It’s been a very busy week here at A Taste For Drink so even though I had a plan to post a tasting of Captain Morgan’s Black – well the weekend came and went, work is looming in the morning and well I’m being lazy. Side effect of drinking all the time I guess.

Anyway, I thought I’d just share a picture of the slowly dissolving Swedish Fish in the Luksusowa vodka. The vodka will officially be ready for taste testing on the 26th but as you can see, what were once happy fish are slowly turning into small chunks, heads and tails. Not very fishlike anymore. The fish also appear to be losing their color as the alcohol reddens.

I can hardly wait to try this out – hopefully all the sugar and candy flavors make this vodka much better than I remember it straight.

I’ll be putting up my review of Captain Morgan Black before next weekend when I go camping so be on the lookout for that review.

Until then taste thoroughly, drink deeply and enjoy. Cheers.

Ed ‘Whitey’ Walker is an knowledgable cocktail resource with experience creating drinks for events and individuals.
A Taste For Drink teaches users to utilize a trained sense of taste to create and enjoy unique drinks
Twitter,Facebook, – service @ atastefordrink.com – ©2012 Ed Walker-A Taste For Drink, All Rights Reserved. All opinions, reviews and spirits’ coverage are the personal opinion and decision of Ed Walker.

My wife and I are getting flavored alcohols ready for our 2 week summer vacation of camping and medieval recreation.

Utilizing some of the techniques I’ve discovered making flavored simple syrups I decided to try making my flavored alcohols slightly differently from past efforts.

In the past I would simply cut up and/or bruise fruit and place it in a mason jar for about a month submerged in alcohol and then after removing the fruit I would add simply syrup. This time I decided to combine some steps since the flavor is extracted so well by the process of making the flavored syrup.

For my alcohols I took 1 1/2 cups of sugar and and equal amount of water. Brought this to a boil, dissolving the sugar. Once it was dissolved, I add the fruit. In general I’m adding about a quart of fruit that I bought at the local farmer’s market.

Once the liquid returns to a boil, TURN DOWN the heat so it doesn’t boil over. I simmer the liquid and fruit for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

After 20 minutes I remove the mixture from heat and allow it to come down to room temperature.

Once at room temperature I proceed to pour the liquid AND the fruit into a large, sterile glass jar.

I then add alcohol. My preferred alcohol for fruit is Rum. I’m currently using an 80 proof clear rum. I add 4 cups of rum to the fruit and syrup mixture, seal the lid to avoid leaks or air entering, give it a good shake to mix and then place it on a shelf to marry the fruit and alcohol.

I will agitate the jar daily for the next month at which point I’ll strain out fruit solids, taste test and then adjust by adding more simple syrup or spring water to make the alcohol taste the way I want.

Now all that being said, I only used this technique for 3 of the 4 alcohols I’ve put up: Black Plum, Strawberry, and Blueberry.

The 4th alcohol is a bit different. Using a 1.75 liter bottle of Luksusowa vodka we tossed in an entire 30 ounce bag of Swedish Fish candy. No simple syrup, just the candy. We aggitate daily as the other alcohols and will let the fish just swim in their vodka aquarium until we either drink it or they dissolve, whichever comes first.

We’re currently about half way through the maceration process and will rack off the fruit in another 2 weeks or so. But I wanted to share what is happening and how to perform this task yourself if you want to make flavored alcohols.

I’ll update the blog with the results when I finally rack them off and bottle them for use.

Until then, taste thoroughly, drink deeply and enjoy. Cheers.

Suggested reading: While not specifically related to flavored alcohols, I own this book and it is one of my favorites.

Ed ‘Whitey’ Walker is an knowledgable cocktail resource with experience creating drinks for events and individuals.
A Taste For Drink teaches users to utilize a trained sense of taste to create and enjoy unique drinks
Twitter,Facebook, – service @ atastefordrink.com – ©2012 Ed Walker-A Taste For Drink, All Rights Reserved. All opinions, reviews and spirits’ coverage are the personal opinion and decision of Ed Walker.

