What says Valentine’s Day more than a chocolate covered strawberry?  This year we decided to take the classic and make it two ways.  Yesterday, we shared the fun for everyone, Chocolate Covered Strawberry Hot Chocolate mocktail.  Today we’re going to jazz it up, chill it out, and make our cocktail version of a Chocolate Covered Strawberry!

Chocolate Covered Strawberry

Chocolate Covered Strawberry

1 oz

360 Double Chocolate Vodka

1 oz

Absolut Vodka

0.5 oz

Strawberry Simple Syrup

2 Dashes

Angostura Cocoa Bitters

3 Drops

Vanilla Extract

1/2

Strawberry

Combine all ingredients (except the 1/2 Strawberry) in a cocktail shaker. Add ice and shake. Double strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with a half a strawberry

Our Chocolate Covered Strawberry cocktail starts out with a bright burst of fresh strawberries, before gradually transitioning into a sweet and silky chocolate ending. The bitters and chocolate vodka compliment each other adding a mix of dark and milk chocolates to blend. Pair with Netflix, warm snuggles, and decadent desserts.

Strawberry Simple Syrup:

Shared with our Chocolate Covered Strawberry Hot Chocolate mocktail, this syrup is both deliciously fresh and unadulterated.  It’s easy to make and ends up thick, fast, and fragrant.  It’s uses aren’t limited to cocktails, feel free to try it on pancakes.

• 250 g Strawberries, cleaned and hulled
• 250 g White Sugar

In a blender, combine equal weights cleaned and hulled strawberries with white sugar.  Blend until smooth.  Pour into a sealed container, refrigerate, and use within 1 – 2 weeks.

Drink Notes & Recommendations

We experimented with a number of different combinations of bitters, vodkas, and accents before settling on a simpler approach with this cocktail.   You may notice that it ends up looking a little short compared to the wash line, but bare in mind this is a full sized drink.  Rather than adding things to stretch it, we tried to keep it as close to a real chocolate covered strawberry as possible.

• Strawberry Simple – Use fresh strawberries here for the best results.  Since no heat is applied, the flavor will be extraordinarily natural.
• Chocolate Vodka – Our preference is the cheap and sweet 360 Double Chocolate Vodka.  As sweetness varies, adjust using more unflavored vodka to temper sweetness or adding more Strawberry Simple / regular Simple Syrup to increase sweetness.
• Vodka –  We use Absolut here, and find it works fairly well in most drinks.  Feel free to substitute your own favorite.
• Angostura Cocoa Bitters –  We did attempt to use Fee Brother’s Aztec Chocolate Bitters here, but found the complexity was lacking.  Angostura is relatively new to the chocolate bitters scene, but their large distribution network should make them easy enough to find.  If you’re in a pinch, substitute what you can find.
• Vanilla Extract – We use Kirkland, however McCormick or your favorite will work just fine.
• Strawberry Garnish – Feel free to make this Strawberry as cute or as simple as you like.  We tried to make ours look like Cupid’s arrow.

Happy Halloween everyone!  While 2020 has been nothing short of horrifying, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t raise a glass.   Last year we celebrated with both Slimer and Dracula, and this year pays homage to another classic, Frankenstein.

Frankenstein the Movie (1931)

Before we get into the drink itself, I think it’s worth taking a minute to talk about Frankenstein, specifically Universal’s Frankenstein from 1931.  This period of monster movies really laid the ground work for all sorts of tropes and themes in horror movies.   If you’ve seen a mob scene or lot of crazy mad scientist laboratory equipment, you can trace some of the inspiration for the scene back to Frankenstein.  The setting and feeling really capture the atmosphere of horror all with that classic feel of 30’s Hollywood.  If you haven’t seen it, you should definitely check it out if you get the chance, and James Rolfe of Cinemassacre really shines a light on some of the great elements of this series.

It’s also a bit of where the greenish color starts to creep into Frankenstein.   While there’s of course creative license, some of it may have also been to pull out the greyish-yellow color described by Shelley.  That said, so many people think of Frankenstein as green, and so this cocktail is green as well.

