This episode was called Daddy Issues. Only two more of these acting-career-oriented posts I promise.
There is a drink called the Godfather I felt could use some sprucing up. I called my mom’s dad Granddaddy.
Hence the multiple reasons the GodDaddy was born. A riff on Godfather and not to be confused with Godaddy. Great website host. Terrible drink I’m sure.
Well crap. I found another food rabbit hole I could see myself going down. Or maybe I should say another sensory rabbit hole–I did a perfume smelling recently that was so similar to wine tasting that I would have left intoxicated even if my friends had not poured a round of port to keep our mouths occupied whilst our noses did the heavy lifting.
But perfume is a rabbit hole for another blog. I wanted to learn of tea. Actually that’s not true. I hadn’t thought much about tea then Teavana was all “come play with teas with us” and I all like “totes!” Except you know that is sort of a lie because I would never say totes in a non-ironic sense of the word. I just said “yes”.
And then I said “extra yes please” (to myself anyway) as I contemplated the tea cocktail possibilities. Fast forward to about 6 minutes 45 seconds to see the cocktail. Or watch it all because we’re funny and stuff:
Let’s start with the Teavana wrongs: so corporate.
Okay I am done.
What Teavana gets right: The passion of the people making tea there. The pure rock sugar crystals they gave me to add to my ever-growing sugar collection (I’ve got nine types of sugar now). The really uber-cool tea brewer thingamajig where you load sweetener and tea in and let er’ rip then set the sucker down on top of your cup and like magic it drains out the bottom into the vessel you will bear to your thirsty lips.
Oh and feast your eyeballs on these big ol’ containers of rock. Sugar:
And then the tea blends. They are pure products. I was tempted to actually snack on some such as the citrus lavender sage blend. Hunks of dried fruit in an herbal and mildly herbal blend? Yes please. Another snack tea was the (unfortunately) excellent peppermint white chocolate blend. Unfortunate because I would sooooo turn up my nose at it if it didn’t smell like heaven and make as good an ice cream topping dry as it does steeped in to tea submission.
They have a good thing going there. A whole wall full of flavors that can be mixed and matched and sniffed and swirled. It was like wine tasting but I didn’t need a designated driver.
Enough of the praise. Let’s booze this shiz-nit up! Because I hate driving enough to create a situation requiring a driver. I made a cocktail with gin and the grapefruit strawberry green tea blend I brought home. I added homemade limoncello and fresh grapefruit juice. Lastly came a dose of bitters, and eventually (as you will see in the video) an extra garnish. So WATCH if you haven’t yet. Ooh, and making a pink cocktail gave reason to make a punny name for me tea-based drink: The Pink-ies Up
Funtimes! Happy! Come fetch my tipsy arse and take me home dear driver!
The Pink-ies Up an original Ellen Clifford tasty delight
For infused gin:
1/2 cup gin (I like Hendrick’s)
1 1/2 tsp. strawberry grapefruit green tea mix
Steep for about 45 minutes then strain. You’ll know the time is right when the gin is pink.
For the drink:
1 1/2 oz. infused gin
1/2 oz. freshly squeezed pink or red grapefruit juice
1 oz. limoncello
4 dashes Angostura bitters
extra dry tea mix to garnish
Shake all but the extra tea with ice. Strain into chilled glasses. Sprinkle on some dry tea.
Actually it’s more like I had one huge melon and some Angostura bitters. My own melons are extra petite and I like em’ just that way.
I discovered the love of bitters last summer via the classic champagne cocktail. I’ll do a post about that later. In the meantime, I was excited to see a non-alcoholic, in fact not a beverage at all, recipe using angostura bitters.
I dearly love old, housewive-y cookbooks and as such own a reprint of the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook from 1953.
This little do came from the Appetizers section in a list of Melon-Ball Cocktails. Twas delightful. Subtle. Amazing what little embelishments can do to a simple melon.
Love this recipe. Love this book. Though it is hard to entirely trust when it calls for. For instance, say, a package of pudding mix. I am betting the ones they sell these days are completely different in size and make-up than the ones in the 50’s.
This recipe did not call for pudding, but it did call for preserved ginger. The only type of preserved ginger I am aware of at my local supermarket is the dried and sugared type, and the pickled type. I went with the latter since it is prettier. And rinsed it to taper down on the pickle-y taste.
This recipe did not list amounts. Here is what I concocted:
Old-school Housewife Melon
1 cup of cubed cantaloupe
1 slice of pickled ginger, rinsed and chopped
1 dash of angostura bitters
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lime juice, mixed with a pinch of sugar
Mix it, eat it.
This was so simple and pretty much unbelievably tasty. In the future I will add even more ginger. Actually, I also just tried wrapping a melon wedge in a piece of the ginger. It was like a vegan version of those melon-prociutto things people seem to love. Yup, yup. Seems like these super-simple recipes are always the winners.
Scrumptious Gruel 