The Cocktails Must Flow

This is the first cocktail we’ve made using Amarula Cream; this is made with the Marula fruit, an indigenous to the miombo woodlands of Southern Africa, the Sudano-Sahelian range of West Africa, the savanna woodlands of East Africa and Madagascar.

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Going abroad for our third cocktail of this evening for a variation of the Moscow Mule: this is a French Mule which switches out the vodka for cognac.

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Second cocktail of this evening is a Pimm’s Ginger Cup, a slightly spicier version of the Pimm’s Cup which replaces the lemonade with ginger ale.

The first of our cocktails this evening is the Pimm’s Cup, perhaps the quintessential English summer cocktail. Using Pimm’s No. 1 Cup as a base it combines traditional white (clear) lemonade and a variety of fruit slices.

Pimm’s No. 1 Cup is an English brand of gin-based fruit cup, first produced in 1823 by James Pimm as an aid to digestion. He servded it in a small tankard known as a “No. 1 Cup”, hence its subsequent name, in his oyster bar in the City of London, near the Bank of England.

Pimm’s is most popular in England, particularly southern England. It is one of the two staple drinks at the Wimbledon tennis tournament, the Chelsea Flower Show, the Henley Royal Regatta and the Glyndebourne Festival Opera – the other being champagne. The first Pimm’s Bar opened at the Wimbledon tournament in 1971; every year, over 80,000 pints of Pimm’s cocktail are sold to spectators. Along with champagne, it has been declared one of two official drinks of Wimbledon, and it has also gained popularity among British universities. A Pimm’s is also a standard cocktail at British and American polo matches.

The brand experienced a revival in the early 2000s following a 2003 advertising campaign, which featured a humorous classic upper-class “Hooray Henry” character called Harry Fitzgibbon-Sims (portrayed by Alexander Armstrong) with the catchphrase “It’s Pimm’s o’clock!”,[14] somewhat mocking their own traditional advertising and appeal. Diageo’s 2010 campaign featured a more diverse range of characters representing different elements of the Pimm’s cocktail (Pimm’s No.1 being an Englishman in red and white blazer, lemonade being three young women in yellow, ice represented by a mature man), coming together to the theme tune of 1970s British television show The New Avengers.

Pimm’s – from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Last on our trip through America is a Kentucky Mule in the home of bourbon whiskey; this is a variation of the venerable Moscow Mule which replaces the vodka with slightly more Kentucky Straight bourbon and a touch more lime juice.

There are many fine bourbons from kentucky (and many distilleries on the bourbon trail, of which I’ve visited over 20 of them); Maker’s Mark makes a good choice for cocktails, but so do many of the others.

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We continue our whistle stop tour of America with a visit to the home of Jack Daniel’s for a Lynchburg Lemonade/em>. This is a simple to make hard lemonade using the Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7.

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We open this evenings trip across America with one of the many variations of the Long Island Iced Tea; the Miami Iced Tea switches out the tequila for peach schnapps and the cola for lemon and lime pop and then adds cranberry juice.

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There are many variations of the Moscow Mule; to close this evening we’ve opted for the Jamaican Mule which switches out the vodka for spiced rum and ups the ginger beer.

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This is a very tasty cocktail which would have worked very well earlier this week in the very hot weather. The Summertime Sprintz combines dry gin with pineapple juice and a sparkling wine for a refreshing taste of the tropics.

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Opening this evenings #FridayNightCocktails with a simple cherry cola using a cherry moonshine from Firefly Spirits in South Carolina. This is agood one for when it’s hot and you just want a simple, easy to make drink.

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