Frankenstein the Cocktail

Starting it’s life out as a Silver Fizz, our Frankenstein cocktail got stitched together with a Pineapple Margarita.  What easily seems like it could have went wrong, ended up as an intriguingly refreshing and smooth cocktail.

Frankenstein

2 oz

Olmeca Platas Tequila

0.75 oz

Lime Juice

0.5 oz

Licor 43

.5 oz

Pineapple Juice

.25 oz

Giffard Blue Curacao

1 Dash

Del Maguay Vida

3 Drops

Saline

1

Egg White

2 oz

Club Soda

Sugar

Sprinkle sugar on a plate. Using the lime to rim a Collins glass, roll the edge of the glass through the sugar. In a shaker, combine all ingredients except Club Soda. With 1 -2 ice cubes, seal the shaker and shake hard for 20 seconds. Unseal the shaker, add ice. Seal the shaker, and shake hard for another 30 seconds. Unseal the shaker and add the Club Soda. Double strain into the rimmed Collins glass.

Frankenstein has luxurious mouthfeel thanks to the foamy top, with a little extra hint of sweetness from the sugar rim.  The drink itself is more ethereal and airy, popping with notes of tropical fruit, peppery spice, touches of exotic oranges, and just the slightest hint of vanilla and smoke.    It’s more than a little mysterious and ready to give a zap of brightness to your live up your evening.

Drink Notes:

As this drink contains egg whites, make sure you shake for 20 – 30 seconds hard.  Thanks to the foaming of both the pineapple and the egg white, you’ll get a nice rich froth if you’ve done it right.  It will take a couple minutes for the drink to settle out, as you can see from the freshly poured version above.

• Tequila – We use blanco tequila here, and feel free to pick your favorite 100% agave brand.  Our house crafting bottle right now is Olmecas Plata.
• Mezcal – This is an accent, looking for some of the smoke and herbal notes of the mad laboratory.  For this recipe we used Del Maguey Vida which won’t break the bank.  Treat a dash in this case as .04 oz.
• Licor 43 – This is a primarily vanilla forward liqueur which is quite sweet.   It has some other notes of caramel and a hint of citrus or spice.   At this time, I don’t recommend substituting any other liqueur in it’s place.  Please also note, this is critical for the color balance at the end.
• Blue Curacao – While there are plenty of brands, our go to for all drinks is Giffard Blue Curacao.
• Pineapple Juice – You could juice your own, but Dole works just fine here.  We use the small cans to minimize waste.
• Egg Whites – Use the freshest possible eggs.  Make sure to not accidentally puncture the yolk (or you’ll be making a fizz).
• Saline Solution –  Combine 5g of salt to 100g water.  Shake to combine, use 3 drops. It will essentially keep forever, we like to keep ours in these pipette bottles*.
• Lime Juice – As always, use fresh squeezed.
• Sugar Rim – In this case we use plain white sugar.  To rim, use the lime to wet the outside of the glass.  Pour sugar on a plate, and then roll the edge of the glass through the sugar to stick.
• Club Soda –  Make sure to chill your club soda first – it’ll result in less dilution.  We use our generic grocery store brand for our cocktails.  Date your club to remember when it was opened, and do not use flat club!

* – This is an affiliate link that we might get a commission from – it helps us to buy more bottles and experiment with more fun combinations.  If you feel like supporting us, please click through and buy this or whatever you fancy.

Sometimes you can pinpoint the genesis of an idea.  For us, it was a few summers back in warmth of August’s heat that Ann Marie wanted something other than wine.  At the time, I was still writing First Pour Wine on a regular basis, and while there were some bottles around the house for making drinks from Death & Co.’s book, crafting my own wasn’t a serious hobby.  Still, she wanted something interested, and the result was Peach’s Parasol.

Peach’s Parasol

Peach’s Parasol kicked off the idea of drinks based on characters for us.  In this case, the inspiration was something for Princess Peach.  Our thought was that it obviously needed to be refreshing, but also quite sweet and easy to drink.  Using Simply Peach, we found a lovely combination for the summer featuring Malibu Rum, Lemon, peach juice, and peach bitters.

