Search Results for: SODA

The Blackberry Collins

When I start writing a post about a classic and venerable cocktail like the Tom Collins, I do some research. I look into the history of the drink, the development of its recipe, all that jazz. But I also like to do research into how people are drinking a particular cocktail now. And what I found for the Tom Collins bums me out a bit. Did you know that people sell Tom Collins mix? I have to repeat that because it leaves me a little flabbergasted: Tom Collins mix. What the what? Here’s what a Tom Collins is: a gin sour with some soda water. So simple! And perfect for summer, sweet and tart, crisp and effervescent – especially with the addition of some in-season summer fruit. Not at all in need of a bottled mix. – Andrew

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Illustration by Shauna Lynn for Oh So Beautiful Paper

The Blackberry Collins

2 oz Dry Gin
3/4 oz Lemon Juice
1/2 oz Rich Simple Syrup
Handful of Blackberries
2 oz Sparkling Water

Combine all of the ingredients (except for the sparkling water, unless you want your shaker to explode) in an empty shaker and muddle the blackberries into a pulp. Fill the shaker with ice and shake well. Strain into a highball glass filled with fresh ice and top with the sparkling water. Stir thoroughly and garnish with fresh blackberries. Enjoy!

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Nole and I went blackberry picking last weekend, and we have a ton of blackberries sitting around. It’s only natural that some of them would end up in a cocktail. So that’s what we did: we took a basic Tom Collins recipe and added some blackberries. And the result is pretty good – bursting with sweet fruit and cold bubbles. Have one or two on the porch before summer is over and you’ll never consider a bottled mix ever.

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Didn’t I say something about history? Right. The Tom Collins is probably a couple hundred years old and, not surprisingly, appeared right after Charles Plinth invented the first soda water dispenser in London in 1813. Credit usually goes to John Collins, a waiter or maybe a bartender at London’s Limmer’s Hotel, who took the commonsense step of adding Plinth’s soda water to a gin sour. By the 1870s, the drink was showing up in print as the Tom Collins, maybe because bartenders had started making the drink with Old Tom Gin instead of the original Genever or maybe because everyone was drinking way too many of them to remember if it was Tom or John or Jim, so let’s all just agree to call them Tom Collins and order a few more.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

The Radler

We’re big fans of strong, boozy drinks over here. (Well, ok, pretty much just me.) And that’s ok most of the time. But sometimes it’s hot out, and maybe you’re moving around a lot, and you want a drink that won’t leave you dehydrated or lightheaded. In that case, let’s turn to the Germans, who have invented a drink for just such a purpose: the snappy beer-based Radler. – Andrew

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Illustration by Shauna Lynn for Oh So Beautiful Paper

The Radler

6 oz Beer
1 oz Limoncello
2 oz Sparkling Water

Combine the beer – preferably a citrusy German Hefeweizen or Belgian Witbier – with the Limoncello, and sparkling water in a flute or highball and give it a stir. Garnish with a lemon round and enjoy!

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The name Radler – German for cyclist – belies its origins. Over a century old, the Radler is just the sort of thing a cyclist or a race spectator might want for just a touch of a buzz. It’s also perfect for those times when you’d like to drink for a while, say, while grilling with some friends or at a game without getting blitzed.

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This is thanks to the Radler’s low proof. The Germans make their Radlers by mixing beer with equal parts of lemonade – the German lemonade, a lemon soda – reducing beer’s already-low proof even more. Since I can’t leave well enough alone, I made by own lemonade by mixing limoncello, an Italian liqueur made from lemon peels, with soda water. The result is crisp and bubbly, lemony with just a bit of sweetness.

Consider the original Radler recipe as an inspiration instead of a rule. Beer, citrus, a touch of sweetness, maybe a dash of liquor (but not too much). Have fun.

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In any case, keep your beer cold and your limoncello colder. Italians drink limoncello as an after-dinner digestif and serve it ice cold in tiny glasses. Follow their example and keep your bottle in the freezer.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

Strawberry-Rhubarb Shrub

Nole and I introduced our first Shrubs last year, those drinks built around flavored vinegar syrups: a peach and bourbon shrub and then a peach and berry summer shrub. Well, it’s Shrub time again! Shrubs are super-tart and full of super-crisp fruit flavors, perfect for summer. Today’s Strawberry-Rhubarb Shrub cocktail recipe, courtesy of Portland’s Ración restaurant via Imbibe magazine, is my favorite Shrub so far. – Andrew

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Illustration by Shauna Lynn for Oh So Beautiful Paper

Strawberry-Rhubarb Shrub
1 1/2 oz Rye Whiskey
1 oz Sweet Vermouth
3/4 oz Strawberry-Rhubarb Shrub Syrup
2 Dashes Orange Bitters
2 Dashes Aromatic Bitters

To make the shrub syrup: combine one cup of Champagne vinegar, 2/3 cup granulated sugar, one cup of diced rhubarb and one cup of diced strawberries in a jar. (The original recipe calls just for rhubarb, but we had so many strawberries leftover…) Shake hard to combine and refrigerate for three days. Then strain through a sieve or cheesecloth into a new jar. This should keep in the refrigerator for at least a couple of weeks.

