This last weekend my buddy Mark came out to visit Dana and I.  Mark was my roommate and co-worker while I was in college.  We bartended together at a college bar for 5 years.  It was a blast.  Mark still bartends and makes a mean bloody mary.  His secret is a spice concentrate that together makes one mean bloody mary.  We made a triple batch for the weekend.  As you can see, in Wisconsin they add everything but the kitchen sink to the bloody mary.  We topped ours with a pickle, celery, dash of celery salt and a beef stick.  Yep, a freaking beef stick.  It was amazing!!

Mark’s Bloody Mary Mix - (makes 20-25  Bloody Mary’s)

• 1 cup honey
• 1 1/3 tbs garlic powder
• 1 tbs onion powder
• 1 1/3 tbs pepper
• 2 tbs celery salt
• 1 tbs cayenne pepper
• 2 2/3 tbs horseradish
• 1/2 cup  Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tbs Tabasco sauce
• 1 1/3 cup Franks Red Hot

Mix together and keep refrigerated for up to a week.

To make a Bloody Mary, add 1-3oz of the mix to a glass and top with tomato juice.  The more mix you add the spicier the Bloody Mary.

We made a ton of these over the weekend and they are great.  Hands down one of the best Bloody Mary’s I have ever had.

The ingredient list looks like a lot, but it is killer.  Plus, it makes a ton of bloodies.

Sorry that cocktail day is one day late.  It was Dana’s Birthday yesterday and we had to celebrate in style.  However, today I am making a traditional cocktail.  It is on the same lines with a screwdriver, but with a little twist.  A little OJ, a little vodka, some amaretto and a touch of seltzer.  This cocktail is a tad more refined than the traditional screwdriver.  Plus, it has a little bubbly kick.

The Bocce Ball

• 1 1/2 oz vodka
• 1/2 oz amaretto
• 4 oz orange juice
• 1 oz seltzer

Fill a rocks glass with ice.  Add the vodka and amaretto.  Cover with the orange juice and finally top with the seltzer.

This drink is a nice refined twist on the traditional.  It adds the sweet kick of amaretto, but cuts the sweetness with a little seltzer.  Plus the fizz gives you another layer of flavor.  When the bubbles pop you get the aroma blasted into your nose.

It is a great cocktail.

Sometimes you don’t want to go to the store to pick up mixers.  So I dug through my fridge to see what I had.  In the end I came up with a great cocktail.  It is refreshing and not too sweet.  It is so simple that you need to make it tonight.  Make sure that your refrigerator is stocked up on Apple and Cranberry juice.

Crantini

• 2 oz vodka
• 2 oz cranberry juice
• 2 oz apple juice

Shake the ingredients in a ice filled shaker.  Strain into a stemmed martini glass and enjoy!

This cocktail is so simple it can’t be good.  However, it is delicious!  I’ll take another…

I have been on a huge summer drink binge lately and it might continue for a while.  It is so freaking hot out that refreshing summer drinks are a must.  Over the fourth I made a bunch of pina coladas at my parents house. Since then, I have been craving one, so I decided to make one with a little twist.  I added some Passion Fruit juice to give them a different island flavor.  Plus, Passion Fruit gives the pina coladas a nice light yellow summery look.

Passion Fruit Pina Colada

• 1/4 cup coconut rum (I like Malibu)
• 1/4 cup passion fruit juice
• 1/2 cup coconut cream
• 1/2 cup pineapple chunks
• 2 cups ice

Add all of the ingredients into a blender and turn it on until everything is smooth and you do not see any more ice chunks. Pour into a glass and serve with a cocktail umbrella or a wedge of pineapple.

Passion fruit juice may be hard to find in the grocery store.  I looked in the juice section, fresh juice section, beverage section and finally found it in the international aisle.

When in doubt, go to the international aisle.  I settled for passion fruit cocktail but it had the necessary flavor to give this cocktail a new zippy flavor.

Nothing is more patriotic than having a few beverages on the 4th of July.  Oops, yes there is. You could drink red, white and blue shooters (otherwise known as “Liquid America”) and be the most festive person on the block, if not the US. Thanks to the varying specific gravities of alcohol this shot is nice and layered.  It screams United States and thus you should make it for your 4th of July celebrations. I will be honest, this drink is more for show than it is for flavor, but the taste is pretty good too.  After the third one, people started calling me Uncle Sam.  It is that good.

Red, White and Blue Shooter

• 1/3 Grenadine
• 1/3 Bailey’s Irish Cream
• 1/3 Blue Raspberry Vodka

In a shot glass, fill it 1/3rd the way up with grenadine.  Then using an inverted spoon, slowly pour the Irish cream over the spoon and let it slowly pour over the grenadine.  You may get a bit that will fall through, but most of it will float on top of the grenadine.  Finally using the same inverted spoon, gently pour the raspberry vodka over the Irish cream. The vodka should float nicely over the top of the Irish Cream.   That is it.

Take it all in one shot to get the full feel of “Liquid America”.

After a long week of celebrating I think everyone deserves a shot.  I was lacking mixers but ended up finding out that vodka and apple juice are awesome together.  The addition of some whipped cream and a pinch of cinnamon and you have an amazing apple pie shot.

The whipped cream makes this shot.

