You might have spotted the number of times over recent posts where I have described a day or a week as hard or heavy, and this day was another one of those. I’d lost my mum the week before, and had just arrived back home after staying with my dad for a week. You can read more about that here.
I was understandably exhausted so what I needed was something simple but a big hitter and then I remembered this VERY appropriately named Tribute and there was no other choice at all. It’s not a straight forward shake it all together cocktail, so gather your ingredients first:
1 tsp crème de violette liqueur
½ oz cognac
Champagne or prosecco to top
The instructions for the Tribute suggest that you spray the inside of your champagne flute with the Violette, but I don’t know about you, I didn’t have a clean, empty, tiny spray to hand. Instead, I rinsed the violette all around the inside of the glass before pouring it away (well actually into the next glass but you know…).
Separately, stir your cognac hard over some ice and strain into your flute before topping with your fizz of choice. And enjoy! I hope you do. It certainly did the trick for me, with the cognac adding the weight I wanted but the floral violet hints that hit your nose as you sip totally served to help me chill. For a short while at least. I did have another straight afterwards, and added slightly more cognac, but I’ll leave that up to you to decide. Just had to be sure it was lovely of course. And it was!
You know we love rum. And that prosecco is my favourite mixer. But throw in some calvados and it just felt wrong not to do it. And then I spotted that there was a little theatre in the presentation and of course I just had to make one. Well, two. Obvs.
So let’s start by gathering our ingredients.
2oz gold rum
1oz apple brandy
1oz lime juice
½ oz simple syrup
4oz prosecco (This is a lesson learnt from my own cocktail, whereby I was low on open Prosecco and only added half of this amount and I think more might have resulted in a prettier finish)
½ oz Chambord
Thin slice of apple
Now fill a shaker with ice and add the rum, the apple brandy, the lime juice and the syrup. Shake it like mad and strain it into a large wine glass.
Pour in the prosecco and let it settle.
Once the fizz has subsided, carefully float the Chambord on the top, not stirring to deliver a beautiful two-tone look to your cocktail. Carefully float the apple slice on the top to serve and marvel in your creation.
I’m sure you’ve seen all that fuss about Olivia Cooke from Game of Thrones saying that her favourite drink was a Spagliato. In fact, there was SO much fuss about it, I was almost determined not to make one. And even more determined not to like it.
But then of course I realised how stupid that was, and thought I should give it a go. On your behalf of course!
What is a Spagliato? In Italian, spagliato means ‘bungled’ or ‘mistaken’. So a Negroni Spagliato is a Bungled Negroni.
A classic Negroni is equal parts Campari, gin and sweet vermouth, and you can read more on that here. The Negroni is such a classic that there are countless variations of it: some lovely, some of course not so. One of those is a Negroni Spumante, which is a full negroni topped off with a splash of sparkling wine. But the bungled part of the Spagliato sees the gin completely replaced with prosecco or sparkling wine.
After my own pessimism, I would suggest that you give it a go. You might, like me, be pleasantly surprised!
Gather your ingredients:
Campari
Sweet vermouth
Prosecco/sparkling wine
Shake 1oz Campari and 1oz sweet vermouth hard over ice and strain into a rocks glass full of ice. Top with about 1oz of your prosecco and swirl to mix. I hope you are as pleasantly surprised as I was.
Well if you can’t push the boat out and make a cocktail with a bit of theatre at Christmas, when can you? And this Black Forest Gateaux Cocktail is definitely good for showing off! But I ended up having to make it twice because I wasn’t satisfied with how it looked, even though it tasted absolutely delicious. So gather your ingredients, and get set to drown in the compliments…
1oz gin
1oz port
0.5oz crème de cacao
0.5oz maraschino liqueur
Squirty cream
Chocolate shavings
Maraschino cherry
Syrup from the Maraschino cherries
Add the first four ingredients to your shaker full of ice and strain into a martini or other wide mouthed cocktail glass.
Carefully squirt your cream around your glass, moving from the outside in, finishing with a little peak in the centre. Just a note here to impress on you the importance of squirty cream. Now this isn’t something I would normally have in my fridge. I guess it’s a bit of that snob factor. If we need cream, we definitely prefer the real stuff. BUT, in this instance, ordinary cream is way too heavy for your cocktail and won’t float.
