What do you get when you combine Midori, whiskey and green tea liqueur?
I know, it sounds really unappetizing. But, thankfully, when I received a box from Skyy Spirits containing Midori, Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey and Zen Green Tea Liqueur, they also tossed in a packet of pretty cool recipes, none of which combined all three ingredients. Thank God. Because all that liqueur combined sounds like a recipe for an awful hangover.
I have to be honest, I’m more of a beer girl than a liquor drinker. And if I do have liquor, it’s usually an occasional espresso martini or margarita. Anything more than that is a one-way ticket to Blackout City. Moderation, I know. But when you don’t like the taste of liquor, you tend to choose fruity or “girlie” drinks, thus making them easier to drink and, well, that’s when the trouble starts.
So when I got this little box o’ booze from Skyy, I was pretty excited to play bartender and whip up some interesting cocktails, since my knowledge of cocktails and mixology is minimal, at best.
The only liquor in the box that I was familiar with was Midori, the sour apple liqueur used to flavor martinis, shots and other frou-frou drinks. It’s sweet and sour and a little goes a long way. If you love Midori and are sick of ordering the same old Midori Sour, visit www.midoriusa.com. There’s a ton of recipes and little factoids you can use to impress fellow Midori drinkers. (Did you know that “midori” means “green” in Japanese? I’ve impressed you, I can tell.)
Also in the box was Tullamore Dew. Tullamore is an Irish whiskey and, according to Skyy, “this pale amber blended whiskey has spicy, lemony and malty overtones with charred wood undertones giving a soft, buttery, rounded and complex flavor that lingers in the mouth.” When I think “soft” and “buttery,” I’m thinking Werther’s Originals, not whiskey. But, I have to say, I am not a fan of whiskey in general. To me, the smell and taste is reminiscent of hospital anesthetic. The taste is so unpleasant and so is the burn in your throat after you knock back a shot.
The only whiskey I want to drink is if it’s masked by the taste of Bailey’s Irish Cream and Guinness, as in an Irish Car Bomb. (As a side note, you may want to be careful in which bar you order an Irish Car Bomb. I found this out the hard way at an Irish pub in Manchester when the record scratched after I ordered a round. Some Irish pubs find the drink to be extremely offensive, as it’s a reference to IRA terrorism. And then there are some that just don’t want to deal with the potential broken glass, spilled booze and sloppy, out-of-control drunkenness that comes with downing a round or two of boilermaker-like drinks. All good reasons.)
The last bottle was a tall, slick green bottle of Zen Green Tea Liqueur. Zen is “a unique blend of the finest Japanese green tea leaves, premium hebs and natural flavors … the first super-premium green tea liqueur ever introduced in America.” Basically, it’s like green tea-flavored schnapps. It has 20 percent alcohol by volume, about 4 percent less than DeKuyper’s Puckers. It’s not a liquor that you’d pour yourself a nice, tall glass of; It’s meant to be added as flavoring to a drink.
After taking inventory, I got out the recipe packet and started mixing.
The first recipe I concocted was a Hot Tully, Tullamore Dew’s version of a Hot Toddy. The drink consists of 1 ounce of Tullamore Dew, two lumps of sugar (or for those of us who aren’t 80-year-old British women, a teaspoonful or two) and hot water, with a slice of lemon. As much as I don’t like whiskey, the sugar and lemon did mask the harsh whiskey taste but not enough for me to enjoy. It seems like it’d be a good après ski drink for those who enjoy whiskey. But not for me.
