I have been traveling around too much to be in Mixology Monday mode recently.  Unfortunately I missed the last one on 19th Century cocktails.  How did I manage to miss that?  It sounded great.  Ahh. . .the travails of travel.

Anyway, this time round the theme is Guilty Pleasures, hosted by Two at the Most.  The main idea behind the theme seems to be ‘comfort cocktails’, similar to ‘comfort food’. There is also a suggestion that it could include drinks that appeal a poorly educated palate.  Hmm. . .

Forgive me if I randomly muse rather than picking a single drink.

OK, what I’m really going to do is smack you in the face with a Bunnyhug.  However, I’ll soften the blow by first musing on cream, creme de menthe, and other inoffensive things. (more…)

The theme for this Mixology Monday (hosted at Save the Drinkers) is Local Flavor.  The idea is to make a drink featuring local ingredients.  I will treat New Zealand as my locality.   During my temporary sojourn in the Dominican Republic I have no bar besides a couple of bottles of rum.  I think I should blog on a drink I invented a few years ago and had the foresight to photograph.

Sensitive readers should be aware that this drink contains vodka.

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To assist my anticipatory salivation ahead of Anistatia Miller and Jared Brown’s Tales of the Cocktail presentation on “The Cafes of Paris”, I have been taking a look at a few lesser known French aperitifs. Several weeks ago I took a look at Pineau des Charentes. Today I focus on a pair of fruit quinquinas.

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So Mixology Monday has suddenly arrived again, and I am completely unprepared. The month is hosted by Anita at Morels and Musings and the theme is fruit liqueurs. I was thinking of making something with crème de cassis, but then my eye fell upon my bottle of Kuai Fei lychee liqueur. Lychee liqueur deserves a little more respect than it gets, so why not give it an outing? I realized I had a grapefruit in the fridge. Then I remembered there was a Japanese (?) drink I had been meaning to write up for a while, the China Blue.

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I got hold of some Lillet the other day. I really like Dubonnet so had been looking forward to trying Lillet. Dubonnet and Lillet both belong to the ‘quinqina’ category of flavored wines, namely quinine flavored wine-based aperitifs. Dubonnet is red while Lillet is white, though Dubonnet also produces a less well known white version and Lillet also has a red version. The situation is a little like that with vermouth, where vermouth producers typically offer both sweet and dry versions. (more…)