Peach’s Parasol

2.5 oz

Malibu Rum

0.5 oz

Lemon Juice

3 oz

Simply Peach

2 – 3 Dashes

Fee Bros Peach Bitters

1

Peach Ring

Combine all ingredients in a shaker except peach ring. Add ice and shake. Double strain into a chilled Martini glass. Garnish with a peach ring.

Sweet, coconut laden, and bright – Peach’s Parasol is easy to sip.  There’s a nice amount of play between the peach juice and the peach bitters to create a peachy flavor that helps balance the Malibu.  The lemon juice keeps it bright and refreshing, while the sugar takes the edge off.  With a relatively low A.B.V., it also won’t beat you up.

Drink Notes

This drink is undeniably sweet and easy to drink.  To adjust the sweetness, you can utilize a white rum such as Plantation 3-Star to split 50-50 with the Malibu (1.25 oz of each).  This will make the drink slightly boozier, but level out the sweetness if you find it too much.

• Rum:  Malibu or a coconut flavored rum is critical here.  The coconut flavor is balanced with the peach to create a tropical experience.
• Simply Peach:  We recommend Simply Peach for this drink, but if you have a prefer peach juice, please feel free to substitute it.  Fresh peach juice is an option, however it adds a frothiness and can make the texture seem thick.
• Fee Bros Peach Bitters:  Add a nice peach twist, giving another peach flavor.  You can find them at Amazon*.
• Lemon:  As always, use fresh squeezed lemon juice.
• Peach Rings:  I’d advise balancing this off the side.  As the peach ring sits in the drink, it can get a bit chewy.  CVS will sell you a bag for about a $1.  If you would like them delivered, here’s a set at Amazon.

* – Disclaimer – this is an affiliate link through which we may receive a commission – which helps us to keep crafting and testing out new equipment and ingredients to share with you – the reader!

Although not particularly common, some prohibition drinks have found themselves inverted to make new variations.  Among them are the Martini and the Manhattan.  Part of the allure of an Inverted Manhattan or an Inverted Martini is a reduction in alcohol, and an emphasis on the flavors of the vermouth.  This means these cocktails are heavily dependent on the selection of vermouth and spirit base – more so than their classic counterparts.

The Inverted Manhattan

The Inverted Manhattan

2 oz

Carpano Antica Sweet Vermouth

1 oz

Bourbon or Rye

1 Dash

Angostura Bitters

1

Orange Twist

Combine all ingredients in a mixing vessel. Add ice and stir. Double strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish with an orange twist.

The flavor is bright and lighter than the final 2:1 ratio of today’s Manhattan.  This gives The Inverted Manhattan an opportunity to show off some of the more delicate fruity elements in the wine.  The bourbon gives it backbone and earthy notes.  While the Angostura does a great job of running intermediary – tossing in random spicy complimentary notes to both side.   You might think to admit the orange, and it wouldn’t be a bad drink.  Yet, that subtle essence opens up the sweetness of the wine and the tannin wood notes of the bourbon.  It’s absolutely critical to the balance.

Drink Notes & Recommendations

Vermouth plays a huge role here.  If you use a weaker bodied vermouth – the reward will be a weaker flavored drink.  A softer whiskey here is going to play a little nicer (such as Maker’s Mark) where if you want a little more explosiveness – try something spicier like Bulleit or even Rittenhouse.

• Sweet Vermouth – I recommend Carpano Antica Sweet Vermouth here.  Cheap vermouth is insufficient due to the high percentage of the drink it makes up.  Weak vermouth – like Lustau’s Red Vermouth is too weak of body to stand up to the whiskey.
• Bourbon / Rye –  A softer bourbon like Maker’s Mark will make for the most luxurious texture.  Bulleit Bourbon or Rittenhouse Rye will emphasize the spice notes well – but give a less refined mouthfeel.
• Bitters – Angostura is the gold standard – but definitely play around with the aromatic bitter you like best.