Can we just be cordial?

A little excursion

During the pandemic as a mother I had to find ways to “escape” for some alone time. Thanks to some alcoholic government officials (haha it’s a joke please don’t take it seriously) our local liquor store was an option. Even better for me is I had one in the same parking lot of my grocery store! So what I would do when I needed a new “base” liquor I would also take a stroll through the cordial/fruit liquors section to see what inspired.

Let’s get down to basics

Now eventhough I have said over and over “It’s your bar, put what you like!” I’m going to back track a little bit. I have found some that are used in quite an amount of cocktail recipes. I find these are the ones I have to restock the most.

Then things got complicated

So when I had the those I could explore more unique flavors.

Here are the newest to my collection:

A little bit of this and a little bit of that

Now if you’re not sure what you like test things out. Things can be pricey so if you’re not sure I suggest you skip on over to mini bottle section to see what’s available. Remember cordials are the “back up singers to your liquor”. You tend to need anywhere from 1/4 oz-1 oz per drink of your cordial to do the job. So you can literally buy 1 small bottle to test it out. You can always get more if you like it. If you buy the big bottle and you don’t like it then it’s just going to collect dust. Here’s what small bottles they had where I went.

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Now once you find something you like. I usually get the 750 ml or 375 ml. Believe it or not mine last a long time because like I said you don’t need much.

Now as I said in my previous post I like to add a fresh fruit to my cocktails to bring out a crisper flavor. And like I said before “know your seasons” so unfortunately I could not find apricots because we are at the end of their season so I improvised and got plumcots (plum+apricot) instead.

You don’t seem yourself

Now what am I going to do with these ingredients. One of my supporters suggested a variation of a salty greyhound/dog. So I decided to use the idea for my post. So let’s talk variations. I love variations. It’s pretty much taking a classic cocktail and putting your own twist on it. I live for variations. I’ve done dragonfruit Palomas, a blood orange daiquiri and every flavor martini you can think of.

So an example of a variation that I do alot. Let’s do mojitos. People know mojitos. A classic mojito drink goes like this:

• 2 oz rum
• 3/4 oz lime juice
• 3-4 mint leaves
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• Club soda to top

Put mint, lime juice and sugar in bottom of a tall glass and Muddle.

Now add ice, rum and top with club soda.

Delicious right?!?

But sometimes you want a little something extra. Here’s one of my variations:

Now what I did is I added chopped white peaches and threw them in with the mint and used white peach syrup instead of sugar. I chose to do it in a shaker cup first because I don’t like chunks of everything in my drink. I then Muddled that. I chose to add the rum directly to the mix. I then strained the mixture into a tall glass filled with ice. I then topped with mandarin seltzer.  Sounds delicious right?!?

Now I didn’t use a cordial in this one but I was just giving an example. Cordials can be used in the same manner.

Now let’s make a variation

So I  took a look at several recipes just to get an idea on what was important to preserve in order for it to be a variation and not just another cocktail. You don’t want to rip apart a classic you just want to dress it up a little bit. So what’s a salty greyhound/dog?

Salty greyhound/dog

• 2 oz gin (or vodka traditionally)
• Sometimes it has like 3/4 oz of lemon juice but I don’t see it often
• 3-4 oz grapefruit juice(basically just fill your glass to the top)
• And of course a salt rim

So you take some grapefruit rub an rim and dip in salt. Then add ice to a tall glass and then add gin, lemon juice (if u want) and top with the grapefruit.

Pretty simple but delish

What should we wear today?

So let’s get to it. Now we have apricot liquor and plumcots so we’re going to make an apricot salty dog. I’m going to start off with the salt rim.

So next how do I incorporate this into the cocktail?

So I decided to “Muddle it up” a little bit and make what I like to call a flavor concentrate to the mix. What I did is take my shaker cup and added chopped plumcots, 3/4 oz apricot liquor and 1 tablespoon of sugar to help break down the fruit. I’ll muddle all the ingredients. Then I let it sit for like 1-2 minutes then Muddle it again. Then I’m going to strain that into a tall glass full of ice. I did it that way because there is no shaking in the cocktail, just stirring.

Now let’s make a cocktail

Here are all my tools and ingredients

Happy Puppy

• 2 oz gin
• 3/4 oz apricot liquor
• 1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
• 4 oz cold pressed grapefruit juice
• 1/2 plumcot chopped (or apricot if you can find one)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• Plumcot salt

Rub lemon slice on the rim and dip in plumcot salt. Then add plumcots, lemon juice, and sugar to shaker cup and Muddle. Then strain into tall glass full of ice. Then add gin and top with grapefruit juice.

This one’s dedicated to you Jason!