Showing posts with label mixologist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mixologist. Show all posts

Tuesday, 9 September 2014

How To - Best Bloody Mary's Ever.

How to make the best Bloody Mary you’ll ever have. 

So, everyone knows that a good Bloody Mary is the perfect way to slide into an evening session or maybe even a cheeky pick me up in the afternoon. Either way, there are do’s-and-don’ts.



This is the way I’ve been taught to make a Bloody Mary, with my own preferences thrown in too.

You will need to acquire the following;
-          One bottle of the regular, normal old tomato juice. Britvic or Schweppes is fine, Big Tom is not. Big Tom is already spiced so you don’t really want to use that one if you’re into tailoring your own drink. Also, if you use Big Tom it will make everything I’m about to say entirely irrelevant.
-          A double, or  50ml’s, of regular vodka. Smirnoff,  Absolut ...whatever floats your boat.
-          A ‘little’ splash of Tabasco sauce.
-          A generous splash of Lea & PerrinsWorcestershire Sauce.
-          A sprinkle of Celery Salt, which you can by in the spice section of most full-size supermarkets. By full-size, I mean not a Tesco Metro. You need a proper big boy supermarket.
-          Ice
-          Lemon slice.
-          Celery stick (if you want)

1.       Combine all ingredients except juice and lemon into your glass. Stir.
2.       Pour half of your juice into your glass. Stir.
3.       Fill your glass with juice, stir and add in your lemon.
4.       Slide your celery stick in as an edible-stirer.
5.       Enjoy.

For those who don’t want ice in their juice, try this version. This is the version I make at the bar, or if I’m not being lazy. Me? Lazy? Ahem.

1.    Pour ice, vodka, celery salt, Lea & Perrins and Tabasco into a pint glass.
2.   Pour mixture into another pint glass, and then back again into the original. 
3.   Pour half of your tomato juice into the mixture (still in a pint glass).
4.   Repeat step two.
5.   Add remaining tomato juice.
6.    Repeat step two.
7.    Strain and serve into a half-pint glass, garnish with celery and or lemon.  Your Bloody Mary will be chilled from the ice in the pint glasses and will not have dissolving cubes floating about in it.
8.     Enjoy.


If you would prefer a Virgin Mary, simply follow steps 1 through 8, but don’t add the Vodka at the start. Et voila – the perfect brunch juice drink for your friends on Saturday morning.

If you'd like more recipes for cocktails and things of the like, BBC Online has some good ones, or if you want something a little sexier and daring try out the cocktails on Esquire, who are doing awesome Whiskey Cocktails for Fall at the moment. (which is Autumn to us Brits.) 

Hope you have enjoyed this how-to. I’ve quite enjoyed making it, so maybe there’ll be more of this kind of thing going on. Let me know if you do like this, if you don’t, if you like Bloody Mary’s, if you don’t. Yadda yadda yadda.



Tuesday, 15 April 2014

My Love for Fentiman's. (Cocktail Recipes; Lynchburg Lemonade and Long Island Ice Tea.)

Good evening and welcome back. I hope your weekend was a good one - enjoying the sunshine with a beer were we? Prehaps a fruity cocktail? Who doesn't love a cocktail... 

That's one thing I like about being BarGirl...


We had two gentlemen in today, both mid-forties. They were very loud and had clearly already been drinking somewhere else but they weren't 'unservable' - two pints of Peroni later, they're asking for the cocktail menu. This is how I know they're drunk or if not currently, will be very shortly.

At The WW, which is one of the pubs I work in, the deal on cocktails is two for £8 or one for £6. Obviously, everyone gets two because they'd be silly not to but they're not always the same. Usually, people opt for the safer options of Mojito or Cosmopolitan. These gentlemen in particular however asked for an extended cocktail menu and because I happen to quite enjoy making cocktails - I gave it to them.

They ordered two cocktails; one Lynchburg Lemonade and one Long Island Ice Tea. Just the smell of a Long Island Ice Tea makes me gag - I can't do Tequila. No, no. Because I do enjoy making cocktails, I'm going to give you the recipes to these two. The Lynchburg Lemonade is based on the official recipe from The Official Jack Daniel's Website and the Long Island Ice Tea is a variation on the classic.

The Lynchburg Lemonade.

37.5ml Shot of Jack Daniel's Old No.7
12.5ml Shot of Triple Sec

2 Lemon Wedges

2 Lime Wedges

Shake all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with cubed ice (the ice will beat the lemon and limes), strain and pour over fresh ice, into a tall glass. Top up with Lemonade (fresh if you have it, but if not post-mix from the soda gun is fine.) 

The Long Island Ice Tea. 

12.5ml Shot of Triple Sex
12.5ml Shot of Light Rum (I use Bacardi)
12.5ml Shot of Gin (The House Gin at The WW is Greenall's currently.)
12.5ml Shot of Vodka (The House Vodka at The WW is Finlandia currently.)
12.5ml Shot of Silver Tequila
Dash of Angostura Aromatic Bitters

Pour ingredients into a tall glass over ice, no shaking required, and top with Coke. (I really like the Fentiman's Curiosity Cola but again, post-mix Coke from the soda gun is fine too.) Add a lemon wedge for garnish.

In the two above recipes, I've included the link to both Fentiman's Website and the Official Jack Daniel's website. The website for JD has a really awesome section for Official Recipes, so if Tennessee Whiskey is your thing - go for it. The Fentiman's brand is amazing, if you guys haven't heard of it. Any bar that doesn't have Fentiman's soft drinks in their fridges need a quick kick up their backsides.


My favourite being Fentiman's Rose Lemonade - for anyone who likes a slightly perfumed light taste of Roses or Violets. It would be quite nice with Gin, or as I prefer it - straight and simple. 

Their Mandarin and Seville Orange Jigger is awesome too, as well as the Victorian Lemonade )which would actually be good for the Lynchburg Lemonade.)

Recently a new cafe has opened in Winchester called Nicola's, and for anyone who knows Winchester it's where Cafe Central used to be. Tea Shop meets Cheesecake Cafe meets Quick-Bite-For-Lunch. It's really cute and their design element is super strong. We have a friend at the moment helping them to get their kitchen up and running properly. After that, it's going to be good. I can feel it. Anyway, my point is - they stock Fentiman's; the full range I think.
So there's my reccomendation for this post. Nicola's Tea Shop in Winchester (there's also one in Romsey and I think one opening up in Hyde too!)



Til next time, stay safe. 

BarGirl.