by Wilbur, Todd
1 cup pureed watermelon (no
seeds)
½ cup plus 1 tablespoon
granulated sugar
1 cup 80-proof vodka
1. Make pureed watermelon by removing the seeds and rind from about ⅛ of a medium watermelon (seedless watermelon is the easiest to use). Use a large fork or potato masher to mash the watermelon in a large bowl.You don’t need to puree it in the bowl, just mash it up enough to create some liquid so that the fruit will puree well in the blender. Pour the melon and sugar into your blender and blend for 15 seconds or so, or until the sugar has dissolved.
2. Pour the watermelon puree into a container with a lid, add the vodka, and cover. Store at room temperature for a week.
3. Strain the melon pulp from the liquid by pouring it through a paper towel-lined strainer. Store in a sealed container.
• MAKES 2½ CUPS.
MIDORI MELON LIQUEUR
The world’s most famous melon liqueur can be imitated at home by pureeing fresh honeydew melon. After the liqueur sits for a week or so, strain out the melon, put on your drinking cap, and enjoy thoroughly.
1 cup pureed honeydew melon
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 cup 80-proof vodka
4 drops green food coloring
3 drops yellow food coloring
1. Puree the honeydew melon by first slicing ¼ of the melon away from the rind. Remove the seeds and then slice the melon into big chunks. Put the chunks into a medium bowl and mash with a potato masher to create some juice. Pour the mashed melon and juice into a blender and blend on medium speed for 10 to 15 seconds or until pureed. Measure 1 cup of melon into a jar with a lid.
2. Add sugar, vodka, and food coloring to the jar. Cover and shake until sugar is dissolved.
3. Store liqueur at room temperature for a week, then strain the melon pulp from the liquid by pouring it through a paper towel-lined strainer.
• MAKES 2 CUPS.
SPIRITS : COCKTAILS
I’m fascinated by Prohibition. There’s something intriguing about the way drinking alcoholic beverages in the United States reached a new level of hip when the federal government took away the right in 1920. Forever chiseled into history will be clear proof that when people are told too often how to live their lives, it has the reverse effect. Sure, you can take the cocaine out of their Coca-Cola, but stay the heck away from their whiskey.
Before Prohibition drinking was mostly a man’s sport. The drinks were pretty dull, and they were usually made with whiskey. When the cocktail parties went underground as fancy private shindigs and secret speakeasies, women got into the party full swing, and many of the mixed drinks that are still around today were invented at those gatherings using creative new ingredients.
At that time, gangs ran the liquor industry. Bootleggers imported alcohol into the country and got filthy rich. Murders, beatings, and bribery were commonplace. Shipments of booze were smuggled secretly into the U.S. from Canada and the Caribbean, and homemade distilleries were built in darkened cellars and on backwoods riverbanks. Many local governments and law enforcement officials got on the gangs’ payroll and looked the other way. Some joined in on the party because even they thought the law was lame.
The United States lost somewhere around 500 million dollars in whiskey taxes every year during Prohibition and the economy skidded into a deep depression. When the government realized that Prohibition was causing more harm than good, the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed by the Twenty-first in 1933, and the bars reopened for business. By then, though, the damage was done.
Since American distilleries had shut down, European booze-makers captured the U.S. market by immediately flooding the country with their own brands. Some domestic distillers struggled to start from scratch again, only to be forced to shut down during World War II to produce industrial alcohol for the war effort.
After the war, the distilling industry finally got back on its feet. A wider variety of spirits were in demand and the market’s taste shifted from the old standards of whiskey, rum, and gin. Vodka became the number one spirit in the later decades of the twentieth century as a new generation of drinkers enjoyed festive happy hours with fancy designer libations that edged out old cocktail formulations their parents used to drink.
Newsweek and The Saturday Evening Post reported that the beginning of the “singles age” started when the first T.G.I. Friday’s opened in New York City in 1965. Bars in growing casual restaurant chains became hot spots every night of the week where the professional crowd gathered after a hard day’s work.
The ability to quickly serve up a well-mixed cocktail with flair from an expanding number of combinations had grown into a welcomed and appreciated social art form, even overcoming a slight setback in 1988 as the subject of a really bad Tom Cruise flick.
HOW TO USE THIS SECTION
In this section I’ll show you how to use your home bar to re-create the most popular drinks from the country’s biggest and fastest-growing casual restaurant chains. For years now companies have been bottling mixers to make home bartending a simpler task. But you should know that many of the restaurant chains make their own mixers from scratch at the beginning of each business day. So to create the tastiest cocktails at home, you should take the extra time to make all your mixers—sweet & sour, pina colada mix, and mai tai mix—using the simple recipes in the last section of the book. It’s definitely worth the extra effort, especially if you’re hosting a little bash.
