Drink Mix–Seasonal Cocktails

October 28, 2010

I love seasonal cocktails as much as I love seasonal lattes, which is a whole lot!  There is something so comforting and delicious about adding nutmeg, cinnamon, and/or eggnog to any drink recipe.  With Halloween and Christmas soon approaching us more restaurants and bars have began creating their own special seasonal drinks, or are putting their own spin on the classics.  I am sure there are many great places to choose from when it comes to seasonal cocktails, but the Winter cocktails at Seres Restaurant & Bar sounded too amazing for me to pass up, so I made my way down to The Pearl District to try one of these sweet liquid treats.

Seres is now featuring on their drink menu The Grasshopper, Ginger Snap, Pumpkin Patch, and my favorite cure for thecommon cold–The Spiced Hot Toddy.  I am a big fan of ginger bread, ginger ale, etc., so I just had to try the “Ginger Snap.”  This yummy cocktail is made of Yazi Vodka, Stoli Vanilla, Captain Morgans, cream, cinnamon and nutmeg.  It is a cold frothy drink, and the cinnamon sprinkle on top mixed with the white cream mixture creates a pleasant display.

I expected the drink to be a lot sweeter than it actually is, which is good and bad.  I am not the biggest fan of super sugary fufu drinks, so I didn’t mind the cocktail being on the plainer side, but in this case I think it actually needed to be a bit sweeter.  All of the right ingredients were here, but it just didn’t come together to give me that holiday cheer.  There are variations of this drink that include eggnog, and I think that was the one ingredient missing in Seres’ Ginger Snap.  I can’t wait to go back though and try the rest of their Winter cocktails, and the best part is that if you use Forkfly you can get Happy Hour prices all night long at Seres!

To make your own Ginger Snap I would recommend this recipe.

Gingersnap Egg Nog Martini

Ingredients:

  • 1 oz Canton Ginger Liqueur
  • 1/2 oz Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur
  • 1/2 oz Disaronno
  • 2 ounces Egg Nog
  • 1 pinch Cinnamon Sugar
  • 1 ea Ginger SnapCookie garnish

Directions:

In a mixing glass combine all ingredients then add ice. Shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled martini glass rimmed in cinnamon sugar. Garnish with a ginger snap cookie or touille.

Drink of the Week: Pitch Black IPA

October 11, 2010

With summer quickly slipping out of my grasp, my choice of beers is also starting to change along with the weather.  In the summertime I want a good Hefeweizen or Pale Ale to cool me off, but during the colder season I crave dark beers like a Porter or Stout to fill me up and keep me warm.  Henry’s 12th St Tavern in The Pearl District has over 100 different beers on tap, so I made this restaurant my first stop in my quest to find a good dark beer to kick off the beginning of Fall.

My choice of drink at Henry’s was the Widmer W’10 Pitch Black IPA.  With a name like that, I had to try it.  The beer was almost black in color, and I was excited to see what flavors erupted from this ominous concoction.  The Pitch Black has a taste of pepper, a hint of coffee, and a malty bitterness that warms your tummy and shocks your taste buds.  It was the 2009 Gold Medal winner at the Great American Beer Festival, and was made right here in Portland.  It is a powerful beer, so you probably shouldn’t drink too many at one time, but it was a great way to start off my reintroduction to dark beer.

If you are interested in making your own beer, check out my blog from last week here.  Also, this site has some great beer recipes, and if you plan on visiting Henry’s 12th St. Tavern take your phone with you because they have some great deals on food on the Forkfly app!

The Nomayo cocktail: The Drink with a Fantastic Twist, But a Weird Name!

August 19, 2010

If you are a fan of gin, you must try the Nomayo cocktail at Davis Street Tavern.  The Nomayo is Davis’ signature drink and is very popular among the Davis crowd.  It is made with Beefeater’s gin, Aperol St. Germain and lemon.  For those of you who like myself have no clue what Aperol is, it is an Italian aperitif that was created in 1919.  Its ingredients include bitter orange, genitian, rhubarb and cinchona.  The Aperol really gives this drink a slight grapefruit taste.  It is quite refreshing and not like anything I’ve ever had.  One of those drinks that you can’t really pinpoint why you love it, but you just know that you must have it again!

I would also recommend trying Davis’ Black & Blue, which is made with blueberry absinthe, and their Finca Canton made with ginger liqueur.

The perfect meal to compliment the Nomayo is Davis’ Anderson Ranch Lamb Burger.  This burger is in my top five best burgers I have ever had in my entire life.  Feta, dried apricots and pine nuts are cooked into the burger, with roasted red onions and a spicy mint yogurt on the side.  This is a robust burger, and I was not able to finish it all myself, but boy did I want to.