I have a friend who has a gluten allergy. No, not hypochondria, a real one that was diagnosed by a doctor. When you have an allergy of this sort you cannot have wheat products or other grains. Unfortunately for the vodka lovers out there most vodka is made from grain and therefore not drinkable by these folks unless they want to really suffer for their buzz.

Enter potato vodka.

Heading the the local ABC store (I live in Virginia and we have state run Alcoholic Beverage Control stores) we learn that they only carry a couple potato vodkas. With a nod to my Polish ancestors we decided to purchase a Polish vodka called Luksusowa: Polish luxury vodka.
This brand is 80 proof (40% alcohol) triple distilled and most importantly, made from potatoes.

My wife and I are planning to use this vodka for a flavored alcohol experiment but before we toss in flavorants I wanted to taste.

LOOK
Its vodka of course, it’s perfectly clear and light bodied. Nothing unexpected here.

SMELL
Wow, um, this vodka is, um not pleasant smelling. I expect floor cleaner when I finally get to taste. It has a starchy scent, not a strong alcohol bite in the scent but you can tell it’s there.

TASTE
OMG this stuff has won 28 gold medals? Ok maybe for being a technically perfect drink made the way it was back in the good old days but I can’t imagine anyone rewarding this for its flavor. Strong alcohol bite.
The vodka comes on with the normal alcohol bite that fades readily revealing the flavors.
Rather unpleasant taste as far as I’m concerned. The only way to describe the flavor is … cottony. It gums up your taste centers. It’s starchy yet sour all at once.
OK, I’ll be nice and find something good to say – it is well blended. No specific harsh flavor makes it unpalatable it’s just not my cup of tea I guess.

AFTERTASTE
The taste starts fading after about a minute and the aftertaste clearly tastes of raw potatoes.
I know vodka is a neutral spirit and supposedly you don’t taste the ingredients but I taste potato in the finish of this drink. Maybe it’s psychological but after several experiments I’m pretty sure it’s actually there.
Don’t breathe in over it, it will fry your nose! The retronasal scent isn’t any better than I expected.

The Verdict:
I think this vodka is best for mixing, not sipping. Frankly I can’t see adding it to my bar. Sorry Poland but I’m not impressed. I’d probably add it to Orange Juice or something else to help mask it’s starchy flavor.

Sorry, I’m not mixing a drink with this for your entertainment. I finished my tasting glass and then helped my wife add a bunch of Swedish Fish to the vodka.
Hopefully all the sugar and fruit flavor in the fish will make this a fun flavored alcohol. I’ll let you know in about a month.

Well don’t take my word for it, try it yourself and make your own tasting decision. One man’s rot gut is another man’s medal winner.

Taste thoroughly, drink deeply and enjoy! Cheers.

Suggested reading:

Ed ‘Whitey’ Walker is an knowledgable cocktail resource with experience creating drinks for events and individuals.
A Taste For Drink teaches users to utilize a trained sense of taste to create and enjoy unique drinks

Twitter,Facebook, – service @ atastefordrink.com – ©2012 Ed Walker-A Taste For Drink, All Rights Reserved. All opinions, reviews and spirits’ coverage are the personal opinion and decision of Ed Walker.

I know that it works well with lemonade from the same post but while I have the hankering for lemon and blueberry again I didn’t want to revisit the same old ground. So digging in my crate of many liquers (yes I have a crate not a proper bar – my next house will have a bar, this home has limitations) and withdrew a schnapps that I had bought on a whim last year and fell instantly in love with: Dr. McGillicuddy’s Lemon Drop Schnapps.

Blueberry Lemon Drop

• 2 parts Dr McGillicuddy’s Lemon drop schnapps – 21% alcohol
• 1 part Blueberry simple syrup

I tried this two ways – 1:1 ratio which was very sublte on the lemon side and much more syrupy. Nice if you like sweet and not too much alcohol.