You’ll also need some jiggers if you want to mix good drinks from this book. As with any proper cocktail guide, I’ve listed the ingredients in ounces. A two-sided metal jigger is easy to find at liquor stores and supermarkets, and it’s cheap. First find one with 1 ounce on one side and 1½ ounces on the other side.Then you might also get one with ¾ ounce and 1¼-ounce measurements.
In case you don’t have a jigger and want to get on with the mixing, never fear. I’ve got a chart here that converts ounces so that you can mix your drinks using tablespoons and cups. Also, I’ve conveniently included cup equivalents in the recipes (in parentheses) for all measurements of 2 ounces or more.
½ ounce = 1 tablespoon
¾ ounce = 1½ tablespoons
1 ounce = 2 tablespoons
1¼ ounces = 2½ tablespoons
1½ ounces = 3 tablespoons
2 ounces = ¼ cup
3 ounces = approx.cup
4 ounces = ½ cup
6 ounces = ¾ cup
8 ounces = 1 cup
You’ll notice that brand names for spirits and sodas are specified in many of the recipes. Usually it’s because the restaurant has marketed the drink with those particular ingredients. For an exact clone, you should use the same brands. But, as a general rule, your drinks won’t suffer if you replace the Smirnoff vodka, for example, with whatever vodka you’ve got in the bar. As well, you can use any cola where Coke is specified (such as Pepsi), and any lemon-lime soda where 7UP is listed (such as Sprite), and vice-versa. But try to use Kern’s nectars for recipes that require it, and when you shop for cranberry juice cocktail, always go with Ocean Spray.
APPLEBEE’S BANANABERRY SPLIT
The secret to re-creating many of Applebee’s drinks is to stay away from the bottled cocktail mixers and make your own from scratch.The recipe for the pina colada mix is a simple 2-to-1 ratio of pineapple juice to cream of coconut and can be found on page 230.You’ll be making two drinks here, so have a companion ready.
2 ripe bananas
1 10-ounce box frozen sweetened
sliced strawberries, thawed
3 ounces Captain Morgan spiced
rum
2 cups ice
cup pina colada mix (from
page 230)
GARNISH
2 fresh whole strawberries
whipped cream
1. Cut an end off each banana—set these smaller pieces aside to use as a garnish later—then put the rest of the bananas into a blender.
; 2. Add the remaining ingredients to the blender and blend until the ice is crushed and the drink is smooth.
3. Pour the drinks into two stemmed drink glasses—such as daiquiri glasses—and add a banana piece and fresh strawberry to the rim of each glass. Add a dollop of whipped cream on top of each drink and serve with a straw.
• MAKES 2 DRINKS.
APPLEBEE’S BLUE SKIES
Check this out. The blue curaçao is drizzled over the top of the white frozen pina colada-like drink, then it slides down the inside of the glass with groovy lava lamp flair.
1 cup ice
6 ounces (¾ cup) pina colada
mix (from page 230)
1½ ounces peach schnapps
½ ounce blue curaçao liqueur
GARNISH
1 pineapple slice
1 pineapple leaf
1. Combine one cup of ice with pina colada mix and peach schnapps in a blender. Blend on high speed until ice is crushed and the drink is smooth.
2. Pour the drink into a white wine glass.
3. Invert the bowl of a spoon just over the rim of the drink. Carefully pour ½ ounce of blue curaçao over the back of the spoon so that it rests on top of the drink. The blue stuff will slowly fall down around the edge of the drink.You can trip out on this for a while, but don’t go too long since we still need to garnish.
4. Slice halfway into a fresh pineapple slice and display it on the rim of the glass. Add a pineapple leaf into the top of the drink, if you’ve got it, then add a straw and serve.
• MAKES 1 DRINK.
APPLEBEE’S PERFECT MARGARITA
You’ll need a cocktail shaker for this one. And if you want to serve it up the same way as in the restaurant you also need a small martini glass. This recipe involves making sweet & sour mix from scratch with fresh lemons and limes following the recipe on page 231. You’ll also need some simple syrup to sweeten the drink. That’s a basic common recipe requiring two parts sugar to one part boiling water.You’ll have some leftover ingredients for an additional serving if you like. And once you taste this, you’ll like.
1 cup ice
1¼ ounces Cuervo 1800 Añejo
tequila
¾ ounce Cointreau liqueur
¾ ounce Grand Marnier liqueur
1 ounce fresh lime juice
1 ounce simple syrup (from
page 226)
6 ounces (¾ cup) sweet & sour
mix (from page 231)
GARNISH
margarita salt
lime wedge
olive
1. Put ice in a shaker, followed by the tequila, Cointreau, Grand Marnier, and 1 ounce of fresh lime juice. Add 1 ounce of simple syrup and 6 ounces (¾ cup) of sweet & sour mix to the shaker. Shake well.
