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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2a94D8y:
I used to be a professional bartender. I used to make great drinks according to proper recipes. I don’t do that now, I throw random shit in a glass. And it means that my recipes are incoherent. I swear I know what I’m doing, but I’m fucked if I could explain what I’m going for. There’s a kind of instinctive knowledge of balancing flavors and sweetness and strength and such, and I don’t know how to explain it.
For example. Currently. I had no simple syrup in the house, and did not feel like heating water to make any because I have no AC and it is 92 here. (My cat has melted. Poor thing. Don’t pity her, cats are desert animals and she lies in front of heat vents all the time, I don’t believe her. She’s just yelling at me.)
So I made a Bee’s Knees, which is a 1920s-era cocktail sweetened with honey, which I discovered as about the only drinkable thing in a very, very old bar manual I got from my grandmother, and am somewhat miffed to discover now is super trendy and you can get them anywhere. The salient feature of a Bee’s Knees is that you shake it without ice, so the honey dissolves.
So I took a little Ball canning jar, and dumped some honey in (I have a lot of honey, because the beekeepers who keep hives on the farm pay rent in honey), and threw in the last of some lavender gin middle-little sister made me last Christmas (two Christmases ago?) plus some really nice rye gin that tastes sort of piney. Then I added a little tiny bit of off-brand Grand Marnier, and a little splash of some elderflower liqueur I have that is not at all sweet and I bought it to use in sweet things and it’s really not good for that, so I put it in stuff like this when I want it to taste flowery. (The current batch of honey from those beekeepers is so flowery, I meant to make mead from it to distill and didn’t because it’s too nice.)
So I shook that for a while, and meanwhile got two glasses and filled them up with broken ice cubes. (I have an antique ice crusher, but I also have one particular ice cube tray that just shatters the cubes when you try to get them out, and that’d be a pain except it’s so useful for this.)
Then I put in some waaaayyy too sweet Catawba wine I have, some rose that’s in a box, and it’s basically slightly-boozy pink sugar water, and I recommend it as a cocktail ingredient to anyone who wants to water down a drink without actually diluting it. Goes well with flowery shit.
Then I dumped in the gin/honey/orange liqueur/elderflower mix, and some lemon juice, which is the third traditional ingredient in a Bee’s Knees.
I then topped it off with some homemade applejack that came out of the still too dilute because I let the temp get too high while chasing a naked baby who wanted to use my coolant water to fill a kiddie pool, it did not go well, I have photos but I guess it’d be rude to put my babygirl’s naked ass on the Internet even though she’s two, she’ll care someday.
And I added yet more ice because it is 92 in this bitch today.
But. For your edification.
AN ACTUAL RECIPE, WHICH I DID NOT USE:
BEE’S KNEES, named for the 1920′s slang term
1.5 oz gin
2 Tbsp honey
lemon juice
shake to combine
Optional: 2-3oz orange juice
then add ice and shake again, strain to serve, OR if you’re like me, pour and serve over ice, because I like ice in my drinks
Don’t shake this over ice like modern recipes tell you to because the honey will never fucking dissolve. Love yourself. If it’s not 90+ fucking degrees where you are, maybe microwave the honey a little tiny tiny bit, or put your honey jar in a bowl of warm (~100 degreeish, like for proofing yeast) water.
I used to be a professional bartender. I used to make great drinks according to proper recipes. I don’t do that now, I throw random shit in a glass. And it means that my recipes are incoherent. I swear I know what I’m doing, but I’m fucked if I could explain what I’m going for. There’s a kind of instinctive knowledge of balancing flavors and sweetness and strength and such, and I don’t know how to explain it.
For example. Currently. I had no simple syrup in the house, and did not feel like heating water to make any because I have no AC and it is 92 here. (My cat has melted. Poor thing. Don’t pity her, cats are desert animals and she lies in front of heat vents all the time, I don’t believe her. She’s just yelling at me.)
So I made a Bee’s Knees, which is a 1920s-era cocktail sweetened with honey, which I discovered as about the only drinkable thing in a very, very old bar manual I got from my grandmother, and am somewhat miffed to discover now is super trendy and you can get them anywhere. The salient feature of a Bee’s Knees is that you shake it without ice, so the honey dissolves.
So I took a little Ball canning jar, and dumped some honey in (I have a lot of honey, because the beekeepers who keep hives on the farm pay rent in honey), and threw in the last of some lavender gin middle-little sister made me last Christmas (two Christmases ago?) plus some really nice rye gin that tastes sort of piney. Then I added a little tiny bit of off-brand Grand Marnier, and a little splash of some elderflower liqueur I have that is not at all sweet and I bought it to use in sweet things and it’s really not good for that, so I put it in stuff like this when I want it to taste flowery. (The current batch of honey from those beekeepers is so flowery, I meant to make mead from it to distill and didn’t because it’s too nice.)
So I shook that for a while, and meanwhile got two glasses and filled them up with broken ice cubes. (I have an antique ice crusher, but I also have one particular ice cube tray that just shatters the cubes when you try to get them out, and that’d be a pain except it’s so useful for this.)
Then I put in some waaaayyy too sweet Catawba wine I have, some rose that’s in a box, and it’s basically slightly-boozy pink sugar water, and I recommend it as a cocktail ingredient to anyone who wants to water down a drink without actually diluting it. Goes well with flowery shit.
Then I dumped in the gin/honey/orange liqueur/elderflower mix, and some lemon juice, which is the third traditional ingredient in a Bee’s Knees.
I then topped it off with some homemade applejack that came out of the still too dilute because I let the temp get too high while chasing a naked baby who wanted to use my coolant water to fill a kiddie pool, it did not go well, I have photos but I guess it’d be rude to put my babygirl’s naked ass on the Internet even though she’s two, she’ll care someday.
And I added yet more ice because it is 92 in this bitch today.
But. For your edification.
AN ACTUAL RECIPE, WHICH I DID NOT USE:
BEE’S KNEES, named for the 1920′s slang term
1.5 oz gin
2 Tbsp honey
lemon juice
shake to combine
Optional: 2-3oz orange juice
then add ice and shake again, strain to serve, OR if you’re like me, pour and serve over ice, because I like ice in my drinks
Don’t shake this over ice like modern recipes tell you to because the honey will never fucking dissolve. Love yourself. If it’s not 90+ fucking degrees where you are, maybe microwave the honey a little tiny tiny bit, or put your honey jar in a bowl of warm (~100 degreeish, like for proofing yeast) water.
