Category: Sips & Shots
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Orange You Glad It’s Cocktail Hour?
The first Thanksgiving with the extended New Orleans family after my 21st birthday was a bit surreal: my Uncle was mixing Mimosas but the carton (pour out a third of the juice, fill with Champagne, shake and pour) and offered me one. I think it took my mother by as much surprise as it did…
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Non-Alcoholic Cocktails
I remember one visit home as a kid, my cousins and I had a slumber party at our grandparents (okay, one cousin is technically an aunt who’s 5 months younger than me and it was her house, but let’s not sweat the semantics). While some of the grown-ups congregated in the dining room we took…
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The Mojito
This Cuban drink is currently experiencing its second wind among the cocktail elite, with good reason. It’s tart, refreshing and nice to look at with the muddled mint swirling around the glass. A Mojito is basically lime, mint and rum topped by club soda or sparkling water. In order to release the oils in the…
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What’s So Hard About Being a Lemon?
You know the saying: When life gives you lemons… But why stop at just plain old lemonade? Why not bring lemonade from the stand to the shaker and beyond? When you hear “Hard Lemonade” it probably brings to mind the bottled malt beverages that come in a variety of flavor options. To make this sort…
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Kirsch Me, I’m German
Kirsch (or kirschwasser) is one of those liqueurs that, if you you have it, you probably have it because you’ve made a Black Forest Cake (aka Kirschtorte) at some point in the not too distant past. This dry cherry brandy is strong! Definitely not something I would ever sip without it being heavily diluted with…
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Jello Shots Get Classy
Behold, the lowly Jello Shot. Generally relegated to college parties and other youthful excess, they’re a good way to consume quite a bit of alcohol without realizing just how much. But let’s look at just the Jello for a moment. Gelatin’s been used in a number of quite grown-up recipes for centuries (various meats and…
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A Touch of the Irish
Most people who have encountered Irish Cream liqueur have done so favorably and come away fans. While it does well as a single spirit, over ice or neat, it also pairs with a whole laundry list of others. There are some notable exceptions, however: like the lime juice that tops it in a Cement Mixer…
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Harvey & Hillary
Have you ever picked up a bit of seemingly useless trivia and wondered when it was ever going to be useful? Believe it or not, sometimes it actually does. Case in point: many, many years ago (could be a decade or more) I vaguely remember someone telling me that when a cocktail has the word…
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Gin!
Growing up, the only gin I was interested in was the card game of the same name, which Mom and I would play in the evenings on a regular basis. When I reached the legal drinking age, it was one of the liquors I figured I’d never like. After all, it smelled like the tree…
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Fruit[y] Cocktails
I’m not a girl who likes her liquor straight. On the contrary, I prefer mine well-mixered and my favorite class of mixer is fruit juice. Frou-frou umbrellas are not necessary and the blender can usually stay in the cabinet, but a good juice-to-booze ratio makes a happy camper of this cocktail chick. I went flipping…