Apple Pie Shot

• 1 oz vodka
• 1 oz apple juice
• whipped cream
• pinch of cinnamon

Fill a shot glass half and half with vodka and apple juice.  Then top the shot with whipped cream.  The only way to do this is to use the canned whipped cream.  Sorry blue tub guys.  Then sprinkle a pinch of cinnamon on top and enjoy.

This shot was super tasty.  Make sure to wash the shot glasses immediately or else the whipped cream gets a little hard to get out.

A couple weeks back I sent Dana to the liquor store to pick up some coconut rum for the pina coladas. When she came back she also had a bottle of firefly sweet tea vodka. This stuff is awesome! You could totally drink it straight up without a mixer. But when mixed with lemonade it becomes the drink of legends. Mainly one legend, Arnold Palmer.

Served in a Collins glass with a sprig on mint, this drink screams summer.

Arnold Palmer Cocktail

• 1 cup Ice
• 2-3 oz Sweet Tea Vodka
• 5-6 oz Lemonade
• Sprig of mint (optional)

Combine the ingredients in a tall glass.  Stir and enjoy.

This isn’t the hardest drink around, but it is nice to have on a hot summer day.

Update – This is also called the John Daly as he is like Arnold Palmer only with a little alcohol in him.

Do you like Pina Coladas, well then this post is for you.  This coconut/pineapple inspired drink is awesome!  It is one of those drinks that can go amazingly awesome or horribly wrong and taste like suntan lotion.  I experimented with a few recipes and came to one conclusion; use coconut cream and not coconut milk.  The coconut milk did not have the sweet coconut flavor I was looking for.  Once I figured out that coconut cream was the way to go, this cocktail was ready for prime time Memorial Day status.  All together this is a pretty simple recipe.  However, for its simplicity it is extremely tasty and it will definitely make you a star at a party.

I picked up a couple coconut glasses at the local party store.  I had to get into the spirit of things.

Pina Colada (Makes 2 drinks)

• 1/4 cup coconut rum (I like Malibu)
• 1/2 cup coconut cream
• 1/2 cup pineapple chunks
• 2 cups ice

Add all of the ingredients into a blender and turn it on until everything is smooth and you do not see any more ice chunks.  Pour into a glass and serve with a maraschino cherry and a pineapple wedge.

I made this drink a couple of times and the first was when Dana’s friend Kristy was in town.  I made it with coconut milk as the local store was sold out of coconut cream.  Needless to say it was not that tasty.  It was a borderline epic failure. However, Kristy drank it like a champ.  Sorry it was not great Kristy.  Once Kristy left, Dana and I tried again this time with coconut cream.  It was delicious and nutritious, the perfect summer time treat.  Ok, not sure about the nutritious part, but it was definitely delicious!

For Memorial Day, I decided to make some awesome Jello shots.  Dana’s friend Kristy was in DC visiting, so I wanted to have a nice little cocktail lined up for her.  Unfortunately, I was running late so I actually had her help me make the shots.  You will see her hands in a few shots.  Last year I made orange Jello shots in orange peels, thus allowing them to be easily eaten.  I have take this to another step and created perfectly tart lemon drop Jello shots, made in lemon peels. After slicing them, I dipped them in superfine sugar to add the perfect sweetness.  This also recreated the awesome sugar covered lemon of traditional lemon drop shots.

Lined up and ready to eat.  These shots did not last long.

Lemon Drop Jello Shots

• 8 large lemons
• 2 packages lemon Jello
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1 cup lemon vodka
• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup ice cold water
• 1/2 cup sugar, for dipping

Cut the lemons in half lengthwise. Then using a spoon core out the insides of the lemon, leaving just the shell.

Make sure not to cut through the side of the lemon peel.  Save the pulp for juicing.

Then juice the pulp in a lemon juicer.  Simultaneously, bring 1 cup of water to boil.

In a large bowl, combine the 2 boxes of lemon Jello with the one cup of boiling water.  Stir until the Jello is dissolved. Then add the vodka, lemon juice and cold water.

Place the lemon shells, peel side down in a muffin tin.  Then pour the Jello into the lemon shells until the liquid reaches the top.

Place in the refrigerator until solidified.  Roughly 4 hours.

When ready to serve, cut the lemon halves into wedges.  It is best to do this with a warm sharp knife.  Run a knife under hot water, dry it and then slice the halves into wedges.

On a plate pour 1/4 cup of sugar.  Dip both sides of the wedges into the sugar.

Plate and serve.  Make sure to make a ton of these.  Even people that hate Jello shots, love these as they are so easy to eat.

Since it is almost summer and extremely hot and humid here in DC, I decided to make a tropical drink.  There are a ton of tropical fish bowl drinks out there, but I stumbled across one that fits the bill.  It is tasty, it is blue and it is tropical in flavor.  All of the key factors in a great tropical drink.  So if you can’t go to the beach this summer, bring the beach to your backyard.

I used a rounded glass, but feel free to scale this up to a fishbowl.

Fish Bowl Cocktail

• 2 oz vodka
• 1 oz blue curacao
• 1 oz coconut rum
• 1 oz sweet and sour
• 2 oz pineapple juice
• 3 oz lemon lime soda

Fill a glass or fish bowl with ice (shaved ice for the best effect) and then add the ingredients. Lightly stir and serve.

Garnish with a mini-parasol, lemons, limes, pineapple chunks or whatever you have lying around.