Thankfully, the next recipe was sans whiskey. Dreaming of Zen is made with 1-ounce Zen liqueur, .5-ounce Midori, 3 ounces mango juice, white pepper and 2 ounces of cream. I tossed all the ingredients (minus the white pepper, because who has white pepper?) in a cocktail shaker with ice and strained it into a martini glass. It tastes orange creamsicle. It’s creamy, sweet and – yup, I’m going to say it – yummy. I also tried a version of this drink with raspberry juice instead of mango, and the result was comparable to a strawberry milkshake (again, yum). The Midori, though only half-a-shot full, and the juice completely overpower the taste of the green tea liqueur, so you could probably do without the Zen and no one would notice. To really kick up this cocktail, I added an ounce of vanilla-flavored vodka. With the vodka, it tasted more like I was drinking a martini, instead of a fruity shake.
In order to really get a taste of Zen Green Tea Liqueur, I made the Zen Latte. The recipe calls for 1½ parts of Zen and six parts of steamed milk, with a dash of matcha powder, a finely ground powder green tea. Needless to say, if you don’t find white pepper in my cupboard, you’re not going to find matcha powder (a.k.a. I skipped this fancy garnish). Drinking a Zen Latte is like drinking a green tea latte from Starbucks. It’s very comforting, soothing and tasty and doesn’t at all taste like liquor. It’s a drink I’d cozy up to after an afternoon of snow shoveling or skiing. The sea foam green color is really fun, too. I also tried a version of this drink on ice with vanilla vodka, which makes a refreshing, summertime cocktail..
All in all, I’d have to say that Zen Green Tea Liqueur was my favorite. It’s not sweet or fruity like Midori or kick-you-in-the-face strong and boozy like Tullamore whiskey. Adding the green tea liqueur to martinis and other cocktails creates a unique drink because of its mellow taste and crisp color. It’s definitely a bottle I’ll keep stocked in my liquor cabinet for cozy, warm winter cocktails and refreshing summer coolers.
New Year’s Eve is the perfect time for a party and a few drinks.
Twelve of us headed up to Maine for a night of skiing and hanging out in a rented condo for the night. We packed our cars full of ski equipment, board games, food and drinks. (And cake balls, of course!)
After a few hours of “skiing” (I like to put quotation marks around it because, as a first-timer, what I was doing on skis was anything but skiing), we headed back in for the night.
My drink of choice for the night was sangria. I’ve been LOVING sangria lately. A couple friends of mine always seem to have it ready at their house, so now I’m hooked. I recently bought them a bottle of wine so I didn’t feel like a mooch, and they brought it to the party to share.
It wasn’t just any old wine off the shelf. It was local wine, from LaBelle Winery in Amherst. I had remembered seeing a recipe for sangria on its Web site, so we used LaBelle’s own dry apple wine in the mix.
So not only was there a pitcher of red sangria, we had a pitcher of white. And I really liked the white sangria! It was just as fruity as red. I definitely plan on picking up more of this in the future!
I thought I would celebrate the ball drop with my glass of sangria, but then we remembered that I brought champagne! Not only did I bring a bottle of Barefoot’s Extra Dry bubbly, a friend had brought the exact same thing. We turned on the TV to watch Dick Clark’s “Rockin’ New Year’s Eve,” and we were ready for the countdown.
As “2009″ flickered across the screen, we all clinked our glasses together in celebration. A cup of Barefoot was the perfect way to do so.
So when I discovered Three Olives‘ chocolate vodka a while back, I was in heaven.
I checked out the Web site to see how to best use this fantastic invention. It wasn’t as icy chilly outside when I made this drink, but it was so good and I highly recommend it:
THREE-O CHOCOLATE SHAKE
2 ounces Three Olives chocolate vodka
2 ounces milk
Large scoop vanilla ice cream
Chocolate syrup
Blend and enjoy!
I didn’t measure mine out and blended it very well, so it came out to the consistency of a Wendy’s Frosty. I shared the drink with a bunch of guys I was hanging out with that night, and they easily finished the drinks, so it’s not just a girly drink, either. (Though next time, I’d probably save the bottle for girls’ night.)
