Category: Cocktails

Our first cocktail is the Bucks Fizz. This is probably the quintessential Christmas cocktail in England.

It’s very easy to make, but tastes very good.

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Our second cocktail is a Winter Spritz; our last cocktail may have warmed you up, but this one may cool you down a little. Spritzes are often seen as summer cocktails, but this one is perfect for winter or a Christmas celebration.

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Our first cocktail is a Maple bourbon Hot Chocolate; I hunted through a lot of recipes on line looking for a good hit chocolate and ended up combining elements of a few to produce this one which uses both bourbon and maple syrup as the sweetener.

Have a try and let me know what you think.

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Our third and final cocktail is the B2C2 which was created in France, during World War II by American soldiers using booty liberated from retreating Germans, and named for the four ingredients; brandy, Benedictine, Cointreau and champagne.

This champagne cocktail is unusual in that it calls for room-temperature champagne, making it perfect for using up any leftovers.

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The second cocktail this #FridayNightCocktails is the Death in the Afternoon, also called the Hemingway Champagne/ or simply the Hemingway, is a cocktail made up of absinthe and Champagne, invented by Ernest Hemingway, the famed American novelist.

The cocktail shares a name with Hemingway’s 1932 book Death in the Afternoon, and the recipe was published in So Red the Nose, or Breath in the Afternoon, a 1935 cocktail book with contributions from famous authors. Hemingway’s original instructions were:

“Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.”

It is claimed that the cocktail was invented by Hemingway after he spent time in the Left Bank, Paris, and enjoyed the absinthe there. The original printed recipe for the drink claimed that it was invented “by the author and three officers of H.M.S. Danae after having spent seven hours overboard trying to get Capt. Bra Saunders’ fishing boat off a bank where she had gone with us in a N.W. gale.” Death in the Afternoon is known for both its decadence and its high strength.

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Our first cocktail is the Silk Stocking, which is a variation of the Alexander. This is a gin and cream cocktail which we haven’t yet posted, although we have done the brandy based Brandy Alexander variation.

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3rd #cocktail of #FridayNightCocktails on 16th December: Champagne Bowler

Our third and final cocktail this evening is the 200^th cocktail since we started.

The cocktail is the classic Champagne Bowler, a 1930s cocktail which uses both chardonnay white wine and champagne with cognac and fresh strawberries.

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The second cocktail this #FridayNightCocktails is the Champagne Grenadine Spritzer. This champagne cocktail is a simple one which combines pink champagne with grenadine syrup.

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Our first cocktail is the Princess Mary, which was created by Scottish bartender Harry MacElhone to celebrate H.R.H. Princess Mary’s marriage to Lord Henry George Charles Lascelles in 1922.

We’ve opted for the original recipe, but Simon Difford has an updated recipe which uses an increased amount (45ml) of dry gin which may be better suited to modern palettes.

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Our third and final cocktail is the Grand Royal; a champagne cocktail which combines champagne with the cognac based Grand Marnier orange liqueur.

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