Long Island Iced Tea

Here’s everyone’s perennial favorite for warm summer days! We’re still on the road - but would never take this drink along for the ride.

Long Island Iced Tea:

1 jigger vodka
1 jigger tequila
1 jigger dark rum
1 jigger gin
1 jigger orange-flavored liqueur such as Triple Sec, Cointreau, or Grand Marnier
1-½ jiggers sweet-and-sour bar mix
1 quick splash Coca Cola (as in “Things go better with …”)

Combine ingredients in a pitcher, stirring in crushed ice. Pour into tall glasses, garnishing with a lemon twist. Serves one idiot or three normal people.

Champagne Punch

This deliciously complex sipper is the perfect choice for a New Year’s Eve punch bowl. Freezing a water-filled plastic container will provide an ice block that won’t melt as quickly as cubed ice, preventing the punch from becoming diluted too quickly. For the fullest fizz, prepare this in a single batch, making more as needed.

Champagne Punch: 

One 26 oz. (750 mL) bottle Champagne (or any sparkling wine), chilled
One 26 oz. (750 mL) bottle Sauterne, chilled
½ c. granulated sugar
2 oz. Cointreau
5 oz. brandy
2 c. club soda, chilled
Orange cartwheels, quartered, as garnish 
Pineapple tidbits, as garnish
Maraschino cherries, drained, stemmed

To ice block in punch bowl, add and stir Champagne, Sauterne, sugar, Cointreau, and brandy. Top with soda, garnishing with fruit. This makes enough for 30 single punch-cup servings.

Champagne with Grand Marnier and Orange Juice

It’s never too soon: Heads up for next weekend! No doubt some of you Dollinks will be planning a decadent, lazy brunch instead of breakfast. If so, this special drink goes a step beyond the usual champagne and orange juice brunch starter. I’m not here to promote brand names, so am compelled to say that if you wish, you can use any quality orange liqueur in place of Grand Marnier.

Champagne with Grand Marnier and Orange Juice:

12 oz. chilled, dry champagne

2 oz. chilled Grand Marnier or any other orange-flavored liqueur

6 oz. chilled orange juice

Combine in a pitcher, serving at once in chilled champagne glasses. Serves 4 or 5. 

*   *   *

As always -   
xox   Nicole

Dollinks: I’m about to take an indefinite period of time off. Ron and I have very much enjoyed writing and taking photos for this blog, which will remain online. It’s gratifying to know that readers will continue to enjoy these recipes in future years. Allow me to raise a glass to all of you! For now, let’s just say that I’ve ...

The Beautiful

This delicious drink matches its name! Ron introduced me to it while I was working - Working! That’s what I was doing! Yeah! - on the computer.

The Beautiful:

1 oz. Grand Marnier

1 oz. Courvoisier

Ice

Combine! Serve! Drink! Yields one drink. With a beautiful kick.
PS: This drink is normally served in a brandy snifter without ice. 

This drink is ... um ... beautiful!

The Perfect Margarita

Yo! By the time you read this, I’ll be toasting my tootsies on a tropical beach. In preparation for the journey, I just had to make my very favorite Margarita - perfect in every way! I nabbed the recipe a few years ago from the Wesley Street Restaurant in Nanaimo, Canada - a wonderful eatery with fine food and fine service that - sadly - has just closed. What a loss! That beautiful, intimate place may be gone, but its Margarita recipe lives on! The secret to this excellent drink lies in the fresh limes it requires. 

The Perfect Margarita:

Coarse salt

3 oz. fresh lime juice

5 oz. Tequila

3 oz. Triple Sec

1 oz. Rose’s Lime Juice Cordial

Lightly moisten rim of chilled martini or Margarita glass with cut lemon wedge before dipping into coarse salt. Combine remaining ingredients in martini shaker together with ice. Shake well, straining drink into glass. Serves four regular or two double Margaritas.

The perfect drink for a perfect warm-weather day!

