My Golden Dram

2nd #cocktail of #FridayNightCocktails on the 30th September: My Golden Dram

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Our second champagne cocktail with a difference this evening is the My Golden Dram which combines Aberfeldy 12 Year Old Single Malt Scotch with champagne. This cocktail was created during the Scotch Egg Club, a roving series of events throughout Europe and the United States featuring Dewar’s blended scotch and the single malts, Aberfeldy and Craigellachie

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Air Mail

1st #cocktail of #FridayNightCocktails on the 30th September: Air Mail

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Our first cocktail this evening is the Air Mail.

Drinks historian David Wondrich has said this cocktail randomly popped up as if by “spontaneous generation”. Its name though is easily explaned:

Way back when, airmail was the last word in getting something from point A to point B. And in fact, this one’ll do just that to you, but quick. So quick that, if we were inclined to take such liberties, we’d rename it the ‘Email.’

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Cherry Long Island Iced Tea

2nd #cocktail of #FridayNightCocktails on the 23rd September: Cherry Long Island Iced Tea

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Continuing the fruit theme, our second cocktail this evening is the Cherry Long Island Iced Tea which is a variation of the classic Long Island Iced Tea.

Unlike the more varied variants such as the Miami, Tokyo or Electric iced teas, this cherry one is much closer to the original with some tweaks of removing the simple syrup and replacing some of the lemon juice with lime juice. Plus the addition of muddled cherries to impart the cherry flavour; we used some sweet dark cherries.

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Old Tom Fruit Cup

1st #cocktail of #FridayNightCocktails on the 23rd September: Old Tom Fruit Cup

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Our first cocktail this evening is the Old Tom Fruit Cup. We’ve come to the end of summer and the weather today is very changeable, but I thought a farewell to summer with a last fruit cup would be a fitting end.

This is perhaps the most “English” fruit cup after the original Pimm’s Fruit Cup{/link]. It uses Old Tom gin instead of Pimm’s which makes it a bit sweeter.

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Boulevardier

2nd #cocktail of #FridayNightCocktails on the 16th September: Boulevardier

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Our second cocktail this evening for Negroni Week, is the Boulevardier which is a variation of the classic Negroni which swaps out the dry gin for more bourbon or rye whiskey.

We opted to use Maker’s Mark Kentucky Straight bourbon.

The boulevardier cocktail is an alcoholic drink composed of whiskey, sweet vermouth, and Campari. Its creation is ascribed to Erskine Gwynne, an American-born writer who founded a monthly magazine in Paris called Boulevardier, which appeared from 1927 to 1932.

The boulevardier is similar to a Negroni, sharing two of its three ingredients. It is differentiated by its use of bourbon whiskey or rye whiskey as its principal component instead of gin. Paul Clark, writing for the food blog Serious Eats, says, “This isn’t a Negroni. It is, however, the Negroni’s long-lost autumnal cousin.” He continued:

A simple substitution? Hardly. The bittersweet interplay between Campari and vermouth remains, but the whiskey changes the storyline. Where the Negroni is crisp and lean, the Boulevardier is rich and intriguing. There’s a small difference in the preparation, but the result is absolutely stunning.

Recipes vary the proportions of its components. Some boulevardier recipes call for 1½ parts rather than 1 part whiskey, or call for two parts bourbon to one part vermouth and one part Campari.

Boulevardier (cocktail) – from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Cocktail for Queen Margrethe II of Denmark’s Golden Jubilee

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I’ll be entirely honest and say that until yesterday I could not have named the Queen of Denmark. While reading some news about the death of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, I came across an article which mentioned that the Queen of Denmark was scaling back her golden jubilee celebrations following the death of her third cousin, Queen Elizabeth II, with whom she had been quite close.

The Queen of Denmark is Queen Margrethe II who ascended to the throne in January 1972, following the death of her father Frederik IX. Her golden jubilee celebrations were initially delayed due to Covid-19 restrictions, but have now been scaled down with some events cancelled.

Queen Margrethe II of Denmark

I’m raising a glass this evening for Queen Margrethe II of Denmark tonight. The cocktail is the Golden Reign created for Queen Elizabeth II’s golden jubilee in 2002 by Peter Dorelli at The American Bar in The Savoy Hotel.

It seems appropriate to raise the Golden Reign this evening for Queen Margrethe as she has scaled down her golden jubilee celebrations after the death of her third cousin for whom the cocktail was created.

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