Also check out Davis’ dungeness crab bisque and velvety mac ‘n’ cheese, and find their great deals on Forkfly, like 25% off Sunday brunch.  I gotta go back to Davis’ just to at least ask them, what is with the name Nomayo?

Try A Collins/Cooler/or Drop at Paragon & Learn How to Make Your Own!

August 13, 2010

While dining outside at Paragon, located in The Pearl District, I perused over their Happy Hour menu to find myself a new cocktail to try.  My options were a house infused blackberry, blueberry, raspberry or strawberry Collins/Cooler/or Drop.  Now I have drank quite a few cocktails in my life, but by no means am I an expert in mixology, so seeing my options I was immediately curious what the difference is between a Collins, a Cooler and a Drop.  I tried the Blackberry Cooler for fun, and Paragon’s version did not disappoint, but I still went home wondering what the difference was between these cocktails, and so I decided to check it out for myself.

Apparently a Collins is basically “sours” with club soda added. You start off with 2 oz of your base liquor, whatever that may be, add 2 oz or so of sour mix, and top it off with some Club Soda.  The most well known of Collins of course being the Tom Collins, which uses these ingredients:

Tom Collins

2 oz Gin
1 oz Fresh Lemon Juice
½ oz simple syrup
3 oz chilled Club Soda
Lemon Slice
Maraschino Cherry

Add the first three ingredients to a mixing glass and stir with ice. Strain into a rocks glass and garnish with the lemon slice and the cherry.

A Cooler is defined as any wine or made-wine made of an alcoholic strength not exceeding 5.5%. These drinks may be based on spirits, cider or perry.  The most well known of coolers of course being the Wine Cooler, which I’ve included a recipe for below.

Strawberry White Wine Cooler

2 cups strawberries (about 1 pint), trimmed
1/3 cup sugar
a 750-ml. bottle Sauvignon Blanc or other dry white wine, chilled

In a bowl gently toss together strawberries and sugar and let stand 10 minutes. In a blender purée strawberry mixture with wine until smooth and pour through a fine sieve into a pitcher. Wine cooler may be made 4 hours ahead and chilled.

A Drop traditionally uses vodka as the base and then often sweet and sour mix is added and usually a splash of sugar, and it is served chilled in a martini glass.  If you think of a Drop, you of course imagine the Lemon Drop.

The Lemon Drop


1/2 oz vodka
1/2 oz lemon juice
1 sugar cube

Try Some Peruvian Concoctions at Andina Restaurant!

July 14, 2010

There are many things that I miss about my South, Latin and Central American travels, but the biggest thing might be the food and drinks.  There is nothing quite as delicious as a daiquiri made from fresh fruit picked just hours before and aromatic spices that make your nose tingle with delight.  Even to this day, when I drink fresh coconut milk or smell carne asada grilling on a barbecue I think of the wonderful times I spent in the southern hemisphere.  I was taken back to that happy place when I entered the doors of Andina, located in The Pearl District.

Andina’s menu embodies Peruvian culture and taste.  The chefs at Andina are all Peruvian natives and have brought to the restaurant traditional culinary dishes from their home land, as well as a new style they call ‘Novoandina,’ which uses native/pre-colonial ingredients and techniques and gives them a more modern twist.

Their cocktails are also a mix of Latin American Classics and Novoandean creations.  Much like their food, their drinks heighten your ever sense:  pleasant to the palate, sight and smell.  I tried the Guanabana..Do..Doo..Do Doo Do, (the guanabana fruit is pictured below)which is made with chilled banana infused amber rum, tropical guanabana puree, vanilla almond milk and nutmeg.  A great name for a fun, nectarous concoction!  If you want to try a more traditional Peruvian drink that originated in either Peru or Chile (it is debatable), try Andina’s Pisco Sour or make your own using the recipe below!

Pisco Sour

  • 2 ounces Pisco
  • 1 ounce lemon juice
  • 2 teaspoons confectioners’ sugar
  • 1 egg white
  • 3 dashes Angostura bitters

Directions

  1. Pour Pisco, lemon juice, sugar and egg white in a shaker with ice.
  2. Shake and strain in an old-fashioned glass filled with ice.
  3. Pour dashes of angostura bitters on the creamy drink.

The TeaZone & Camellia Lounge Brings A Little Tea to Your Cocktail

June 30, 2010

My Nana has been a tea drinker her entire life. Her parents came to the Americas from France in the early 1900s, and they were a huge fan of “tea time.”  That same love of tea got passed onto my Nana, and then to my Mom and then eventually to me.  Any time we get together we put on the kettle and we share a pot of tea while discussing what is happening in our lives.  I have always been taught that tea can cure anything that ales you—you should drink peppermint tea for a stomach ache, echinacea tea for a cold, and chamomile tea if you have trouble sleeping.  I love finding and trying new teas, and The TeaZone and Camellia Lounge located at 510 NW 11th in The Pearl District, has one of the most interesting uses of tea I have ever seen.