Here’s another drink recipe from Three Olives that looks amazing, if you’re still in the ice cream kind of mood:
So what was this all about, this loggerheads over liquor? Well, it’s an endless debate over which is better, scotch or bourbon. Very difficult to answer, but the contenders, brought to us by Beam Global Spirits & Wine, which in addition to its eponymous Jim Beam bourbon distillery and several others, owns scotch labels, as well, do a good, humorous job of it.
First, there was Bernie Lubbers, of Kentucky, a “whiskey professor” introduced as a man who “sweats bourbon.”
“Bourbon is in our blood in Kentucky,” said Lubbers, who wore a giant gold belt buckle and dark blue jeans and swirled a healthy shot of amber liquid in a tumbler as he spoke of his mother and many uses for the local whiskey. “When we got sick, she’d give us whiskey and honey lemon.”
Then Simon Brooking, of Scotland, took the stage, but only after running through the audience with a Scottish flag held flapping behind him like a cape. Brooking is Beam’s “master ambassador” of Laphroiag and Ardmore scotches. After his colorful entry, Brooking first discussed his kilt, addressing long-held bawdy rumors, and then went right into his life’s mission, “spreading world peace through Scotch.”
So, as if it were any mystery by now, these men like their liquor.
The debate, a lighthearted affair moderated by Steve Cole, another whiskey professor, kicked off with a question inspired by the rebate checks mailed out to taxpayers to give the economy a good kick in the pants.
“How would you stimulate the economy?” Cole asked Lubbers.
“Bourbon,” Lubbers said. “Bourbon is a very stimulating drink. I’ve been drinking it for an hour now.”
Brooking said it was the American people that would stimulate the economy, and not the drink itself, but they would do it with the help of scotch.
The humor in the debate was palpable, and some of the stories apocryphal at best, but some were true-blue facts about the two whiskeys. Bourbon, for instance, was first distilled in the 18th century by Kentucky settlers. And it is bourbon only if it is made in the United States, (not, as the story goes, in Bourbon County, Kentucky) contains at least 51 percent corn, is aged in charred oak barrels and cut only with water.
Scotch, much older than its American cousin, is made of pure malted barely (and only in Scotland), distilled in copper stills and aged in, oddly enough, Bourbon barrels. And while Kentucky has 10 distilleries, Scotland has 93.
But the debate was as interactive, and intoxicating, as it was informative. As the two men made their arguments, the audience joined in, tasting four whiskeys before the night was through. Two scotches were toted by Brooking, the smoky, peat Laphroiag Quarter Cask, and elegant, creamy Ardmore. Lubbers walked the crowd through tastings of woody, sweetish Knob Creek bourbon and light, peppery Basil Hayden’s.
And whether the audience, comfortable at their tables full of whiskey, truly couldn’t side with one or the other or was too happy to care will probably not be known anytime soon. And so the debate, unanswered, will burn on.
It was a battle of the booze in Bedford—the Great Whisk[e]y Debate ‘08. Two of the world’s great drinks were represented—Bourbon, for which Kentucky is famous, and Scotch, signature drink of Scotland. Whiskey versus Whisky, or, as a large-as-life banner cleverly put it, “to [e] or not to [e]“. Mr. Bourbon, with his genteel cowboy swagger and home country advantage, stirred patriotic leanings in the audience at the Bedford Village Inn on Monday, while Mr. Scotch had a cool accent, yelled “Go, Scawtch!” and wore kilt. For the audience, the deciders, would it be native son or exotic foreigner? Pride in homeland craftsmanship or the allure of a far-flung elixir?
It was neither. As the votes were taken—you waved a tiny American or Scottish flags in the air and, apparently, shouted “whoo”—a tie was declared, and disaster was diverted. Nevertheless, a victor’s party will be thrown tonight, 7-9 p.m. at The Barley House at 132 N. Main St. in Concord. And with complimentary bourbon and single-malt scotch, plus the chance to chat about whiskey (or whisky) with contenders Bernie Lubbers, of Kentucky, and Simon Brooking, of Scotland, it’s well worth the drive.
