-
Valentine’s Day Cocktails
For Valentine’s Day, I’m thinking either champagne or red cocktails… or red champagne cocktails. 🙂 Here’s a round-up of some of my favorites. (Click on the blue words below for more information or to purchase.)
Sorbet Champagne Float Sorbet Champagne Float
Raspberries
Place a ball of sorbet in a chilled coupe, top with champagne and berries. Serve with a spoon. You could even serve this for dessert, just use a chilled dessert dish and increase the size of the sorbet scoop.
Cherry Champagne Cocktail Cherry Champagne Cocktail
Luxardo cherries (do not refrigerate or the syrup will crystalize – speaking from experience)
1 oz Cherry liqueur (I used Heering)
Fresh lemon juice
Drop a Luxardo cherry in the bottom of a chilled champagne coupe or flute. Use a spoon to drizzle a tablespoon of Luxardo syrup in the glass. Top with 1 oz cherry liqueur and a few drops of fresh squeezed lemon juice (this will enhance the cherry), then top with Champagne or Prosecco. Garnish with a lemon peel.
Below are two Hibiscus Cocktails. Make the hibiscus concentrate in advance so it has time to chill.
Hibiscus concentrate. If you can find hibiscus flowers that’s great, (available on Amazon) but if not, just pick up a container of natural hibiscus tea at the grocery store. The Republic of Tea is a good brand.
Boil 1 1/2 cups of water, remove from heat
Add 1/4 cup of hibiscus flowers or several tea bags
Let steep for at least 10 minutes until the concentrate is a dark red.
Strain out the flowers and discard. Refrigerate the concentrated tea in a sealed container for up to one week. (I like to store my concentrate in Mason jars.)
Hibiscus Gin Spritz Hibiscus Gin Spritz
1 oz Aviation gin or your favorite brand
1 oz Hibiscus Concentrate
4 oz LaMarca Prosecco
2 oz Q club soda
Add all ingredients to a large wine goblet filled with ice. Stir gently. If you’d like, garnish with a lime wheel.
Hibiscus Margarita To make your Hibiscus Margarita extra special, make a hibiscus rimmer for your glass. Grind equal parts sugar and dried hibiscus flowers together with a mortar and pestle until you have a fine pink powder. (The sugar helps break down the hibiscus petals.) Then add salt to taste.
Pour a little Cointreau in a plate to wet the rim of your glass and then dip the glass in your hibiscus rimmer. Fill your glass with ice and set aside.
Hibiscus Margarita, combine in a cocktail shaker filled with ice:
1 1/2 oz Patron Silver tequila, or your favorite brand of tequila
1 oz Cointreau
2 oz fresh squeezed lime juice
1 oz hibiscus concentrate
Shake well and strain into your glass with the hibiscus rimmer and ice.
For a non-alcoholic hibiscus cocktail, I love the hibiscus concentrate with lemonade and a splash of club soda.
Cheers!
What are you drinking on Valentine’s Day?
As an Amazon Associate, I earn money from qualifying purchases.
Click on the three lines to the left of the word “lifestyle” at the top of this page and enter your email address to receive notifications by email when I post something new on this blog. Also, follow me on Instagram at cocktailsandgratitude for photos of cocktails, flowers, my pets and, eventually, more travel.
-
Sangria by the Pitcher for the Holidays
One of my favorite fall / winter drinks is Sangria. We usually make a large pitcher of Sangria to drink while cooking on Thanksgiving and Christmas. If your sangria disappears quickly there’s no need to replace the fruit – just add more sangria.
Sangria Ingredients (excluding orange juice) 1 bottle New Age Red Wine – This wine has a slight effervescence which I think adds to the sangria. If you can’t find New Age, any inexpensive sweeter red wine will work.
1/2 cup Cointreau
1/2 cup Licor 43 – use this Spanish liquor instead of brandy
1/2 cup Orange Juice
1 cup of Fanta orange soda – the secret ingredient we learned about in Spain
Slices of orange, pear, apple and blackberries all work well with red wine sangria – pick your favorites or use them all.
Honestly, I never measure my Sangria ingredients but I used the measurements above this week and it was good.
If possible, assemble early in the day, I love to soak my fruit in the wine, Cointreau and Licor 43 for a couple hours before adding the orange juice and Fanta. This can be stored in the fridge for several hours before serving, but wait to add the Fanta until you are ready to serve the Sangria.