The perfect way to drink The Perfect Margarita!

I’ll be away until May 21st. See you then! xox Nicole

Catch Her in the Rye

This sophisticated drink carries a kick - be sure to sip it slowly. I never have more than one! Never, never, never! Unless I’m offered a second one, of course.

Catch Her in the Rye: 

Ice - plenty of it

1-½ parts rye

1-½ parts orange liqueur such as Grand Marnier or Cointreau

1 sugar cube per glass

Enough Angostura bitters to saturate cube

Strip of orange peel, as needed

For each cocktail, chill martini glass in freezer. Add ice, rye, and orange liqueur to martini shaker. Shake vigorously. Drop one sugar cube into each chilled glass, soaking cube in bitters. Crush saturated sugar cube. Strain and pour chilled alcohol into glass. Serve with a thin strip of orange peel on top. 

Even the glass looks tipsy! Refreshing and delicious!

Sour Apple Martini: A Kitchen Exposé!

Our investigative news team has blown the lid off the debauched speakeasy promoted as the kitchen headquarters of Nicole Parton’s Favorite Recipes. Presented as the alleged site of “recipe testing and blogging” (nudge-nudge, wink-wink), the kitchen’s true behind-the-scenes activities emerged last night, as our hidden cameras recorded the now-disgraced Nicole Parton guzzling vodka martinis before a sink full of dirty dishes. Our cameras also caught her putative spouse, Ronald E. Fisher, jiggling a martini shaker to the tune of “La Cucaracha” as Parton - swinging her all-too-ample hips - attempted to warble along.

Fearing for their safety, these concerned citizens were forced to don disguises as they told our news team of their suspicion that Mr. Fisher’s choice of song was a direct comment on Ms. Parton’s less-than-adequate housekeeping skills.

Living in fear: A courageous couple speaks out

Caught on film urging his wife to “Drink up!” Fisher denied the relevance of the popular Mexican song, pleading that his first choice had been to sing “Shake, Rattle, and Roll.” He was forced, he said, to “change his tune” when a tipsy Parton objected to the lyric “Get out in that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans.”

Confronted with the evidence of a sink full of dirty dishes, Fisher initially agreed to blow the whistle on Parton’s poor cleaning skills, but claimed he had selected the song “on a whim.” Asked to comment on the relevance of her rendition of “La Cucaracha,” Parton hiccuped: “Wazza question again?” Parton insisted she knew how to hold her liquor. As proof, she clutched a vodka bottle to her prodigious chest.

When our news team told Fisher that his spouse was bound for the Big House if she didn’t come clean, Fisher said he would divulge his secret martini recipe to the world if Parton stopped her off-key singing. She did not. He did, anyway. 

Sour Apple Martini: A Kitchen Exposé!

Ice - plenty of it

2 parts vodka

2 parts Rose’s Sour Apple Mix

1 part orange liqueur such as Grand Marnier or Cointreau (see Note)

For each martini, chill glass in freezer. Add ingredients to martini shaker. Vigorously vibrate shaker to the tune of “La Cucaracha” and float a thin slice of lime on top. Oh, yes ... Bail wife out of jail.

Note: Nicole prefers only a few drops of this liqueur.

Ron’s Winter Solstice Coffee

In the Time Zone and at the Latitude Where I Live, we’re less than a week away from the shortest day of the year! Happy Almost-Winter-Solstice!

Husband Ron is very naughty. He knows I promised I’d give you a couple of final candy recipes before presenting you with a number of baked treats, several interesting appetizers, and a few main-course holiday suggestions. Yesterday, he took me away from all that, reminding me how important it is for each of us to take the time to relax at this busy time of year. Center yourself, feel grounded, get plenty of sleep, and do only what your time and energy levels allow - no more! 

The recipes I promised will wait until tomorrow. Ron gathered me up and stole me away on a three-hour walk past mountain and marsh, where we spied a patient heron on the look-out for lunch, a pair of bald eagles cozied up on a branch, a small and very dead mole, a woodpecker, and - sunken deeply into the frozen mud along our path - the cloven prints of a heavy, fully grown deer. 