Once you have a lovely little peak, shave over a little chocolate, before carefully balancing a maraschino cherry on the top. Finish with a little drizzle from the syrup in your maraschino cherry jar.
Ta-da!
But also last night, I promised to make a cocktail for 5 year old Yelyzaveta. Now, she’s back in Ukraine so would need Mr CQ to drink it for her so I could’ve just pretended, but given that I might end up making one for her, I thought I should at least give it a go.
Black Forest Gateaux Mocktail
1.5oz cranberry juice
1oz syrup from the Maraschino cherries
0.5oz chocolate syrup or 4 drops chocolate bitters
Treat it exactly the same as the first. It is slightly sweet, but then I know Yelyzaveta will like it that way.
The first picture here is with whipped double cream and tasted delicious. The second is with whipped cream and tasted just as delicious but looked SO much better. The smaller cocktail is the Mocktail for Yelyzaveta which Mr CQ declared as just as delicious! Whichever you end up making, I am sure it will go down a treat.
I can’t believe how quickly these last few weeks of December have crept up on me – are you the same? And if you’re anything like me, you’d usually be well ahead in the preparation stakes, at least with lists galore to help you feel just a little in control. All around me today, colleagues have wished me a Happy Christmas as they finish for the holidays, so I thought I might help you with your cocktail shopping list before that BIG shop creeps up on you.
Last year, I shared some real essentials for your Christmas Cocktail Bar, such as the Classic Champagne Cocktail, a Christmas Margarita and an Espresso Martini. I threw in a couple of curve balls like a Turkish Delight (you really ought to give this a go!) and even something a little more advanced to try your hand at, a Rhubarb & Custard. And I haven’t fallen out of love with any of those so go check them out if you’re curious. But what I do have are a whole pile more delicious and relatively simple cocktails you can make over the Christmas break.
This year, we have my in-laws with us for a couple of days, who I expect to arrive in time to open our Christmas eve pyjama’s and so we will definitely be wanting something festive to accompany. I thought a Champagne Snowball might just do the trick: Advocaat, obviously, sherry, lime cordial (not lime juice) and champagne or your choice of fizz. It really is festive, light but not a lightweight, and I bet you have most of the ingredients at home already? It has featured in my bar throughout this year I love it so much, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
On Christmas day, I think I might open our bar as we open our presents with a French 75, which is such a classic I’m hoping you already know how to make it, but if not, you’ll want gin, lemon juice, simple syrup and a fizz of your choice. I’ll be going with prosecco for most of us, but I will have a 7-up option available for my ma-in-law because I think she’ll prefer it.
I’m planning a smoked salmon and scrambled egg brunch which might start with a Breakfast Martini, and I have bought some rather lovely whisky marmalade just for that purpose. You’ll want gin, Cointreau, lemon juice and marmalade. And perhaps plenty of it because it will go down a treat.
I’m hoping we’ll all be fit enough to squeeze in a short walk to the beach after brunch, for no other reason than we’ll need to burn off some calories and the boys will be desperate for it I’m sure, and might even take ourselves a flask of hot chocolate with an option of some di Saronno Velvet for those who’d like a little something extra to keep out the cold. Plus of course some extras for neighbours we might bump into on the beach: one never can tell!
But by the time we get to the big Christmas dinner, I hope you’ll not think I’m too boring by just opening with a Classic Champagne Cocktail. It really is a classic for a reason and is a perfect start to any celebratory meal. Champagne, brandy, sugar cubes, and Angostura bitters. Easy peasy with just a little bit of theatre. With dinner, we’ll have a lovely chilled Chablis and then probably a Sancerre, and I’d like to think we’d have room for a little dessert wine or liqueur with pudding, but in all honesty, I’ll be astounded if we’ve room left for anything else before Boxing Day!
Over the rest of the holiday period, I suspect we might have a visit from delightful Delilah, I’ve a hankering for a Pineapple Trainwreck so that might make an appearance, but I’ve also been promising myself a couple of newbies that feel more than a little decadent and more forgivable over the holiday period. There’s a Jaffa Martini, a Toblerone Cocktail and even an Upside-Down Raspberry Cheesecake I’ve been threatening to make so watch this space. Normal ‘drinking only at the weekend’ rules are definitely suspended once I finish next Wednesday, but I do promise to pace myself.
