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Drinks

Tastes of Terror – October 22

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October 22: Piranah Punch

This is quite possibly the most involved cocktail in this book. If you don’t feel like this much effort, simply omit the fish eggs and just have fish in your yellow pond.

Taste profile: tart, sour drink. Garnishes- sweet.

Fish Eggs (makes 8 Servings):

  • ½ cup small tapioca pearls (found in the baking aisle of most grocery stores)
  • yellow, green and blue food coloring
  • 4 tablespoons sugar
  • 8 cups water

Make the fish eggs: bring 6 cups of water to a boil and add the tapioca pearls.

Reduce the heat slightly and boil the pearls, stirring occasionally, for 20 to 25 minutes.

Color the eggs: divide the pearls, with the remaining water, between two bowls. Add 4 drops of food coloring (we used 3 drops of yellow and 1 drop of green in one bowl, and 4 drops of blue in the other) and 2 tablespoons of sugar to each bowl. Stir the mixtures, and then allow them to sit uncovered for 20 to 25 minutes. Drain and rinse the pearls with cold water.

Cocktail Ingredients:

  • 2 parts vodka
  • 1 part seltzer water
  • 2 parts lemonade
  • 8 gummy fish

Assembly:

Spoon 2 tablespoons of pearls (one from each color batch) into each glass and drop in a gummy fish.

Combine the vodka, lemonade and the seltzer separately and then add to the glass with the pearls and fish.

If you would like to buy the book with all these recipes AND a horror story to go with each, you can get it from HERE in ebook form for only $1.

Drinks

Tastes of Terror – October 11

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October 11: Gothic Punch

Having guests? This punch is designed to serve up to 10 people.

Taste profile: primarily sweet with a bit of sour

Ingredients:

  • 1 bottle (750ml) Grand Marnier
  • 4 quarts grape juice
  • 1 bottle (750ml) Claret
  • 3 oranges or 1 pineapple, cut up.
  • 10 tbsp sugar
  • 1 bottle (750ml) Champagne

I recommend that first you combine the sugar with the grape juice and stir until the sugar is dissolved. If you try this after it is added to the punchbowl, the ice will impede your ability to dissolve the sugar. Once the sugar is dissolved, mix all the liquids in a large punch bowl over ice and allow to stand for at least half an hour to fully chill.

Then add one bottle (750ml) of your favorite champagne and serve.

If you would like to buy the book with all these recipes AND a horror story to go with each, you can get it from HERE in ebook form for only $1.

Drinks

Tastes of Terror – October 6

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October 6: Devil’s Blood

This drink is a bit complicated in construction but well worth it for the presentation.

Taste profile: primarily sour and astringent with a touch of sweet.

Ingredients:

  • Sugared rim with black or red sugar.
  • 2 parts vodka with 1 or 2 drops of black food coloring to make it black – or simply purchase one of the many fine black vodkas on the market.
  • 3 parts Chilled cranberry syrup.

Making the Cranberry syrup:

  • ½ cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup water
  • ½ cup cranberry juice

Combine the sugar and water. Heat on medium until the sugar is dissolved and then lower the heat and cook until the mixture starts to thicken. Cool to room temperature and Mix in the cranberry juice. Chill until it’s as thick as a corpse’s blood.

Making the black or red sugar:

  • ½ cup sugar
  • Black or red food coloring

Add several drops and mix the color into the sugar and mix with a silicone spatula. Continue adding several drops at a time until you achieve a smooth color.

Assemble:

Moisten the rim of the glass and dip it in the bowl with sugar to coat the rim. Fill with ice, add the cranberry syrup and allow it to settle for a moment. Then gently layer the vodka by pouring it slowly into the glass over the back of a spoon.

If you would like to buy the book with all these recipes AND a horror story to go with each, you can get it from HERE in ebook form for only $1.

Drinks

Tastes of Terror – October 1

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Around the time I wrote A Taste for Drink I also put together a book of short horror stories and drinks to go with them called 31 Tastes of Terror .

31 Tastes of Terror cover.

I love Halloween and even though it’s still over a month away, I’m going to start sharing my October drinks from that book. Here’s the one for October 1st.

If you want to read the book and tales of terror that these drinks pair with, go HERE. It’s only $1 for the ebook.

