Tastes Like Sangria

Tastes like sangria. That’s what I said to Jeff when I first made this. I bought some Aperol a while back, maybe it was for a David Leibovitz cocktail, 🤔 not sure, but I’ve been making this refreshing cocktail that tastes like sangria! I really like Aperol, it’s similar to Campari but not as bitter. It’s super simple and you can easily adjust with a splash of this or that, I have some suggestions in the recipe below. It’s nice when you don’t want to make a big batch of Sangria and just want a glass or two. We’re in for some more hot weather this week and it’s a perfect way to end a 105°F day. 

I’ve been busy making and selling granola the past couple months. I’ll be introducing a new hazelnut flavor later this week! I partnered with a local hazelnut grower Baird Family Orchard and wow! It tastes so good! I’m working on a website for the granola but for now all updates will be here.

Hope you’re staying cool this summer, this cocktail should help. Enjoy.

Tastes Like Sangria

• White or red wine

• Aperol

• Apple Brandy

• Lime seltzer

• Fresh fruit to garnish

• Ice

Fill wine or rocks glass with ice. Add wine half way up. Add .75oz Aperol (about half a shot glass), a splash of apple brandy and top off with a bit of lime seltzer. Garnish with whatever fruit you have on hand. Here I used some home grown grapes, peach, apple and lime wedges.

Lemonade

Is it summer yet? Ah tomorrow is the first day (I asked Alexa). We had a preview of it last week with a couple days reaching close to 100° so I decided to make some Lemonade. It’s so refreshing and nothing matches fresh squeezed lemon juice. This is my favorite time of year here in Portland. The garden beds have been planted with four kinds of tomatoes, zucchini, three kinds of peppers, radishes and butter crunch lettuce + 2 kinds of basil. And, I put some potatoes in a bucket to see if I could grow them. Oh and pickling cucumbers, I’m super excited about that. A couple years ago we planted regular cucumbers and it produced so many cucumbers we couldn’t keep up, we offered some to our neighbors and they’re like no, no more cucumbers! lol. Ah! So it was 2015 not a couple years ago, I made a salad, a soup, Sesame Noodles with Cucumber and infused them in Vodka. I’ll call that the year of the cucumber. I hope this year will be the year of the tomato, for some reason our tomatoes didn’t do so well last year, very strange because they are usually the easiest to grow. We will see how it all turns out. The raspberries are just starting to ripen, and it looks like a good year for them, many many berries with more still blossoming. So you can count on a raspberry recipe soonish. Lemonade recipe below, I didn’t do any fancy infusing or anything, this is just your basic Lemonade, I used 3/4 cup of simple syrup but I think I could have gone with 1/2 cup, but it’s up to you and what you like. Enjoy!

Lemonade

• 1 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice. about 6 lemons

• 3/4 cup simple syrup

• 3-4 cups water

Add lemon juice, simple syrup and 3 cups of water to a pitcher, stir and taste, add more water or simple syrup as needed. I didn’t use a whole cup of syrup and I thought it was sweet enough. So best to build up the flavors and taste to your liking. I ended up using 3.5 cups water.

New Year’s Cherry Bourbon Cocktail

I was poking around our bookcase the other day and came across the book Imbibe! which I’ve never read, and still haven’t. But it did get me googling the author’s name David Wondrich, which brought me to Imbibe Magazine’s website (what a great site!) There are so many cocktail recipes it’s hard to pick one. I chose “The Dewberry Hotel’s Panic Button” definitely not for it’s name (although it's not hard to imagine a cocktail being named as such in 2017) but that it contained bourbon and two liqueurs that I’ve been wanting to try out for a long time. Amaro Averna, an Italian digestif, and Heering Cherry liqueur. I made the drink exact to the recipe, but it didn’t look like the drink in the article, however it tastes really good. Jeff thought it was sweet, but I didn’t find it too sweet, lots of earthy flavors with a taste of cherry that’s not overwhelming. I recommend using a large ice cube since they melt much slower than traditional ice cubes, here I used Tovolo Sphere ice molds, we have similar size large cube trays but these seemed to work nice for this style glass, plus they look like snow balls. Oh and just about the best maraschino cherries I’ve ever tasted are Bada Bing Cherries. Wishing you all well for the new year! Goodbye 2017, you were a really weird year. Cheers to 2018!

New Year’s Cherry Bourbon Cocktail

• 1 1/2 ounce Bourbon
• 3/4 ounce Amaro Averna
• 1/2 ounce Campari
• 1/2 ounce Heering cherry liqueur
• 1/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
• Large ice cubes or spheres
• Maraschino cherries

Shake all the ingredients with ice to chill, then strain into a glass holding a single large ball or cube of ice. Garnish with cherry.

Recipe adapted from Imbibe Magazine

Watermelon Cocktail

I love summer and I love the heat, but it has been a bit crazy these past few days here in Portland with temps reaching 105°. This Watermelon Cocktail is perfect for these warm evenings, it’s so refreshing and one of the nice things about this cocktail is that you don’t need to add simple syrup because of the sweetness of the watermelon. One thing I want to mention is that the flavors (watermelon, lime and mint) seemed to get better as it rested, it might be a good idea to add the lime juice and mint to the watermelon juice before refrigerating it. I made it right in the glass but I could see this being made ahead of time so all you would have to do is add the vodka. I chose vodka because that’s what we had on hand, but I think this would work great with rum as well. Enjoy and stay cool folks!

Watermelon Cocktail

• 4 oz Watermelon Juice
• 1 shot of vodka
• Juice of 1 lime
• a few mint leaves
• Makes one cocktail

Cut up the watermelon into chunks and place in blender a few chunks at a time and blend high speed until liquified, then continue to add the rest until you’re done. Pour Watermelon juice into a container and refrigerate.

Tear the mint leaves a bit and Muddle them in a rocks glass with the lime juice. Add the vodka and watermelon juice and stir well, add ice and enjoy.