I went to the TeaZone during their daily happy hour from 4-7pm.  I had intended on just trying one of their teas, and I had hoped to find a new one that knocked my socks off.  To my surprise the menu did have tea, but it was being used in cocktails!  My two loves in one drink: cocktails and tea.  I had to try this.

The TeaZone has five different specialty cocktails all $5 on their happy hour menu, and I decided on the Mango Madras.  The Mango Madras contains mango black tea infused vodka, orange juice, and hibiscus juice.  It is very light, refreshing and I love the mango tea aftertaste.  It gave me a little kick in energy, and I didn’t have that sluggish feeling after drinking it like you do with some drinks.  This is such an exciting find for me, and I can’t wait to go back to TeaZone and try more of their delicious cocktails.

If you are interested in making your own Tea Cocktail, here is a recipe for a Green Tea Martini to get you started:

Green Tea Martini Infusing Instructions


  • Infuse an entire 750ml bottle of vodka with 6 teabags, by steeping the tea bags for 4 to 6 hours or overnight. You may wish to pour the vodka into a jar or container that will allow you to easily remove the teabags after steeping. (If you want to use a lesser amount of vodka, pour 1/3 of the bottle of vodka into in a jar or with two teabags. )
  • Swirl the jar occasionally: You will see the infusion happening.
  • If you want to use loose tea, the equivalent is one teaspoon of tea for each teabag.

Get Something Sweet and Sour at Seres Restaurant

June 24, 2010

I discovered pear flavored vodka a few months ago, and since that time I am hooked.  It has a nice refreshing sweetness to it with just a hint of sour, and unlike many fruit flavored liquors, it doesn’t taste like cough syrup or a Jolly Rancher candy.  Pear and pomegranate flavored vodkas are definitely big right now, and I have seen them pop up in different drink recipes all around Portland.

Seres Restaurant, located at 1105 NW Lovejoy St in The Pearl, serves up a wonderful Sweet & Sour Drop just in time for summer.  The drink contains Absolut Pear, Triple Sec, and lemon juice.  Just thinking about this drink makes me salivate. This cocktail is regularly $8, but if you go during one of their numerous happy hour times you can get it for $6.  The bartender at Seres definitely knows what he is doing and will treat you right!

If you would like to try another drink using Absolut Pear vodka, here is a recipe for a Pear Martini.

Pear Martini

  • 2 oz. pear vodka
  • splash of grapefruit juice
  • squeeze of fresh lime

Combine ingredients in a shaker over ice. Shake, and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a lime, lemon, orange, or even a pear slice!  As always, if you have a cool new drink you think I should try, send me a comment or message me on Twitter.  Thanks from all of us at Forkfly!

The Tijuana Speedball is a Drink with a Kick!

June 16, 2010

I am most definitely an adult beverage connoisseur.  I get a lot of joy out of trying a restaurant, brewery, winery or bar’s signature drink, and it is my goal on every adventure to hopefully discover a new fave.  Sometimes I find a gem, and sometimes I leave less than impressed, but regardless of the outcome it is always a fun journey.

Last week while hanging out with colleagues, an acquaintance of mine was raving about her favorite cocktail the Tijuana Speedball and told me I must try it.  With a name like that I imagined the drink to be something so spicy lava would erupt from the glass as soon as it touched my lips, but as we made our way to Bluehour, located at 250 NW Ave, where the drink was being made, I found out it is actually more like a dessert than a drink.  The Tijuana Speedball is a combination of tequila, Kahlua, Irish cream and coffee.  The Bluehour bartender topped off the drink with three coffee beans, and served it in a chilled martini glass.  I’m not sure if the name is fitting for this drink, but the drink is fitting for anyone who loves espresso ice cream because that is exactly what it tastes like.  It is smooth, not too sweet, and gives you a good kick of caffeine.  Everyone needs a great dessert drink every once in awhile, and I have definitely found mine!

Want to make your own Tijuana Speedball?  I found the recipe, so happy concocting!

The Tijuana Speedball
1 shot of espresso
1.5 oz repasado tequila
1.5 oz Kahlua
1.0 oz Bailey’s

Have a favorite beer, cocktail, or wine that you think I need to try in Portland or Vancouver?  Leave me a comment or message me on Twitter, and I will highlight that drink in my next blog.

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