Winter Punch

This may not be the most flattering outfit(!), but I had to get a little festive to show you how to make my favourite Winter cocktail of 2023 (so far!), the Winter Punch.

Features my purchases from: Dubliner Irish Whiskey, Red Leg Rum, Disaronno, TheZestCo, Luxardo & Tesco.

Also features my early Christmas gift from Bare Barrel (available from Amazon UK).

Winter Punch Cocktail Recipe

1.5oz (45ml) Bourbon
0.75oz (22.5ml) Spiced Rum
0.75oz (22.5ml) Amaretto
0.75oz (22.5ml) Cranberry Juice
1 tsp (5ml) lemon juice or orange juice
Lemon or orange zest and cherries for garnish

Shake everything except the garnish with ice and strain into a coupe or cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon zest and cherries.

Juleps in July

Juleps hadn’t really been on my radar until recently – perhaps surprisingly given my love of the classics!

Yesterday I did my regular cocktail session with the P&O Cruises – UK Fan Page, and the juleps were the perfect collection of drinks for a crazy-hot day!

Juleps are a short drink, sweetened slightly and packed with ice… choose you favourite spirit, a syrup or liqueur and some herbs (usually mint), crack some ice and you’ve got the ingredients for a delicious julep!

Classic Mint Julep

The ultimate classic, which is always worth a try… with origins in the 1600s, this mix of alcohol and herbs, sweetened with sugar or honey, was once a way to administer medicines – with this you really can say “It’s medicinal” 😉

The name ‘julep’ followed much later, and the type of alcohol changed too. Where once it would likely have been brandy, whisky became popular – especially in America with the Kentucky Cup – and I really enjoy whisky or dark rum in mine.

Traditionally served in a silver or copper julep cup, it’s not unusual to now serve this in a rocks glass or small wine glass.

My favourite so far:
2.5oz Mackmyra Björksav
0.5oz sugar syrup (2:1)
4-5 mint sprigs

In a chilled julep cup or glass, gently muddle the herbs in the syrup. Add the whisky, then fill half the cup with crushed ice. Give it a stir and fill the rest of the cup with crushed ice, making a small mound on top. Garnish with mint leaves.

Classic Mint Julep

Fancy a twist on the classic?

The julep is a great cocktail that you can adapt to suit what you have available, here are some recipes to give you some ideas…

Cocktails at The Dovetail

A new bar and restaurant has opened in our town this week… and it has a cocktail menu!

At The Dovetail

We went for lunch today – pizzas were on the menu – and despite a few minor service issues we really enjoyed it. (Food and venue review can be found on All The Threes.)

The cocktail menu is a good range of well-known drinks – martinis, fruit daiquiris and classics such as a Tequila Sunrise, Bramble, Mojito, Manhattan and Negroni.

I chose a Peach Daiquiri and a Cosmopolitan, and Tony went for a Tequila Sunrise.

The Peach Daiquiri was very fruity and so easy to drink! It almost didn’t taste alcoholic so go steady! I enjoyed it, but I don’t think I’d choose it again. My favourite Daiquiri is the classic rum, lime and sugar syrup and I rarely add much syrup, so I think the fruit in this one made it too sweet for me.

The Cosmo was very good – crisp, clean and well-balanced, certainly one of the better Cosmopolitans I’ve had in a bar as it wasn’t too heavy on the cranberry. I’d happily order this again!

I forgot to get a photo of Tony’s Tequila Sunrise – while it tasted great (the tequila was delicious!), the definition in the sunrise layer wasn’t so good – I think it had been stirred as there was no straw or stirrer served with it.

Garnish on all was simple, it could perhaps be improved upon, however I know garnish is a pain and can be wasteful at times!

It’d be good to see some Dovetail signature cocktails – something a little different, either their own recipes or something more extravagant using some speciality ingredients – but overall I like that the menu carries so many classic favourites that everyone can recognise as all too often cocktail bars can go a bit too bonkers!

All cocktails are priced at £9.50.

The Dovetail also have an excellent selection of spirits, bottled beers, soft drinks and mixers, as well as a good wine list featuring Nyetimber English Sparkling Wine.

Sadly since writing this review The Dovetail has closed.

Martini Day 2021

Happy Martini Day!

A Classic Gin Martini has long been one of my favourite cocktails… I tend to make it with a 6:1 ratio of gin to vermouth, though of course a Martini is quite a personal thing and finding your own preference can take some time 😉

This was, of course, one of my chosen recipes for my Martini Day video, together with an Appletini and an Espresso Martini…

Martinis and Martini-style cocktails often need only a few ingredients, making them a good choice for cocktails at home.

The Appletini is lovely for summer – crisp and clean, with a choice of vodka or gin, the apple flavour makes a refreshing and very easy to drink cocktail!

Ohhh, but then there is the Espresso Martini… perfect for after dinner drinks, this is a recipe I am at last happy with. The vanilla vodka makes all the difference here, but if you don’t want to splash out on vanilla vodka, plain vodka with just a drop of vanilla essence is a great alternative.

World Gin Day

It wasn’t hard to choose a gin to showcase for World Gin Day… I knew I wanted to go for something outside of the UK and recently I’d purchased Mackmyra’s Lab Distillery Organic Gin, which I may have fallen in love with!

With botanicals including lingonberry, elderflower and mango, this is right up my street! Mackmyra are a Swedish distillery, mainly known for their whiskies, but their gin is great and well worth considering for your cocktail kit.

I chose three cocktails that I think work brilliantly with this gin, the Swedish 75 (appropriate, yeah?!), Flora Dora and Have a Heart.

Swedish 75 is the perfect Summer cocktail, whichever gin you choose… gin, lingonberry jam, lemon juice and fizz make for such a lovely spritz for BBQs, picnics or outdoor drinks. If you can’t get hold of lingonberry jam, choose raspberry or strawberry instead – I like the Strawberry Daiquiri jam from Baked in Belfast.

The Flora Dora is such a fabulous classic – long, cool and so easy to drink (oops!), with gin, Chambord, lime and ginger ale, or soda water if you prefer.

And Have a Heart packs a punch – quite literally… Swedish Punsch, gin, grenadine and lime gives a grown up cheekiness. No Swedish Punsch? No worries – switch for golden rum.

A Year of Cocktails!

Welcome to ‘Cocktails with Lisa’! It’s been a whole year since I set up a Facebook page dedicated to cocktails… a place to share some of the live sessions I started during lockdown for the Facebook group ‘P&O Cruises – UK Fan Page‘.

Those live sessions focussed on recreating the P&O Cruises cocktail menus ~ cruises were cancelled and we wanted a pick-me-up to see us through the first lockdown… little did we know we’d get through the entire list!

It really helped me confirm my passion for cocktails – I love discovering new recipes, as well as the astounding number of spirits and liqueurs on the market. I also found myself delving into recipes of the past – my heart is certainly with vintage and classic cocktails, and they are such a joy to make and drink.

With over a year passing since I started doing the live sessions, I realise how much I still have to learn, so it seemed appropriate on this one year anniversary (also World Gin Day!) that I now dedicate this blog and a new YouTube channel purely to my cocktail journey and discovery 🙂

A big part of my enjoyment of cocktails is sharing recipes and tips with others, so please join me to discover some of your favourites, too!

Cheers! 🥂
Lisa