Archive for the ‘ Drink ’ Category
If you celebrate Cinco de Mayo the way folks around here do, you’re going to need some serious grub to soak up the booze. The following recipes will not only satisfy any Mexican cravings, they’ll also lay down a base coat before your night gets going. Best of all? They can pretty much all be scaled up to feed a crowd. So enjoy responsibly and leave other Cinco de Mayo menu ideas in the comments.
I love a good cocktail. Trouble is, it’s not always easy to find one. While there are now countless artisanal bars serving drinks of all varieties, both modern and old, the reality is that you can’t expect to find an outstanding cocktail at an average bar. Take for example the classic, whiskey sour. Order one up at your local neighborhood dive and your guaranteed to be poured a neon yellow concoction topped with an equally garish maraschino cherry. Odds are it will taste comparable to battery acid with a look and viscosity of Lysol – yes, I despise sours mix that much. Having endured my fair share of hangovers at the hands of these sickly sweet spirits, I’ve come to believe that that stuff might just be worse for you than the booze in the glass.
Enter, the Rhodie. A refreshing take on the old standby, but without a drop of sours mix in sight. Here, quality bourbon is shaken with fresh lemonade, tart Meyer lemon juice and a splash of grade-A maple syrup for a concoction that delivers all the sweet/sour qualities of the original. Served up and free of any of those formaldehyde cherries, the Rhodie is a pure expression of bright, refreshing lemon on a background of sweet, caramelized bourbon and maple syrup. One sip and you’ll have a hard time going out for drinks ever again.
When it comes to taquerías, the only thing more dependable than the requisite plastic container of pico de gallo is the dispenser of horchata lurking just behind the counter. Since I’m usually eating my way through a two pound super burrito–that’s rice, beans, sour cream, guacamole, salsa, and chorizo, for me–a gulp of cool, sweet horchata is exactly what I need to cut through the grease and cool the fire.
For those of you who don’t know, horchata is essentially a rice milk with the addition of sugar and cinnamon. There are about as many of variations of this sweet drink as there are taquerías in California, and they’re not all created equal. I find myself drawn to those versions that taste more custardy–a lot like melted ice cream–usually with the inclusion of vanilla and milk (whole, sweetened condensed, or evaporated). After purchasing an instant commercial mix at a local Mexican grocery store, which only left me with a pitcher of flavorless chalk water and a bad taste in my mouth, I set out to make a version modeled after one of my favorite taquerías. The result was everything I had hoped it would be: creamy, refreshing and just sweet enough. This stuff is great by itself, but even better when served with good Mexican, like tacos de cochinita pibil.
Incorporating various aromatic herbs into classic cocktails is certainly not a new trend in mixology. That being said, summer presents one of the best opportunities for the home cook to try their hand at a seemingly exotic cocktail like the Basil Gimlet. With an abundance of fresh basil during these warm summer months, I am constantly looking for a way to use up those few leftover leaves lying around from recipes like Basil Chile Chicken and the ubiquitous Caprese Salad. This cocktail is so easy to pull off, and the end product definitely results in a drink that seems to be more than the sum of its parts. Bright, floral and refreshing are all adjectives I would use to describe the taste of what has to be one of the best libations for sultry Summer evenings and backyard cookouts.