Trudging along, I thought how much most of us have, and what happiness there is in nature’s intricate patterns of what we see as simplicity. When we’d reached the forested outlook that was our destination, Ron pulled out the sandwiches he’d made, along with a large flask of the Winter Solstice Coffee that will see you (children, cover your eyes) through the chilliest day. His recipe follows!

Ron’s Winter Solstice Coffee:

4 c. (1 L) strong, hot coffee

1 oz. (30 mL) brandy

1 oz. (30 mL) Grand Marnier

1-½ oz. (50 mL) dark rum

¼ c. (60 mL) heavy cream, unwhipped

Serve straight from a flask, for your winter picnic. Makes 2 servings. 

Scenes from a winter walk in the Time Zone and at the Latitude Where We Live: Happy Almost-Winter-Solstice! Enlarge the photos by clicking on each.

 

When we arrived home, Ron began playing French love songs on the sound system. After that, I forgot about cooking and everything else.

Brandied, Spiced Christmas Wassail

How I would have loved to be in Woodstock, Vermont, this weekend for the town’s annual Wassail Weekend festival! The Vienna Boys’ Choir performed in what is regaled as a New England traditional holiday feast in the era of Charles Dickens. Naturally, the town even hosted a performance of Dickens’ magical story, A Christmas Carol. 

Each year, I just have to watch Alastair Sim, who so brilliantly portrayed Ebeneezer Scrooge in the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol - in my opinion, the best-of-all holiday films. It’s getting harder to find that great old movie on TV these days. Younger film buffs may be forgiven if they think of George C. Scott’s 1984 made-for-TV adaptation, which was also very good. Whether you’re in chilly Vermont or hunkered down in front of the television set tut-tutting over Scrooge’s miserly ways, what a wonderful time of year this is to hoist a glass, Dollinks!   

Brandied, Spiced Christmas Wassail:

6 small apples, cored

1 c. firmly packed brown sugar

1 c. brandy

4 - 3-in. cinnamon sticks, broken

1 tsp. whole cloves

1 tsp. whole allspice, slightly crushed

2 - 26 oz. (750 mL) bottles dry red wine

1 - 26 oz. (750 mL) bottle dry sherry

Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur, to taste

Peel a strip around top of each apple and place in casserole. Combine sugar and brandy in saucepan. Bring just to a boil and pour over apples. Cover and bake at 350 deg. F. 35-to-40 min., or until apples are tender. Drain apples and set aside, reserving syrup.

In a large saucepan, combine 1-½ c. reserved syrup and 1 c. water. Bundle cinnamon, cloves, and allspice in a 6-inch square of cheesecloth tied with string. Add to syrup in saucepan. Bring syrup to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 10 min. Discard spice bag. Stir in red wine, sherry, and a little Grand Marnier or orange brandy to taste. Pour into large crock pot set to “simmer” or “warm.” Float baked apples on top.  Makes 25-to-30 servings, using four-ounce punch glasses. 

- With thanks to The Vancouver Sun

Mulled Cranberry Sipper

This is an interesting twist to the usual Hot Mulled Wine! 

Alcoholic Mulled Cranberry Sipper:

6 c. cranberry cocktail

3 c. orange juice

¼ c. packed brown sugar

2 - 3-in. cinnamon sticks

1 tsp. whole allspice

½ tsp. whole cloves

1 c. orange liqueur

Combine all ingredients except orange liqueur in large saucepan. Heat to boiling and reduce heat, simmering 10 min. Strain to remove spices (alternately, remove spices bundled in a 6-inch square of cheesecloth tied with string). Stir in orange liqueur. Serve hot, from large crock pot or coffee urn. Makes 20 servings, using four-ounce punch glasses. 

- With thanks to the good people at Ocean Spray Cranberries (Slightly modified)