My favorite rendition was the final 2:1 Lemon drop to Blueberry ratio.

SMELL
The scent is very much dominated by the lemon but there is a slight scent of the blueberry smoothing it out.

LOOK
The drink has medium body imparted by the simple syrup. It is a deep purplish red color and very clear.

TASTE
The liquid coats the mouth nicely and clings to the tongue. Lemon and blueberry are wonderful complements. The lemon keeps the sweet syrup from becoming overly cloying and imparts a nice sour aftertaste in the finish.

AFTERTASTE
As the flavor fades on the tongue the sensations continue to shift between sweet and sour. It’s a quite pleasant flavor sensation.

The Verdict:
Since the good Doctor’s schnapps are not very high proof there is not a lot of alcohol bite making this a good sipping drink rather than a pound it until you pound the floor with your face type of drink.

I highly recommend this as a nice sipping drink for sitting on the porch on a warm evening watching the world go by with someone who’s company you find pleasurable. Share a drink, talk about the weather, how the catfish are bitin’ and all those other things that ladies and gentlemen find themselves discussing on the porch of their fine southern plantation home. Ok, Yankees can enjoy this too but somehow, garnished with a mint leaf this concoction just screams ‘The South’.

This drink will work cold or warm – if you find yourself in need of a cold remedy or sore throat tonic or a drink to put you nighty-night, I highly recommend this mixture warmed.

Suggested reading:

Ed ‘Whitey’ Walker is an knowledgable cocktail resource with experience creating drinks for events and individuals.
A Taste For Drink teaches users to utilize a trained sense of taste to create and enjoy unique drinks
Twitter,Facebook, – service @ atastefordrink.com – ©2012 Ed Walker-A Taste For Drink, All Rights Reserved. All opinions, reviews and spirits’ coverage are the personal opinion and decision of Ed Walker.

I decided to make separate ingredients that can be used for more than just this one drink so I determined to make a simple syrup of blueberries (which frankly is how it’s obviously done at the restaurant – syrup added to basic lemonade).
We happened to have a bag of frozen blueberries. While fresh locally grown would be optimum, it isnt quite the seaons in northern Virginia yet to find good blueberries. My own blueberry bushes are just now getting ready to bloom.
Frozen fruit is really good for making syrups or flavoring alcohol as the freezing action helps damage the cell walls of the fruit allowing it to break down easier.

Syrup recipe

• 1.5 cups white sugar
• 1.5 cups water
• 3 cups frozen blueberries (defrosted)

Place the sugar and the water into a saucepan and while stirring, bring to a boil. Be careful to not let it come to a boil when you’re not paying attention, it only takes a moment’s inattention to have a disaster boil over onto your stove.
Once the liquid reaches a boil and the sugar has been fully dissolved, add the blueberries.
Return the liquid to a boil, occasionally stirring.
Once boiling again, lower the heat to low and allow the blueberries to simmer for 20 minutes. Do NOT put on a lid – you have been warned.
After 20 minutes, bring the heat up to high again and let the mixture boil hard for another minute then remove from heat.
The last blast of high heat boiling is to perform any remaining breakdown in the fruit to extract as much as possible flavor-wise.
Allow the liquid and fruit to return to room temperature.
Once the liquid is at room temperature, find a strainer and strain the liquid into a glass jar. I then take a wooden or plastic spoon and press the remaining blueberries against the sides of the strainer to wring out the last liquid into the jar.
Store it in the fridge to help it thicken and last longer. Voila.

Now this syrup can be used for just about anything. It can be used on ice to make snowcones, over ice cream. In coffee or other drinks. You can also use it directly with a bottle of alcohol to make your own flavored alcohol or cordial. To mix with alcohol for flavoring purposes, mix a 1 to 1 ratio of syrup to alcohol and then let it sit for about a week to properly marry the berry flavor to the alcohol.