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To make the Shrub: combine the whiskey, vermouth, and syrup with ice and shake well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and top with the bitters. Enjoy!

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You can make a shrub syrup much faster, by heating the fruit and vinegar until the vinegar is infused with flavor. But the result can often taste a bit like jam, cooked and thick. The alternative is to let the vinegar sit for days – the downside being, of course, that you have to wait, which neither of us are too good at. But the upside is a light shrub with crystal-clear, earthy flavors of tart rhubarb and sweet strawberries. Just really delicious (and would probably go well with some sparkling water to make a shrub soda).

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The resulting drink opens with a burst of sweet, tart, fruity shrub, but has a finish that is mellowed out the by the sweet vermouth and rye whiskey. Perfect for unwinding on a sumer night after work.

If you do make one at home, you can use #osbphappyhour to share photos of these (or your own creations) on Instagram.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

Friday Happy Hour: The Cuba Libre

When we started our cocktail column all the way back in 2011, we wanted to introduce classic drinks to a new audience. Along the way, we’ve started featuring more and more of our own drinks, which is ok too, but I want to make sure we don’t forget our roots. Here’s an easy but great spin on a classic summer highball, the sweet and spicy Cuba Libre. – Andrew

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Illustration by Shauna Lynn for Oh So Beautiful Paper

The Cuba Libre

2 oz Aged Rum
6 oz Cola
Half a Lime
2 Dashes Citrus Bitters

Muddle the lime in a glass, then add ice, rum, cola (Mexican Coke if you can find it), and bitters. Give it a stir and enjoy.

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The Cuba Libre is not actually a cocktail, but rather a highball – a spirit with a mixer, like Scotch and soda or gin and tonic, usually served in a tall glass. They’re great and all, but a little too simple to spend too much time writing about. So we cocktailed it up a bit. (That’s a word, right? It is now.) Throw in a couple dashes of bitters (I remain a big fan of Hella Bitter’s citrus bitters) and you add just enough depth of flavor to call it a cocktail.

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Any cola will do in a pinch, but Mexican Coke is just the perfect balance of sweet (using real cane sugar) and spicy. The Cuba Libre is traditionally made with white rum, but I like to use aged rum instead. It adds more flavor than unaged white rum, and its mellow roundness is a nice balance to the cola.

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The Cuba Libre has one of those fun popular origin stories that’s demonstrably untrue. American troops fighting the Spanish-American War, so it goes, introduced Coca Cola to Cuba where they met local freedom fighters who introduced rum to the Americans – and the rest is drink history. Except Coca Cola’s own history claims the soda wasn’t introduced to Cuba until 1900, while the war began and ended in 1898. So the story is probably a little less romantic, but a little more in keeping with the universal human urge to add booze to anything at hand and see what turns up, it just takes one random person to figure out that rum and Coke are pretty good together.

Don’t forget to let us know if you try any of our recipes. And if you do make one at home, you can use #osbphappyhour to share photos of these (or your own creations) on Instagram.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper

Friday Happy Hour: The Last Ship Home

Two years ago (!), Nole and I spent a fantastic week in St. Lucia, a tiny and gorgeous Caribbean country. I, of course, tried the local drinks, and they were as you might expect: full of rum and pineapple and coconut. Tropical. But I also noticed something interesting in between cups of rum punch –advertisements all over the country for Campari, the bitter Italian amaro that’s key to cocktails like the Negroni. This made no sense to me. Why would the people of a Caribbean island – with all that rum and lime and pineapple, rich spices and coconut – drink bitter, bitter Campari? So I asked a bartender and he told me that St. Lucians loved Campari, on the rocks or with soda water, just like in Italy. Go figure. So I wanted to give something an experiment, to balance the touristy fantasy of the ideal Caribbean drink with the reality of what St. Lucians actually drink. And I think I came up with something pretty interesting and pretty good: The Last Ship Home. – Andrew

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Illustration by Shauna Lynn for Oh So Beautiful Paper

The Last Ship Home

1 1/2 oz Aged Rum
1/4 oz Cachaca
1/2 oz Campari
1/2 oz Velvet Falernum
1 oz Pineapple-Mango Syrup
1 oz Lime Juice
1/4 oz Orgeat Syrup

Combine all of the ingredients and shake well with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with tropical fruit. Enjoy!

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There’s a lot going on in this recipe, but it works: smooth and tangy, sweet and sour, sweet and bitter, with tropical spiciness but also amaro herbal notes. I won’t lie: if you don’t have all of these ingredients at home, you can still make a really interesting bitter Daiquiri with rum, lime, sugar, and Campari. But if you do have all these handy, give it a try: it’s enormously complicated but somehow all works together, balancing the richly sweet tropical flavors with a classic bitter Italian aperitif.

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Weird. But good.

Don’t forget to let us know if you try any of our recipes. And if you do make one at home, you can use #osbphappyhour to share photos of these (or your own creations) on Instagram.

Photo Credits: Nole Garey for Oh So Beautiful Paper