cocktails – Riveted

The Amber Road Cocktail

Laura Domela — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 13:25:00 +0000

I found a recipe for a cocktail I'd never heard of (while looking for cocktail recipes containing Aperol) and decided to try it out on our friends last night when they came over for dinner. It's called an Amber Road and here are the ingredients (plus a mint sprig, maple syrup, and fizzy water, not shown):

For one cocktail: Add 1½ ounces of bourbon (I used Bulleit), 1 ounce of Aperol, ½ ounce of fresh lemon juice and ¼ ounce of maple syrup to a cocktail shaker with ice. Add a dash of Angostura bitters. Shake it up hard, then strain it into a tall glass with ice. Add 2 ounces of soda, and garnish with a lemon wheel and mint sprig.

It was delicious! Really delicious.

Also: I mixed the bourbon, Aperol, bitters, maple syrup, and lemon juice up before hand and kept it in the fridge. When our guests arrived I just added ice to the shaker and shook away, then poured the shaken concoction over ice, added the fizzy water and mint sprig, and done!

Ice-Free Martini Glasses

Laura Domela — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 14:00:00 +0000

I’m excited about these cocktail glasses we just got. They’re double-walled stainless steel martini glasses, filled with a liquid freezer gel. You keep ’em in the freezer (where there’s usually plenty of room, unlike the cupboards in the Airstream) and they’ll keep your cocktail nice and cold while you’re outside grilling in the summer heat!

We’ll be trying them out next week (it’s supposed to be in the 80s around here!) and we’ll let you know how they are! (Click the image for more info if you want some of your own.)

Aperol Spritz

Laura Domela — Sun, 01 Jun 2014 21:44:06 +0000

We stopped at the store yesteday to pick up ingredients for making Aperol Spritzes at home (awwww, a little reminder of Italy): Aperol (an Italian liqueur), Prosecco, San Pellegrino, and an orange. The Aperol Spritz is a refreshing summer cocktail (with a very fun bright orange color)!

Aperol Spritz

Ice cubes
Slice of orange

3 parts Prosecco
2 parts Aperol
1 splash sparkling water/soda

Serve in a wine glass

Last night I made us a little fresh bufala and heirhoom tomato salad, and some fresh figs with prosciutto and balsamic vinegar to to along with our spritzes. Yum!

Note: Some people prefer the more bitter Campari (red) instead of Aperol, and there's something in between in Italy called "Select" that's half bitter half sweet (I liked the spritzes made with Select and Aperol, but the Campari is too bitter for my taste…feel free to experiment!)

Airstream Cocktailware

Laura Domela — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 18:03:41 +0000

I got these two items the other day for the Airstream…the Orb copper cocktail shaker and Orb champagne gold jigger, both from Crate & Barrel.

Here's the shaker apart so you can see the details:

I think they're a nice upgrade from the shaker we've had since we got our first Airstream in 2005 (a Michael Graves jobby with an olive-inspired stopper). It's cute, but not as sleek and sophisticated as the new stuff.

Last Night’s Cocktail: The Big Gin Vesper

Laura Domela — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 13:18:49 +0000

We've been substituting manhattans or vespers when we feel like a martini…just to mix things up a bit. We hate to be predictable.

This is our recent favorite…I call it the Big Gin Vesper. A vesper is typically gin, vodka, and Lillet and originated in the 1953 James Bond novel Casino Royale. You can geek out on the history of the cocktail here.

We've had the standard one and it's good, but we decided to try it using a new gin we got when we went up to the distiller's festival (Proof) in Seattle a month or so ago. We don't often drink gin, but this gin is bourbon-barreled gin, and we DO drink bourbon, so we thought we'd give it a shot. Bourbon Barreled Big Gin by Captive Spirits. It's good.

Anyway, here it is: The Big Gin Vesper

3 measures of Bourbon Barreled Big Gin
1 measure of vodka (we used Tito's handmade this time…it's what we had in the Airstream freezer)
1/2 measure of Lillet

Shake over ice and pour into cold martini glasses. Garnish with a large slice of lemon peel.

Cheers!