SMELL: Pure blueberry heaven. The scent if very strong of berry and nothing else.

LOOK: Dark blueish red color. This syrup is so dense that even when holding the jar against a 60 watt bulb, it is opaque. Good heavy body, the liquid clings to the sides of the glass.

TASTE: Very sweet – VERY berry. The blueberry flavor fills your mouth. There’s no doubt you used real fruit in this.

AFTERTASTE: The flavor lingers a while on the tongue. The retronasal scent is wonderful. As you breathe in the scent of blueberry intensifies. I really didn’t feel the need to rinse my mouth but instead just let it fade away, blissfully.

Lemonade

We went for simplicity here. At the market we purchased some carbonated Pink Lemonade. Pink Lemonade can be made with either red grapefruit or strawberries – this one is flavored with strawberry.

The ratio you wish to add the syrup to the lemonade should be determined by your own sense of taste but the ratio I used was 1 teaspoon of syrup to 1/2 cup of lemonade.

I also add the syrup last so it can diffuse through the lemonade. It’s much denser than the lemonade so it will settle to the bottom regardless.

As you can see, it’s a very pretty drink. You could add some rum or vodka to this if you MUST have it alcoholic.  The flavor is very refreshing and I can see sipping this on the back deck on a warm afternoon.

SMELL: when mixed you’ll smell both lemon and the blueberry. It’s a very smooth, sweet scent.

LOOK: light bodied and bubbly the colors swirl and create layers unless you stir.

TASTE: Very sweet and berry flavored but the lemonade cuts through giving a nice tart counterpoint. The strawberry used to pinken the lemonade is pretty much absent – however having tasted the lemonade straight, it isn’t very obvious to begin with.

AFTERTASTE: The bubbles scour the tongue and the citrus clear the berry flavor from your mouth. It is very shortlived in aftertaste but very pleasant.

 
So there you have it, a quick idea we whipped out in a morning. Give it a try. You don’t need to use blueberries, choose your favorite fruit.

Until next time, taste thoroughly, drink deeply and enjoy life. Cheers.

Suggested reading:

Ed ‘Whitey’ Walker is an knowledgable cocktail resource with experience creating drinks for events and individuals.
A Taste For Drink teaches users to utilize a trained sense of taste to create and enjoy unique drinks

Twitter,Facebook, – service @ atastefordrink.com – ©2012 Ed Walker-A Taste For Drink, All Rights Reserved. All opinions, reviews and spirits’ coverage are the personal opinion and decision of Ed Walker.

Let me say that nothing beats sitting on the deck of a cruise ship, watching the ocean retreat behind the stern while bikini clad sunbathers lounge and waiters from exotic locales bring you tasty drinks. Well, maybe lounging on a beach in the Bahamas is also pretty darn good but if you can do both in the same trip – victory!

You may be wondering about the title of this article – what pray tell is a Bahamian Death Bus and why would you drink on it?
Well let me relate one tale of our trip to Nassau as both a fun anecdote and a warning for your own safety – then we’ll get to the booze.

You see before you the alleged Bahamian Death Bus. In the Bahamas they have these cute little busses. They’re basically somewhere between a van and a proper bus in size and are scaled for the small streets and traffic congestion you find in the Bahamas.
When we went ashore in Nassau, my wife and I went to the beach. We, along with 28 other people piled onto one of these busses. They’re built with two rows of seats down the sides and have a special surprise, a flip down seat that fills the walkway allowing another person to sit. Sound efficient right?

Well think this through a bit. Unless you happen to be in the front row, you are trapped in the bus behind a solid wall of seats and vacationers should something go horribly wrong. The walkway is completely blocked by a seat that connects between the seats on either side of the bus. Anyhow. Our trip to the beach was wonderful, a nice leisurely drive through the old portions of Nassau viewing forts, old churches and the local culture. The beach was as beautiful as you imagine and although our stay was much shorter than we would have liked, it was well worth the effort. After an hour or so on the sand our tour group is told that it is now time to leave; cue ominous music!
We meander back to the bus which is now a different bus than the one we started on but this was expected.