Talking of pacing ourselves though, I think my biggest cocktail challenge over the holidays will be what the heck to drink over New Years Eve. There’s a bash at our local Village Hall, and of course we’re going: bringing in the New Year with a piper? Who could say no to that?? But here’s the rub: it’s a BYOB bash. So do we think ‘sensibly’ and plan to drink red wine all night because it won’t need keeping cold? Or do we start on something chilled and end up on red? Or do we give a little more thought to how we can keep everything cold for hours on end and go all in? I must admit, if I can make the latter work, and figure out how to maximise the chill when the quiz starts as early as 7:30 then I will. I’m loving the idea of taking Darling Monica as my +1, stretching out a bottle of fizz as long as possible before falling back on the Pinot Noir or Jammy Red. Let’s see where that goes shall we? It’s a short walk home through some woods so we’ll be doing what we can not to do that Hollywood horror thing by splitting up, or opening any strange doors that shouldn’t be opened. I’m very mindful it could get messy but as long as it’s not Hollywood horror messy then I guess we’ve a good couple of days afterwards to recover…
Earlier today though, I had a lovely email from someone who had bought a jar of cherries in kirsch and had turned it into a cocktail with some fizz, and Sally suggested I give it a go. Well actually, I have that very same jar of M&S Cherries in Kirsch in my cupboard and I was definitely planning to turn them into a cocktail of some description. But in addition to the fizz option, I also thought I might try turning them into a Cherry Sour: 1oz each of vodka and the kirsch from the jar, 0.75oz of lemon juice and simple syrup and some egg white or cocktail foamer, of course garnished with a couple of the cherries. And actually, now I’m writing that again, I’m not sure I’ll be able to wait until Christmas! That might just need to make an appearance this weekend so watch this space!
I hope this has given you a little food for thought over Christmas, but don’t forget you can always get in touch via the contact form or CQ Facebook if you have a ‘What can I make with…’ dilemma. You know I’d be happy to help.
Happy planning. Happy shopping. Happy Cocktailing! Oh, and in case I forget, Happy Christmas too…
Sometimes, only a glass of fizz will do for a special occasion. An occasion like it being Friday. Or you managed to get through the day without killing anybody. Or, like on this occasion, they had a really good prosecco on offer in the shops today.
Of course, it is easy to just drink it as it is, but you can imagine like hurricanes in Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, that hardly ever happens in CQHQ. I’ve never sat down to count how many fizz-based cocktails I’ve featured on my pages but I’m sure that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg.
The Classic Champagne Cocktail features a sugar cube, a couple of dashes of Angostura Bitters and a splash of brandy all topped with your champagne, and this Hey Sugar is a riff on that, but is still just as lovely. It features Margarita Bitters, and if you don’t have any (and I’m betting most of you don’t) you could use whichever bitters you do have. Angostura will work, but if you have an orange, cherry or rhubarb bitters they might be better. Even celery bitters might be better than Angostura. And actually chocolate bitters would probably work well.
1oz elderflower liqueur
Bitters
Sugar cube
Prosecco
Drip about 6 drops of your bitters onto a sugar cube and pop it at the bottom of a champagne flute. Pour on your elderflower liqueur and give it a little swirl to start it dissolving, before topping it up with your prosecco or fizz of choice.
And there you have it. Simplicity itself, with a very lovely result!
Who needs an excuse to enjoy a champagne cocktail? You do? Well if you insist, then this could be just the cocktail for you!
A Sgroppino is a classic Italian cocktail that is most often served as a celebratory drink after a wedding, and I can see why. It is light, lovely, refreshing and definitely feels more than just your average champagne cocktail. But don’t let its tradition stop you from enjoying it any old time you fancy. It would be lovely in the garden on a sunny day. Or to kick start your weekend. Even just to celebrate a good day at work… Wherever ‘special’ is required, then this would definitely fit your bill.