The pitcher above looked great in photos but I had to switch to a larger pitcher to fit all of the ingredients.
Serve in a large wine or water goblet filled with ice. Make sure to scoop out an assortment of fruit for each glass.
Cheers and Happy Holidays!
-
Hibiscus Margarita
It’s almost Cinco de Mayo so get your margarita fixings ready. I’ve already posted three margarita recipes on my blog, click on the links for those recipes and pick the one that appeals to you. My all time favorite Scratch Margarita recipe here, my Refreshing Margarita recipe with Suja juice here and my Grapefruit Margarita recipe here. I love all of these recipes, and you’ll see they all have the same basic ingredients, but I wanted to branch out a little and try something new this year. (Click on any blue words in the post for recipes or more information.)
Hibiscus Margarita Ingredients First, make a hibiscus concentrate. If you can find hibiscus flowers that’s great, (available on Amazon) but if not, just pick up a container of natural hibiscus tea at the grocery store. The Republic of Tea is a good brand.
Boil 1 1/2 cups of water
Add 1/4 cup of hibiscus flowers or several tea bags
Let steep for at least 10 minutes until the concentrate is a dark red.
Strain out the flowers and discard. Refrigerate the concentrated tea for up to one week. (I like to store my fresh juices and concentrates in Mason jars.)
To make your drink extra special you can make a hibiscus rimmer for your glass. Grind equal parts sugar and dried hibiscus flowers together with a mortar and pestle. The sugar will help break down the hibiscus petals. Then add salt to taste.
Pour a little Cointreau in a plate to wet the rim of your glass and then dip the glass in your hibiscus rimmer. Fill your glass with ice and set aside.
Hibiscus Margarita To make the margarita, combine in a cocktail shaker filled with ice:
1 1/2 oz Patron Silver tequila, or your favorite brand of tequila
1 oz Cointreau
2 oz fresh squeezed lime juice
1 oz hibiscus concentrate
Shake well and strain into your glass with the hibiscus rimmer and ice.
Salud!
For a non-alcoholic drink with the hibiscus concentrate try: 1 oz fresh lemon juice, 1 oz Hibiscus concentrate and 5 ounces of club soda over ice.
Click on the three lines to the left of the word “lifestyle” at the top of this page and enter your email address to receive notifications by email when I post something new on this blog. Also, follow me on Instagram at cocktailsandgratitude for photos of cocktails, flowers, my pets and, someday soon, more travel.
-
Suja Margarita
I had trouble coming up with a name for this margarita… “Yummy Margarita” seemed a little subjective. I’m pretty sure the alcohol offsets any of the probiotic properties of the Suja, but trust me when I say it’s too tasty to care.
1 1/2 ounces Patron Silver or tequila of your choice
1 ounce Cointreau
1 ounce fresh lime juice (If I’m juicing multiple limes, I’ll juice 1 lemon as well to make an unsweetened sour mix.)
2 – 3 ounces Suja Vibrant Probiotic (Ingredients include strawberry, raspberry, tart cherry and lemon juice.)
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake well. Salt the rim (if desired) of a tall glass and fill with crushed ice. Strain over the crushed ice.
For those of you who haven’t discovered Suja juices yet, you can find them in the refrigerated fresh juice section / produce area of Target or Whole Foods.
Cheers!
-
Grapefruit Margarita
Such a dilemma this week on what cocktail to post… a Margarita for Cinco de Mayo or a Mint Julep for the Kentucky Derby.
Just kidding. It wasn’t that big of a dilemma… I love margaritas and I don’t like whiskey.
1 1/2 parts Casamigos Blanco
1 fresh jalapeño
1/2 part Cointreau
1/2 part fresh grapefruit juice
1/4 part fresh lime juice
3 shakes of Grapefruit bitters per cocktail
Simple syrup to taste. If pink grapefruit is in season, you probably won’t need any simple syrup.
Quarter and seed the jalapeño. Place into the bottle of tequila for several hours (or overnight.) If you forget to do this, or you don’t want to spice up your entire bottle of tequila, just muddle a slice or two of seeded jalapeño with your tequila before adding any ice.
Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake well. Strain into a salted-rim glass filled with ice.
Garnish with lime and a slice of jalapeño.
Salud!