Our driver is a jovial man full of energy (this should have been our cue to flee). We pile onto the bus. We’re missing a few people but have gained a few others. Confusion ensues. The tour leader decides that everyone will get sorted later since there are more busses in the wings to carry stragglers. and we take off with 26 passengers.

Let me stop to mention a few things – in the Bahamas they follow the standard of the the United Kingdom, they drive on the left. If you’ve never done it, it’s a bit unnerving. Lucky for me, I’ve driven that way in Okinawa but the rest of our retinue was not so lucky. The local speed limit along the path to the port ranges from 25 to 40 miles per hour.

Off we go, island music booming through the speakers and our jovial driver turns into Mario Andretti.  The poor man in front of us pulls out his iphone and begins to film the rushing roller coaster-esque ride through the traffic filled streets either for youtube or his lawyer, we’re not sure which.

I don’t think we ever went below 50 for the entire trip, including round-abouts. So there we are, careening through the streets, holding on for dear life and on the radio comes the song “stop the world I want to get off” our passengers start giggling hysterically. We suddenly come up on the bus that left the beach a full 5 minutes before us and rocket past. We’re pasted to the windows staring at the other passengers who look back in shock as we rocket past.

Long story short – we arrive alive back at port and tumble off the bus as fast as we can, every soul wondering where a bar can be found after surviving the ride on the Bahamian Death Bus.

So the moral of this tale – when in the Bahamas watch out for those little busses. They all seem to drive like racecars, people hop on and off without even waiting for them to stop and frankly they all seem to be ready to fall apart if you sneeze. BUT it’s still a fun adventure.

Now, ON TO THE DRINKING!

The one standard on the cruise was tropical drinks. We had a different drink each day and every bar had a list of drinks you could order with a tropical theme.

What makes a tropical drink? Well basically it comes down to rum and some sort of citrus fruit, normally pineapple or something sweet like mango. Everything else is for color and taste enhancement.

Here’s some of the drink combinations we encountered:

Variation 1

• 2 parts rum
• 1 part creme de banana
• 1 part creme de coconut
• mango/oj/pineapple juice mix

Variation 2

• 1 part rum
• 1 part vodka
• 1 part amaretto
• pineapple juice

Variation 3

• 1 part rum
• 1 part vodka
• 1 part apricot brandy
• pineapple juice
• orange juice

We also had some standard named drinks that have an island feel but dont fit the standard tropical formula:

Long Island Iced Tea

equal parts

• vodka
• rum

slightly less but equal parts

• gin
• tequilia
• triple sec

fill with

• sour mix
• splash coke

Mai Tai

• 2 parts light rum
• sweet and sour
• pineapple juice
• splash of grenadine
• float 1 part gosling black strap rum

On board the ship there was a Duty Free Shop. In this wondrous place one could purchase cigarettes, alcohol and all sorts of things without paying US taxes. Needless to say we bought some things.

I won’t go into a review of Captain Morgan’s Private Stock Rum since it’s pretty much a known item but suffice to say we bought 2 liters of it for the price of one back home.
The purchase I want to review is something called Amarula.

This is a cream liqueur made from the Marula fruit and cream from the Southern Liqueur Co, Cape Town South Africa

Marula fruit grows in the subtropical regions, supposedly African elephants walk for miles to find the fruit to eat. Contrary to popular myth, elephants do not become drunk from eating the ripened fruit. The amount of fruit necessary to make such a large mammal intoxicated is unlikely to be eaten. But they still like the fruit regardless. One interesting tidbit, the fruit has 8 times the vitamin C of an orange – I can just tell people I’m getting my vitamin C when they spot me guzzling!