But before we start, just another word on substitutions. Not on the football pitch, but in your cocktail shaker. If you’ve been with me for a while you’ll know I’m not averse to the odd substitution if a cocktail takes my fancy but I don’t have the exact ingredients at hand. Like a cookery recipe, a cocktail recipe is your guidance. It shares with you how the creator enjoyed it most. But as you are not the creator, you are more than at liberty to switch things around a little, especially if you are making your cocktail for you. This is exactly that case in point.
A classic Sgroppino features light lemon sorbet, but try as I might, in our corner of the Kintyre Peninsula there was none to be found. Undaunted though, I did spot a very tempting tub of Kintyre Gin with citrus ice cream and thought why the heck not!
Gather your ingredients before you start:
0.5oz gin
0.5oz limoncello
Lemon sorbet
Prosecco or of course champagne
Give your gin and limoncello a good old stir over ice and strain into a coupe or champagne saucer. Add a scoop of your sorbet (or ice cream) before topping with your fizz. And then marvel in its deliciousness while you think of an excuse to make another (like taking a better photograph for example?).
This week I challenged myself to create a cocktail that was tasty, felt like a treat, but had no alcohol in it. WHY? I hear you cry… I am after all the Cocktail Queen, and not the Mocktail Queen.
Well this week I found my new and about to become regular hairdressing salon. h’Airds is in the middle of our village. It has a lovely calming contemporary vibe with Annik (in charge of hair) and Michael (Indian head massage) just perfect company. We talked driftwood and their one in one out policy, vinyl and that Terence Trent D’Arby is now known as Sananda Maitreya, and of course cocktails. I was having such a lovely time I had decided that I was going to make them a cocktail as a thanks, but then they said that they are predominantly alcohol free and it got my cogs working overtime.
The salon is just over a mile away so a lovely walk in which to mull things over. I started thinking about the mocktails that are popular at my cocktail parties, but if I’m honest, none of them felt right. And then I realised that I could build on the deliciousness that is the Zelenskyy, with the main body of the cocktail being quite alcohol light. I thought I might just buy some blue colouring to add to some apple juice instead of the curacao and vodka that makes up the distinctive blue colouration, but it won’t surprise you to know I couldn’t get any. I bought M&Ms to soak the purple ones in the juice for a bit of colour but it ended up just looking muddy and not adding anything at all to the taste.
I slept on it, and at stupid o’clock I realised that it needed something sharp to cut through the sweetness of the passion fruit puree and there was that lightbulb moment when I realised Blackberry Shrub could be the answer! Tart to cut through the sweetness and the deep purple provides a good contrasting colour.
So first thing in the morning, there I was making a cocktail. But of course it was a mocktail so there was nothing I need to feel guilty about. And it was delicious! Mr CQ thought it was perhaps too tart but that’s easy: just add less. And I have to say I loved it. And I hope you do too…
Gather all of your ingredients together before you start and read carefully before mixing,
Add the first four ingredients to a shaker full of ice. Shake hard and pour it, ice and all, into a rocks glass. Add enough ice to fill your glass, making sure it stands proud of your puree mixture. Then slowly pour your shrub over the ice, rather than into the liquid directly, and refrain from stirring. It will mix as you sip, and you should aim to get little mouthfuls of both ingredients.
I bottled it up and dropped it off to Annik and Michael that very morning, complete with instructions and I can’t wait to hear if they enjoyed it! Watch this space for news, I’m hoping it will be good, but I promise to share even if it isn’t…
Well last night was the last night with our extended family before we shrink by half, so it was important to mark the occasion. And what better way than with a Zelenskyy cocktail!
Before our guests arrived, we were already enthralled with Volodymyr Zelenskyy: astounded at his straightforward no-nonsense approach to Putin’s invasion of his country, and like the most of the rest of the world, thankful for his success. And then our guests arrived, and through translation app SayHi we have seen first-hand their love for him.
His achievements have been astounding and it just felt right that on our last night all together, we celebrate both Ukraine and Zelenskyy. You can join us in thanking the gods that this former comedic actor heard the call to step into politics in 2019, and raise your glass to Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy with this beauty.
Gather together your ingredients and read through everything first: this one’s not a straightforward shake and strain.
