly more exotic like pomegranate and lychee.

Lichido Liqueur isn't exactly an infused vodka. It is actually a liqueur. In fact, the website where it is sold ($22.99) says that it is a martini in a bottle made of vodka, Cognac and infused with not only lychee, but guava and white peaches. As long as it isn't too sticky sweet, it sounds delish!


[via: ThisNext]

Thursday Happy Hour: Blueberry Basil Martini

blurberry basil gin martiniTypically, our Slashfood Happy Hour is on Fridays, but with the extended Fourth of July weekend coming up, we thought we'd get started a day early.

Recently I tried a Blueberry Basil Martini. From the sound of it, I was skeptical since I had certainly heard of strawberries and basil, but never blueberries and basil. From the looks of it, I was skeptical, too. It looked like a berry-flavored smoothie from Jamba Juice served in a martini glass. However, the color is deceptive, and though it did taste a bit thick, it was not too bad.

Unfortunately, I don't know what the recipe is, but I did find a recipe online for a strawberry and basil martini, which could probably be modified. (By the way, the Blueberry Basil Martini I had was made with Bombay Sapphire gin, not vodka.)

Almond Joy Martini is "booze candy"

almond joyMy friend Todd is a mixologist. Technically, he is a college molecular biology instructor, but on the side, the guy can mix up some fabulous drinks. His specialty? What he calls "booze candy" - anything that's so super sweet that it's basically, well, candy. These are things that are made with fruit flavored vodkas, juices, cordials and liqueurs, and can be very appropriately served in a sugar-rimmed glass.

Normally, the sticky, almost syrupy drinks are too sweet for my personal taste, but if I drink them after dinner and with the mindset that they are dessert, then watch out. Booze candy is so easy is to drink, I can finish three of them without even realizing it. 

A drink recipe I came across is so perfectly "booze candy, it's ridiculous: Almond Joy Martini. I love the dark chocolate covered coconut and almond bar, so I love the idea. I haven't actually made it yet, as I don't have all the ingredients, but the next time I have a cocktail party, I'm sure Todd and I will have to give this a try.

Almond Joy Martini

Shake 1 oz. each of coconut-flavored rum (Parrot Bay or Malibu), Frangelico, Godiva or other chocolate-flavored liqueur, Hershey's chocolate syrup, and vodka. Add 4 oz. half and half or light cream, shake with ice, then strain into a chilled glass. Garnish with shredded coconut.

Tip of the Day

Butterscotch sauce is a rich and buttery treat that makes a great seasonal dessert topper in place of chocolate or whipped cream.

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