The Marula fruit is fermented and distilled, then aged for 2 years inFrench oak  and finally blended with fresh cream.

I find it best cold. It’s very reminiscent to Irish creme but sweeter with a nutty aftertaste and very a slight citrus hint.

SMELL: You can smell the fruit quite distinctly. It’s like nothing I’ve encountered so I can’t compare it except to say its definitely a gentle citrus scent. I think I would like this fruit by itself based on this alcohol.

LOOK: Opaque, creamy with a medium body. There are slight beige and orange hints to the color of the liquid.

TASTE: OMFG this is yummy. There is a nutty taste that is very subtle and the citrus lingers around the edges. It’s very reminiscent of Irish Creme but sweeter and with less obvious alcohol content in the taste. It’s honestly a fruit flavor I’ve never had. Sweet yet citrus. Not like oranges or grapefruits, it is definitely a thing unto itself.

AFTERTASTE: The cream coats the tongue well and lets the flavors linger for quite a while. The citrus lingers longer than the nutty flavor. Like all cream drinks however after a bit you really want to either have more or drink something else as it does leave a residue on the tongue. Not foul in anyway but it is a gummy aftertaste that needs clearing after a while.

Overall, I really like this stuff. I hope I can find it stateside. If you can find a bottle, I highly recommend trying it.

If not, here’s a link I found :

Now for a recipe to use this in:
Saharan Martini

• 1 part Amarula Cream
• 1 part Frangelico Liqueur
• 1/2 part vodka
• on ice

Suggested reading:

Ed ‘Whitey’ Walker is an knowledgable cocktail resource with experience creating drinks for events and individuals.
A Taste For Drink teaches users to utilize a trained sense of taste to create and enjoy unique drinks
Twitter,Facebook, – service @ atastefordrink.com – ©2012 Ed Walker-A Taste For Drink, All Rights Reserved. All opinions, reviews and spirits’ coverage are the personal opinion and decision of Ed Walker.

A Taste For Drink is going to the Bahamas! That’s right we’re raising our sails and heading across the water to taste the Bahamian joys of life.

We will be keeping a close log of all the great tropical drinks  and specialty rums we encounter and share them once we return the second week of April

So see you in a couple weeks, take some time to experiment for yourself and enjoy the beautiful weather.

Taste thoroughly, drink deeply, and remember… it’s better in the Bahamas!

Many people do not want to patiently agitate a bottle of alcohol with their fruit or other flavorant for a solid month before they can even move to the next step. Face it, we want to drink it!

Some of the quickie recipes I’ve encountered for cordials come down to adding extracts or flavored syrups you can buy in the store directly to the alcohol. The only problem with this approach is the limited variety of flavors.
There are a lot of flavored alcohols and a long history of cordials that are built with very complex flavors that you’re just not going to find on the shelves of Walmart or at your favorite coffee house’s flavor shelf.

I am currently beginning to experiment with making my own flavored syrups and then adding them to alcohol. The theory is that I can craft the exact flavor of the cordial in a simple syrup which I add to whatever alcohol I want.

Spiced Raspberry Blackberry syrup:

• 1 quart fresh raspberries
• 1 quart fresh blackberries
• Real Cinnamon extract
• 1 pound clover honey

The first step is to create the simple syrup. Since I’m using honey I’m going to use a ratio of 1.5 to 1 of water to honey. Normally with sugar simple syrups I use a 1 to 1 ratio.
I poured the honey into a sauce pan and then filled the container the honey came in with water and added it to the sauce pan.
I added another half volume of the honey jar of water to the pan and turned on the heat.

When cooking your simple syrup with honey, do NOT turn the heat up too high. You want the honey to slowly bubble but not come to a high boil – that path just leads to boilover disasters. Trust me, you don’t want honey splooge all over your stove.

Stir the honey and water as it heats to help it combine and become more liquid. About the time small bubbles begin to rise the mixture should be about as fluid as water.

