Piña Colada Mocktail and Cocktail

Despite having a great love of fruit in just about any form (raw, juiced, canned, frozen, sometimes, depending on the fruit, cooked), particularly exotic fruit, it was not until last year that I tasted the delight of the simple combination of coconut and pineapple juice mixed together. And I fell in love. The vague memory from childhood of an artificial, soft drink concoction going by the euphemistic name of piña colada had not prepared me at all for what this drink could taste like when made with real juice, and when I made that discovery it was only social pressure and not wanting to disgrace myself too much in front of a room mostly full of strangers, as well as an awareness that the inclusion of coconut probably meant that it had about four times as many calories as most other drinks, that prevented me from downing too many glasses. They were of the non-alcoholic variety so that didn’t have to factor into my calculation of the maximum number of glasses I could drink whilst still maintaining a semblance of non-greedy dignity. I don’t really know why it took me over six months to make my own version – most likely the fact that winter banished all thoughts of cold drinks from my mind, whilst the appearance of a sunny spring in the last month is having the opposite effect on me. In an ideal world, I would know something about mixology (like whether this should be shaken, stirred or something else) prior to sharing a cocktail recipe, and I should probably also include ice (which I don’t like as I hate tooth-freeze from drinks) in the recipe. So with apologies to any experts who may read this, here is my make-with-what-I-have-at-home version (including limited knowledge of how to make cocktails), without ice (but feel free to chuck some in with the pineapple juice), and a primary concern with the fact that I’m not really sure I like the word mocktail (which this will be if you ignore step 3 below and don’t add the rum). This makes between about 4 and 6 drinks, depending on the size of the glass you use when serving.

What you’ll need:

250 ml carton coconut cream

1 litre pineapple juice

White rum (optional if you want to turn this from a mocktail into a cocktail)

What to do:

1. Tip the coconut cream into a large jug.

2. Add the pineapple juice to the jug with the coconut cream and whisk together. If the coconut cream has separated, add the pineapple juice little by little, whisking slowly to bring the coconut milk back together. If you add the pineapple juice all in one go, it may look like the whole mixture has separated, but fear not and whisk on – all will come right. The separation looks particularly bad in my photo below because the coconut cream had separated, but I did not slowly mix in the pineapple juice as I should have done (and did do the next time I made this, but unfortunately did not get any photos…).

3. If you’re going for the cocktail rather than the mocktail, fill the coconut cream carton to between 1/4 and 1/2 full with white rum (as you may guess if you read this blog regularly, I’m much more into saving on washing up than accurate measurements) and whisk the rum with the coconut cream and pineapple juice in the jug.

4. Pour into a glass, decorate with a piece of pineapple, if you have one (which I did), add a straw or two to drink from, if you have them (which I did not), and go sit outside and enjoy a moment in the sunshine with a good book (or share with friends and/or your spouse, if you have to…).

Sloe Gin

For the past few years round about this time of year, J and I have discussed trying our hand at making sloe gin, usually prompted by seeing an abundantly-laden bush whilst out walking. Last weekend, we began such a discussion once again, but in contrast to previous years, we started picking some sloes from the bush that triggered the discussion, which we duly carried home. Every day last week, I planned to go back to the same bushes, which are not far from our house, to pick enough to make some sloe gin, but never got round to doing so. But today, we did make it and came home with loads of sloes. This evening, we put together our sloes, gin and sugar, using the easy recipe/proportions on the great blog, A Trifle Rushed (for the sloe gin post, see here). Our proportions are not as well measured as they are on A Trifle Rushed, and vary from bottle to bottle (just slightly competitively we’ve made a note of who did which bottle), but I thought I’d share what we did here. Closer to Christmas, when we crack them open, I’ll let you know how they taste. Apologies in advance for the pictures – it was evening when I took them and I lost the natural light…

For now, I’m praising God for, and raising my glass for a virtual clink in celebration of a job starting tomorrow!

What you’ll need (for each bottle of sloe gin):

1/3 bottle sloes

1/3 bottle white sugar

1/3 bottle gin

What to do:

1. Go out and pick some juicy looking sloes.

2. Prick each sloe with a cocktail stick.

3. Fill each bottle about a 1/3 of the way full with the pricked sloes (as you can see we interpreted that measurement quite loosely!).

4. Pour about a 1/3 of a bottle of sugar on to the sloes.

5. Fill the bottle to the top with gin (sorry – I didn’t get a picture of this stage…).

6. Swirl it all around to mix together and then leave to one side. You may need to re-fill the bottle slightly as everything settles over the next couple of hours.

7. Shake up the bottle once or twice a week to mix everything together and leave somewhere to mature and become yummy!

Lemon, Honey and Ginger Cooler

The original inspiration for this drink comes from the concoction that I make myself or J when one of us is feeling under the weather. The hot, comfort version of this drink comprises lemon juice, honey and fresh grated ginger in hot water, though in slightly different ratios to those that I’ve used in this cold version. Just about every time I made it over last winter, I thought about how nice it might be as a cold, refreshing drink when the weather gets warmer. I was recently reminded of the idea when I read this blog post on the blog I am Mommy, who also provided the inspiration for using sparkling water instead of the soda or tonic water that I originally planned to use. The recipe here is what I came up with. This drink isn’t very sweet, so if you’re a fan of sugar you might want to use more honey than I have. As usual, the cup measurements here were made using a 250 ml mug. This makes 5 to 6 glasses, depending on the size of the glasses. Don’t let the drink sit for too long after you’ve made it, as it will lose its fizz.

What you’ll need:

2/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 rounded tablespoons freshly grated ginger

4 1/2 tablespoons honey

1 litre sparkling water

Ice, for serving (if you that’s how you like your cold drinks – I tend to prefer no ice)

What to do:

1. Put the lemon juice, ginger and honey in a pan, bring to the boil and simmer for a few minutes, stirring occasionally during the whole process to mix everything together properly.

     

2. Turn off heat and leave to steep for about 20 minutes.

3. Strain the juice into a jug, pressing down on the residue in the sieve to get all the flavourful goodness out.

 

4. Add the sparkling water to the jug and stir once or twice to mix completely.

 

5. Serve and enjoy!