Ginger Lime Fizz

Erin (you may remember her as Mr. Ben's lovely wife) was in town for work last week, so I had her over for dinner.  I whipped up a couple old favorites, Moroccan spiced chickpea soup and salty sesame chocolate chip cookies.  I wanted to make a fun drink, but since Erin is pregnant, it had to be an alcohol-free mocktail.

A riff on my favorite, the gin rickey, this ginger lime fizz drink replaces the herby gin with a spicy and sweet ginger simple syrup and pairs it with lime juice.  It's pretty awesome...  a little bit like ginger beer with a hint of lime.  The way I mixed it was by the glass rather than in a large pitcher... I found the ratio of 3 tablespoons ginger simple syrup to 2 tablespoons lime juice to 3/4 cup soda water to glass full of ice tasted just right.

This drink would be perfectly refreshing for a summertime baby shower, next to some apple green tea mint punch.  Bonus: cooking the ginger simple syrup infuses the air in your house with an amazing ginger scented air freshener.

Pineapple Vodka Cocktail

I promised you (and Tim) a pineapple cocktail, and here it is!

I think we may turn this spate of elaborate cocktails into a weekly thing, inspired by some colleagues of Tim's who live in Bangkok and have new cocktail Friday each week.  Anyone want to join in?

Dubbed "Teenage Dream" by its creator, this fresh pineapple juice cocktail is a relative of the mojito, but made with vodka instead of rum.  Lime and mint are muddled with sugar, pineapple juice and vodka are stirred in, and then the whole thing is poured over ice, topped with a spritz of soda water and enjoyed.

We liked this, but blending and straining the fresh pineapple may have taken this cocktail into the category of too much work (or at least too many dishes for us, as we are dishwasher-less).  In the flavor category, it's a winner, though!

Mango Cocktail

Tim was musing the other day that we should make a pineapple and vodka cocktail of some sort since the pineapple is so sweet and easy to get here (you can pick one out and have them peel it for you at the store...so easy).  My mouth started watering at the thought, but we didn't have a pineapple at that exact moment.  We did have a ripe mango, though, not yet earmarked for another purpose, so I looked up some mango cocktail recipes and immediately had at it, with delicious (albeit not very photogenic) results:

I ended up using this recipe from The Kitchn... mango puree, lemon juice, vodka, a little simple syrup and soda water.  So good.  Not too sweet, not too thick, extremely refreshing.  An exciting break from our usual, the gin rickey.

For a party I think you could make a big pitcher of the mango/lemon/vodka mix and then have people pour it in the glass and top off with soda water.  Also, I think a flavored simple syrup would do well here- ginger, lemongrass or vanilla, or maybe chili for some spice.  I guess you could do flavored vodka, too, if you wanted. 

Pineapple vodka cocktail recipe coming soon...

Rosemary Gin Fizz

I bought some rosemary last week on a whim and didn't get around to using it (turns out lots of rosemary recipes involve roasting... in an oven... which I don't have.)...  rather than let the rosemary go bad while I am gallivanting around Indonesia with Liz and Meghan (yay!),  I decided to make a rosemary syrup to mix with gin for a welcome drink for them:

Rosemary gin fizz... pretty good!  The rosemary plays off the gin pretty well!

Gin Rickey: I Found My Signature Drink

In the past, I have always struggled with what to order at a bar when beer isn't an option. I found myself trying something new every time, but never finding my drink, as things always seemed to sweet, too boozey or too complicated to recreate easily.  

But now I've found my drink, and it's gloriously simple and refreshing: the gin rickey. 

Homemade gin rickey, made with the cute but seedy jeruk nipis.

 It's head-slapping straightforward with only 3 ingredients, so it can be made by any bartender at any respectable bar (and probably most unrespectable bars, too!): gin (I like Bombay Sapphire), lime juice, soda water.  It's so refreshing, especially in a warm climate like Indonesia, not too sweet (unlike gin and tonics, which I find to be simultaneously too sweet and too quinine-y), and is made from ingredients that are easy and cheap to procure (ok, well, gin is not cheap to procure here).   Also, apparently its origins are in DC, which is pretty cool.

Christmas Punch with Lemon/Lime Ice Wreath!

We had a cookie decorating party/ugly holiday sweater party to kick off December, and I decided that would be a good opportunity to bust out some punch and this fancy ice-ring. The Other Martha provided the recipe for Christmas punch, a tasty blend of pomegranate, cranberry, vodka and citrus. Bon Appetit gave me the idea for the wreath-like lemon and lime ice ring, made in a bundt pan. The real Martha provided the cool 3-in-1 punch bowl/dip tray/cake dome.