Turn the heat to medium. Toss in one of the quarts of berries. Stir occasionally until the mixture returns to bubbling. You’ll notice that the honey starts coloring almost immediately. The berries will quickly break down in the hot liquid.
Stir for a couple minutes and then add the second quart of berries.

Once the mixture comes back to a slow bubble, stir occasionally for the next 20 minutes. You may need to turn down the heat as everything begins to cook out. You want the mixture to stay at a slow bubble, not a rolling boil.

After 20 minutes, turn off your heat and find yourself a wire strainer and a bowl. Pour the contents of sauce pan through the wire strainer to remove the berry remnants.

Let the mixture cool to room temperature.

At this point you have a reddish liquid that probably still has little bits of berry floating in it. My next step is to obtain some cheesecloth and either a mason jar or other large glass container that can be tightly sealed. The liquid is strained through the cheese cloth into the jar to remove almost all the remaining sediment. Don’t worry if you have some small sediment, it’s a homemade drink, you’re going to have little bits in it – it just enhances the appeal.

After straining your liquid, pull out that bottle of cinnamon extract. I have tried using cinnamon sticks and ground cinnamon but the flavor does not extract out quickly enough. I reserve those solid means of flavoring for my month long steeping attempts. Liquid extract is great for this method.
I add 2 teaspoons of cinnamon extract to the strained liquid, swirl the fluid in the jar and then seal it up.

Let your simple syrup sit for at least 12 hours for it to finish cooling and marry the cinnamon extract flavor to the berry flavor.

At this point you can add the syrup to the alcohol you desire. You could mix this syrup with vodka or rum very easily. I chose rum for my first experiment.

This part comes down to your tasting preference. The ratio of syrup to alcohol is a very personal choice. It comes down to the intensity of the flavor you desire; I would not go below a 1 to 1 ratio of syrup to alcohol.

For my cordial, I decided to do 2 parts syrup to 1 part alcohol. This builds a very rich, intensely flavored alcohol.

Once you mix the syrup and alcohol, you will need to allow the flavors to marry for at least 1 to 2 days. After the minimum period, just taste test from time to time until the flavors and mellowness of the drink reaches what YOU consider appropriate.

My mix sat for 2 weeks until it had sufficiently mellowed to what I consider pleasing.

Now, of course, you can also use the flavored syrup for non alcoholic drinks, toppings for desserts etc. Try your mixture on various things and see how you can use it in your daily life.

This syrup is very sweet, has a lovely aftertaste of cinnamon and has a wonderful mouth feel. It lingers on the tongue for a long time. If you refrigerate the syrup (or flavored alcohol) it will thicken as the honey congeals.

Give this recipe a try, use this as your roadmap to craft your own syrups. I’ll be trying new recipes in the near future and sharing them here.

Taste thoroughly, drink deeply and enjoy. Cheers!

Suggested reading:

Ed ‘Whitey’ Walker is an knowledgable cocktail resource with experience creating drinks for events and individuals.
A Taste For Drink teaches users to utilize a trained sense of taste to create and enjoy unique drinks
Twitter,Facebook, – service @ atastefordrink.com – ©2012 Ed Walker-A Taste For Drink, All Rights Reserved. All opinions, reviews and spirits’ coverage are the personal opinion and decision of Ed Walker.

Well this week, I don’t have a new alcohol to try and frankly didn’t feel like doing anything fancy for the blog so in honor of it being Saint Patty’s day, I decided to get drunk and watch Irishmen box on the television.

Well the poor sons of Ireland didn’t do too well but my drinking sure did. The most plentiful alcohol in the house at the moment was the bottle of Pearl Cucumber Vodka that I bought a few weeks ago to taste.  Since I wanted something simple I made a very straightforward drink:

• 1 part Pearl Cucumber Vodka
• 3 parts Lemon/Lime soda

I was pleasantly surprised. I remember that the vodka had a wonderful flavor straight and added a subtle hint to the Bloody Mary I made but a straight up mix with something as simple as lemon/lime soda was freaking amazing.