October 1: Howling Banshee

This drink makes for a wonderful presentation. Depending on the color of the sweet & sour mix, you may achieve more blue or green as the overall color. If presented in a martini glass, the sugar rimmed glass makes this drink perfect for a high-class party.

Taste profile: mostly sweet with a touch of sour to tone it down.

Ingredients:

  • 2 parts rum
  • 1 part Blue Curacao
  • 1 part sweet & sour mix
  • ½ Tsp black sugar (see directions below)

In a shaker with ice, combine the rum, curacao and sweet & sour mix and shake vigorously.

Moisten the rim of the glass with a wedge of lemon and dip the rim of the glass into the bowl containing the colored sugar. I don’t recommend twisting the glass to coat the rim although some bartenders swear by it, experiment and determine what works best for you. Once the glass is rimmed, strain the drink into the glass.

Making the colored sugar:

  • ½ cup sugar
  • Black food coloring

Place the sugar in a bowl and add several drops of the food coloring. Mix the color into the sugar using a silicone spatula. Continue adding several drops at a time until you achieve a smooth color.

If you would like to buy the book with all these recipes AND a horror story to go with each, you can get it from HERE in ebook form for only $1.

Drinks

Tasting: Ginger Lemon Tea

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Today I’m trying a flavor experiment. I have this bottle of Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur lying around that I’ve been looking for a reason to use. Since Las Vegas (where I live) is hotter than Hades right now I thought about a refreshing tea with a touch of astringent flavor to help fight the heat.

In proper manner for A Taste for Drink, I’m using what I have lying around the house.

I have a bottle of Kirkland Spiced Rum that I bought at Costco. It’s a lovely spiced rum with a hint of vanilla. It’s my go-to rum for my rum and cokes on the weekend. The spice is not very strong, more of a hint.

There’s some lemon juice in the fridge and I’ve got a large bottle of unsweetened iced tea. So let’s get started.

The ginger liqueur’s flavor is a bit heavy handed so I start with 1 part.

The rum will help dillute out the astringency of the ginger so I use 2 parts.

Normally for a mixed drink your mixer should either be equal to or double the amount of alcohol to smooth things out. Considering the potency of the alcohols, I opted for 4 parts iced tea.

Since I want a bit of a lemon taste I added 1/4 part lemon juice. In retrospect I think this drink might be even better by choosing to use 2 parts lemonade and 2 parts tea – basically an Arnold Palmer but it still worked the way I did it.

Now to balance all that zest and astringency I’m going to want to add some sweet.

I added 1 teaspoon of honey and mixed it up. It wasn’t enough sweetness in that volume but I didn’t want to overload with the honey flavor so I opted for a teaspoon of sugar. I would probably leave out the honey entirely next time and just add a second teaspoon of sugar.

At this point the drink was complete and had a decent flavor but it needed to be colder. So, with my ingredients in my shaker cup I tossed in a big ice cube and shook it like crazy. Using a shaker and ice will super-cool any drink. In fact the outside of the shaker started forming frost as I shook.

Poured it into a handy tumbler and voila. For presentation in the future I would probably try to have shaved ice in the tumbler and then strain the mixture from the shaker over that. I think that combination would make this a killer poolside treat.

INGREDIENTS

1 part ginger liqueur
2 parts spiced rum
1/4 part lemon juice
4 parts iced tea (alternately use 2 parts lemonade and 2 parts iced tea)
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon sugar (or just do 2 sugars and leave out the honey)

TASTING

First off, I’ll admit that this one is an acquired taste and it grew on me as I drank it. The smell of the drink was primarily that of black tea – a rich earthy smell, and a hint of citrus. Nothing overpowering in the scent.

On the initial sip the lemon flavor jumps right out at you and the underlying ginger tickles the tongue. The added sweeteners works well to counterbalance this. The tea flavor also smooths out those two harsher flavors. Funnily the spiced rum almost disappeared into the mix. No hint of the vanilla and it’s normal alcohol burn is completely subsumed by the other liquids.

The aftertaste was dominated by the ginger – not heavily but it was the last thing I tasted after swallowing. A pleasant aftertaste in my opinion.

Overall this experiment was a slightly tart, refreshing drink with a hint of astringency. I’d drink it again, especially with more ice as an offset to a blistering hot day.

Try it, you might like it or experiment with slightly different proportions and additives.

Until next time, may all your drinks be tasty. Cheers.