1.75oz passion fruit puree
0.25oz peach schnapps
0.25oz lemon juice
0.25oz orange juice
1.25oz blue Bols
0.25oz vodka
Start by filling a rocks glass with a mix of ice cubes and crushed ice to the brim. In a small jug, mix together the blue Bols and the vodka and set aside. Then shake the first four ingredients over ice as you would normally. Carefully strain your shaker over the ice, ensuring that the ice is fully coated with the liquid but still stands proud. Add more ice if this is not the case. Then, slowly pour your Bols mixture onto the ice, allowing it to settle on top of the heavier fruity cocktail mix.
і вуаля (and voila)! Raise your glass and toast this remarkable man, and then again in the hope that his successes continue!
Oh and by the way: this is the best use of blue Bols ever!
I’m sure by now you’ll have read somewhere in my blog about our friend and musician Ian Prowse. He was our saviour over lockdown, holding more than 40 Friday night lockdown gigs from his living room, totally free of charge for anybody tuning in to his Facebook page. Across those gigs we found a whole new family of like minded people tuning in for every single episode. We consoled each other through bereavements, picked each other up when we were poorly, and were just there for each other like mates are. Except we’d never actually met each other. Until Lockdown ended and we started getting out, finally going to gigs, and putting real life faces to Facebook faces.
And throughout that time, unbeknownst to us, our pal Prowsey was busy writing a new album. And bit by bit, in the later lockdown gigs, and then as we started getting out to gigs, he introduced us to the odd song or two before his brand new album was released. To say we couldn’t wait doesn’t quite describe it…
Well of course, fellow shipmates on the Good Ship Prowse, have joined me in marking some of those album related events with a tenuous link to a cocktail or two.
We celebrated the album (One hand on the starry plough) going on pre-sale with a delicious Starry Night.
We celebrated our very first play of the CD (while we wait for the vinyl to be delivered) and one of our favourite tracks from it (Holy, Holy River) with a Holy Water.
And then over the past few weeks I’ve been working on a cocktail to mark another of our favourites: My Old Black Tie.
I found a recipe for a Black Tie cocktail, and went to all the trouble of purchasing what I thought was a bottle of black vodka, only for it to just be called black vodka and in a black bottle. Rooky mistake. You’d think I’d learn wouldn’t you? The vodka itself was quite lovely so nothing lost there, but I actually did manage to find a bottle of Blavod, and so set about making the Black Tie recipe that I had found. Only to be quite disappointed if I’m honest.
It tasted ok. It didn’t look very ok though. Didn’t look very Black Tie. Or in fact very black. And of course ‘ok’ is never really good enough is it.
So I took a little while thinking about what it was I wasn’t loving about it: I wasn’t loving the colour, it needed to be blacker with a more defined foam. And actually, I wanted it to taste a little fresher.
I gave it a good coat of thinking over as my Grandad used to say, and in the end, actually really like the version I ended up with! And now we have something that is not at all tenuous, and I can actually call My Old Black Tie, properly after the song.
But before you get your cocktail on, let me tell you about the story behind the song My Old Black Tie. Because you need to have a listen, especially if you are going to make yourself a cocktail so you can drink and listen at the same time.
The song is relates to that period during the pandemic when we were losing loved ones, seemingly every day, and Prowsey kept having to get his old black tie out of the cupboard, reaching a point where he needed it so often, that he never actually put it away. Now have a listen, listen to the words, and I defy you not to have a tear in your eye by the time you’re finished.
So. Let’s make a cocktail: it isn’t straightforward, but trust me, it’ll be worth it.
Gather your ingredients together:
1.5oz black vodka
1oz crème de cassis
0.5oz elderflower liqueur
0.5oz lemon juice
0.5oz simple syrup
Egg white (and this time it needs egg white rather than cocktail foamer)
Start by shaking the vodka and the cassis together over ice, for a good long while, and strain into your martini glass.
Discard that ice and pop another handful of ice into a large clean shaker before adding the remaining ingredients and shake like fury to get a lovely frothy white foam. Pour carefully over the vodka mixture, to deliver a lovely frothy head akin to a pint of Guinness and press play on the YouTube clip to enjoy the two hand in hand.
Cocktail Queen 