The cucumber flavor melded with the citrus flavors of the soda and actually came through even more strongly than I would have expected. It was actually more noticeable than when drinking it straight – probalby due to the fact that alcohol bite was cut by the mixer.

 I highly recommend trying this mix. Even if you can’t find this specific brand, try cucumber vodka. The simple combination of these two items will knock your socks off… oooo I think that fighter just got knocked out of his boots.

Suggested reading:

Ed ‘Whitey’ Walker is an knowledgable cocktail resource with experience creating drinks for events and individuals.
A Taste For Drink teaches users to utilize a trained sense of taste to create and enjoy unique drinks
Twitter,Facebook, – service @ atastefordrink.com – ©2012 Ed Walker-A Taste For Drink, All Rights Reserved. All opinions, reviews and spirits’ coverage are the personal opinion and decision of Ed Walker.

Tonight I’m going to try a new vodka I found – well it’s new to me at least.

Let me start by saying that Stolichnaya makes some really good vodka. That being said, I’m on the fence about this one.

Well I’ll let you make the final decision but here’s what I found by performing my normal taste method.

Stoli Chocolat Razberi is made by the Stolichnaya company. It’s a 75 proof vodka.

LOOK
The liquid is perfectly clear as expected from a vodka. It is very light bodied.

SMELL
There’s the expected alcohol scent but this is where the chocolate declares itself to your senses.
I don’t smell the berry but the chocolate hints of what’s to come.

TASTE
Um, where’s my chocolate?

It has a light alcohol bite but this is easy to ignore for the flavor of the raspberry. I actually had to taste it a couple times to sensitize my tongue to the flavor but I find that by letting the alcohol rest in the middle of my tongue I have my mouth suffused with the taste of raspberry.

The chocolate is barely there if you really focus on the flavors. It’s more of an undertaste than a prevalent. Rather odd considering the strength of the scent.

The vodka is very smooth and light bodied in the mouth,

AFTERTASTE
The flavor of the berry lingers for quite a while. It doesn’t really sour or turn chemically as some flavored alcohols do.
I don’t recommend breathing in over the liquor itself, the burn completely obliterates the flavors. It’s better to gain a retronasal scent by swallowing first, then breathing in and exhaling through the nose. This lets the flavors travel intact to the nose.
After a couple minutes, I notice the chocolate a bit more. It seems to come in stronger on the finish.

The verdict?
Well the chocolate seems to be the start and finish of the alcohol and the berry flavor is quite nice. Not at all like a berry cordial would be but definitely solid.
As I said, I’m on the fence about this one. I’m honestly not sure I’d use it a lot especially as the flavors are not overly obvious. It IS good, don’t get me wrong, I’m just not sure that it will become a normal part of my bar stock.

I recommend that you try tasting this multiple times when sampling. I kept pouring small amounts into my tasting glass and resampling every few minutes. It seemed to allow my palate to become either better accustomed to the flavors or become saturated enough to bring them to fruition.

What would I pair this with?
Well I would consider mixing it with a champagne. Berries and champagne go together well.
I’d also put something like Godiva Chocolate Liqueur just to actually bump up the chocolate.
A hint of lemon would do wonders to enhance the berry flavor.
Berries go with nut flavors such as hazelnut and almond so I woud recommend those liquers.
Coffee would blend with this as well.

So how about a drink:

Nutty Berry Coffee

• 1 1/2 parts Stoli Chocolat Razberi
• 1 part Coffee Liqueur
• 1/2 part Chocolate Liqueur
• 1/2 part Hazelnut Liqueur
• 1 part light cream or milk

Try this alcohol and the recipe out. Let the world know what you think.

Taste thoroughly, Drink deeply. Cheers!

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Ed ‘Whitey’ Walker is an knowledgable cocktail resource with experience creating drinks for events and individuals.
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