Summer Cocktails

Hot weather means it's time to make summer cocktails. Between the man and I, it can get competitive as to who makes the better cocktails. The recipes help, of course. But we also need to understand how the ingredients interact with one another. Most times, we never exactly follow a recipe. We usually swop the ingredients around. We make pretty good ones, fosure. The quality of the ingredients make a difference, of course; the giant Tahiti limes will not taste the same in a mojito as the normal big limes.

This week, we made apple iced tea. No name for this cocktail. 'Apple-tini' just sounds so...pedestrian. Nice to have some friends randomly pop over to share. Don't ask about the volume of liquids. It's gauged by an estimated dram, a dollop, a splash, a big pinch or small pinch, subscribing to the theory of roughly thereabouts.

• Red apple juice (cold pressed Granny Smith)
• English breakfast tea (strong and dark)
• Vanilla beans (from the pods, not the bottle of essence)
• Apple-mint leaves (pounded for flavor)
• Brown sugar syrup (boiled from a good brand of raw cane sugar)
• Grey Goose vodka (alcohol is optional, I guess)
• A good cocktail shaker. Cocktails are always shaken, and never stirred.

I never wonder why I pay for cocktails at bars. It's because I know exactly what goes into making that one pretty glass. I don't always want to go through the effort of extracting fresh juice, and vanilla beans. It's a lot of pressing, shaking and work, and it's always happier to have friends come drink with us to justify the efforts to create one glass. For an alcoholic drink, this is pretty refreshing, something you can down in seconds. Heh.