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Archive for the ‘Cocktails & Recipes’ Category

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The Captain’s Spiced Pumpkin

Posted by Arctic Wolf on October 28, 2010

I thought I would share a nice recipe today to help everyone get in the mood for Halloween.  It’s not in the vein of a scary spooky recipe, rather its in the vein of the Season of Harvest.  After all the connection between pumpkins and Halloween was firmly established that first time Linus hid in the pumpkin patch waiting for The Great Pumpkin.

The Captain’s Spiced Pumpkin

Method

Pour all the liquid ingredients over ice in a shaker
Shake until well chilled
Strain into a chilled Martini Glass
Garnish with pumpkin spice
Enjoy!

And Remember the aim of my Blog is to help you drink better spirits…. not to help you drink more spirits!

Posted in Cocktails & Recipes | Comments Off on The Captain’s Spiced Pumpkin

Seven Senses: Wolfgang Mayer’s Championship Cocktail

Posted by Arctic Wolf on October 27, 2010

Photo Courtesy Sharon McLaughlin (McLaughlin Gibson Communications Ltd)

Wolfgang Mayer’s stunning cocktail, Seven Senses, was the winner of European leg of Angostura’s International Cocktail Challenge at this years UK Rumfest 2010. The judging for the  European Final took place at Olympia 2, London at this years UK Rumfest.

The competition saw twelve finalists from countries including Spain, Italy, Russia, Germany and the UK creating two cocktails. They were judged on taste, appearance and aroma. The winner, announced at the Golden Rum Barrel Awards, will continue on to compete in the Global Final which takes place in Trinidad during the world-famous Carnival in March 2011.

According to Angostura’s Director of Corporate Communications, Giselle Laronde-West, “The winning cocktail ‘Seven Senses’ stood out due its freshness, originality, balance and aftertaste, whilst Wolfgang’s presentation skills were professional, confident and interesting.”

Here is a link to the award-winning recipe:

Rum Recipe: Seven Senses

Congratulations Wolfgang, and good luck in the Finals!

Posted in Cocktails & Recipes, Howls, Rum | Tagged: , | Comments Off on Seven Senses: Wolfgang Mayer’s Championship Cocktail

Review: Cruzan Black Strap Rum

Posted by Arctic Wolf on October 24, 2010

The Cruzan Rum Company is located on the Island of St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. The Island of St. Croix is the largest of the US Virgin islands, being approximately 28 miles long and 7 miles wide. Along with the tourism industry and one of the largest oil refineries in the Caribbean, the St. Croix economy is dependent to a large extent upon the Rum Industry as a major engine of their economic growth.

All of the Cruzan Rums are produced using a modern five column distillation method which produces a light bodied rum, the quality of which can be tightly controlled by the five column distillation. The rum is then aged in once used American oak bourbon barrels. The Cruzan Black Strap Rum is a ‘navy style’ rum which is full of molasses flavour but which is perhaps a lighter bodied rum than one would find in a typical navy rum.

The sample bottle of Cruzan Blackstrap Rum for this review was given to me  by Simon Mooney, the local Brand Ambassador for Beam Global and is pictured below and to the right.  It is bottled at 40 per cent alcohol by volume and is, I believe, aged for two years in the aforementioned American Oak.

Here is an excerpt from my review:

“…Cruzan Black Strap Rum is an aromatic bombshell. When I opened my bottle  for the very first time, my nostrils were immediately aware of the rich molasses filled aroma in the air which contained strong accents of black coffee and dark licorice….”

You may read the entire review here:

Review: Cruzan Black Strap Rum

And remember, my aim is to help you drink better spirits… not more spirits!

Posted in Cocktails & Recipes, Dark Rums, Flavouerd Rums, Rum, Rum Reviews | Tagged: , , , , , | 3 Comments »

A Little Love for the Caipirinha

Posted by Arctic Wolf on October 13, 2010

 

 

There happens to be a cocktail which just might be one of the most popular in the world, which I’ll bet a lot of you have never tried… the Caipirinha!

You probably have never tried it because it is made from Cachaca, Brazil’s popular rum like beverage. Cachaça (Portuguese pronunciation: kaˈʃasɐ) is a sugar cane spirit made from fermented and distilled sugarcane juice.

While rum is known everywhere outside of Brazil, within Brazil, Cachaca is the sugarcane spirit the locals enjoy. In fact, it happens to be the most popular alcoholic beverage in Brazil. According to wikipedia (2007 figures), 1.3 billion liters are produced annually. (I will admit that I did a double take when I read that figure as that is a whole lotta Cachaca being produced and consumed!)

Cachaça is different from the Rum you are familiar with in that rum is usually made from molasses, whereas Cachaça is as I said above, made from sugarcane juice.  The resulting spirit, Cachacha, is typically less sweet than rum.  This makes it an ideal mixer for tropical drinks.

The drink of choice for the Cachaca connoisseur is the Caipirinha!  In fact it just happens to be the National Drink of Brazil, where all that 1.3 billion liters of Cachaca is consumed.  I decided to investigate the Caipirinha, and what I found out was that the Brazilians are onto something very good!  The drink is kind of like a Daiquiri on ice. It is extremely refreshing and extremely tasty!

So in honor of the Caipirinha, I have added the recipe to my data base.

Here is the Link!

Caipirinha

Please enjoy this wonderful cocktail responsibly!

Posted in Cocktails & Recipes | Comments Off on A Little Love for the Caipirinha

And Now for Something Different: Bols Blue

Posted by Arctic Wolf on October 10, 2010

Last week I wrote about a Lucas Bols Event at the Devlin Lounge in Edmonton.  I alluded to a brand new cocktail I designed in honor of the 5th annual Bols Around The World Cocktail Competition. This competition is open to all bartenders across the world and although I am no bartender I could not resist breaking open my bottle of Bols Blue and try to get my creative juices flowing.  I started with a well-known Bols Recipe, Electric Lemonade. This is a vodka based drink which combines vodka with Bols Blue in a tall refreshing bar drink that I like very much.

I could not help thinking as I enjoyed it, that I would really like to substitute out the Vodka and replace it with a really good quality gin.  So I omitted the sugar syrup from the recipe, played with the proportion of Bols Blue to Gin, and tried varying amounts of each ingredient until I had it tasting just right.   Last night a few friends were over to watch a movie, and I gave my cocktail the final test.   (My friends claim to despise gin so it is fun to mix up a drink and prove them wrong.)

The verdict was unanimous as all of my friends loved this long sexy bar drink.  Thus my fully tested cocktail creation for the Bols 5th Annual Cocktail Competition is now revealed:

Big Blue Sexy

(please click on the link for the recipe)

………………………………………………………………………………………….

Of course I could not resist providing a full review of the Bols Blue (Curacao) Liqueur that I received as a gift at the Bols Event.  Here is a link to the Bols Blue (Curacao) review:

Review: Bols Blue (Curacao)

I hope everyone enjoys the cocktail and the review!

Posted in Cocktails & Recipes, Liqueur | Tagged: , | Comments Off on And Now for Something Different: Bols Blue

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