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Posts tagged ‘simple syrup’

Mar 4

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Cardamom Old Fashioneds, adjusting old favorites

I had a lot of grand plans to write a post tonight about how I develop and test cocktail recipes. I was going to talk about ratios of ingredients and categorizing types of drinks and where to get inspiration and all sorts of other helpful tips and guidelines. But it’s been a surprisingly long week, especially considering it’s only Tuesday evening, and I’m ready to head on into the relaxation part of the evening. Apologies.

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I will say this, though – flavoring simple syrups is one of the easiest and most adaptable ways to play with cocktails, and it’s a method I rely on a lot when I’m thinking about new flavor combinations. The inspiration for this one came from a drink we made in Chicago last weekend, visiting a friend who is experimenting with making homemade bitters. (Hi, Todd!) After dinner on Friday we explored a bit with his bottles and jars of extracts and put together a drink resembling an Old Fashioned with rye, cardamom extract, bitters, and a bit of sugar. The combination of cardamom and rye was smooth, sweet, and warming, a completely natural extension of the flavors in both, and I knew I’d want to continue playing around with the idea when we came home. Read more

Oct 8

Fall Cocktails: The apple picker

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Two months in and we’re settling into our new life here in the Midwest. After a while of time with things sort of up in the air, I have my situation fairly figured out (more on that in a bit) and Brett’s pretty entrenched in his first semester of his PhD program. We’re slowly meeting people and finding folks to share our time with, and we’re trying to bite off snippets of time to go explore our new town and the surroundings.

And, it’s fall. Even in the first few days of it, it’s the sort of fall I’ve been waiting for since I left Minnesota over a decade ago. That first fall away was a big swirl of college freshman activity and I didn’t have a chance to think much about it, but by sophomore year I would catch myself lingering over photos – photos of anything, from anywhere – that somehow reminded me of the falls I was used to. This continued and intensified for years, and one time just a couple of years ago I caught myself fawning wistfully over a photo of what amounted to a fairly barren park, all leafless and windswept and well into its waning pre-winter days. I couldn’t stop looking at it and feeling nostalgic, and I knew it was time to go back. Fall is one of the things I missed most about being in California, and one of the main reasons I’m happy to be back.

It also means I can add more to the Fall Cocktails category of this website, woefully neglected amongst the palms.

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