2. Salt the rim of a martini glass if you’d like. Spear a lime wedge and olive with a toothpick and drop it in the glass. Pour the drink into the glass through a strainer, and serve the cocktail with the rest of the drink in the shaker on the side.
• SERVES 1.
APPLEBEE’S SUMMER SQUEEZE
For this drink, make the lemonade from scratch to re-create that familiar Applebee’s barstool experience. Okay, so maybe it’s just familiar to me, and I probably shouldn’t go around announcing it. This recipe makes two drinks.
LEMONADE
4 ounces (½ cup) fresh lemon
juice (from 2 to 3 lemons)
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 cups water
3 ounces Bacardi Limon rum
6 lemon wedges
1. Prepare lemonade by combining the fresh lemon juice, sugar, and water in a small pitcher. Stir until sugar dissolves.
2. Make drinks by filling each of two 16-ounce glasses with ice. Add 1½ ounces of Bacardi Limon to each glass and fill to the top with lemonade. Squeeze two lemon wedges into each glass, and then drop the wedges into the drink. Put a slice in each of the remaining two lemon wedges and add one to the rim of each glass. Serve ’em up with straws and a smile.
• MAKES 2 DRINKS.
BAHAMA BREEZE BAHAMA MAMA
Be sure to use freshly squeezed orange juice if you want this to be a true cocktail replica. Bahama Breeze bartenders not only squeeze fresh orange juice for these famous drinks, but they also operate a sugar cane juice extractor to produce sweet nectar for other tasty libations and non-alcoholic sips.
½ ounce Malibu rum
½ ounce Myers’s dark rum
½ ounce Bacardi light rum
½ ounce banana liqueur
2 ounces (¼ cup) pineapple juice
2 ounces (¼ cup) freshly
squeezed orange juice (about
½ of a large orange)
splash Sprite
GARNISH
pineapple slice
1. Fill a 14-ounce glass with ice.
2. Pour all ingredients, except Sprite, into a shaker. Shake well and pour over ice.
3. Add a splash of Sprite on top. Garnish with a pineapple slice on the rim of the glass, add a straw, and serve.
• MAKES 1 DRINK.
BAHAMA BREEZE CARIBBEAN MAGIC
Prepare to clone another Bahama Breeze favorite. Use fresh orange juice to properly re-create the magic.
1 ounce vodka
½ ounce amaretto liqueur
½ ounce Southern Comfort
1½ ounces sweet & sour mix
(from page 231)
1½ ounces pineapple juice
2 ounces (¼ cup) freshly
squeezed orange juice
splash cranberry juice
GARNISH
pineapple slice
1. Fill a 14-ounce glass with ice.
2. Combine all ingredients, except cranberry juice, in a shaker and shake well. Pour over ice.
3. Add a splash of cranberry juice, garnish with a pineapple slice, and serve with a straw.
• MAKES 1 DRINK.
BAHAMA BREEZE MALIMBO BREEZE
A tropical wind of flavors blows over your tongue and soothes like a cool island . . . ah, just drink it.
1¼ ounces Malibu rum
¾ ounce triple sec liqueur
2 ounces (¼ cup) pineapple juice
2 ounces (¼ cup) freshly
squeezed orange juice
splash Rose’s lime juice
splash cranberry juice
GARNISH
pineapple slice
1. Fill a 14-ounce glass with ice.
2. Combine all ingredients, except lime juice and cranberry juice, in a shaker and shake well. Pour over ice.
3. Add a splash of Rose’s lime juice and cranberry juice, garnish with a pineapple slice on the rim, and serve with a straw.
• MAKES 1 DRINK.
BAHAMA BREEZE VERRY BERRY GOOD
A delicious frozen berry drink that’ll make you a verry bad speller.
1 ounce strawberry schnapps
½ ounce DeKuyper Razzmatazz
schnapps
½ ounce blueberry schnapps
cup frozen raspberries
3 ounces sweet & sour mix (from
page 228)
½ cup ice
GARNISH
pineapple slice
1. Combine all ingredients in a blender. Blend until ice is crushed and drink is smooth.
2. Pour into a 12-ounce glass, and garnish with a pineapple slice on the rim. Serve with a straw.
• MAKES 1 DRINK.
BENNIGAN’S EMERALD ISLE ICED TEA
Here’s a great version of Long Island Iced Tea with an Irish twist that’s loved by all twisted Irish.
½ ounce Cointreau liqueur
½ ounce Skyy vodka
½ ounce Captain Morgan spiced
rum
½ ounce Jameson Irish whiskey
4ounces (½ cup) sweet & sour
mix (from page 231)
1 ounce Coca-Cola
GARNISH
lemon wedge
1. Fill a 14-ounce glass with ice. Add all ingredients in the order listed.
2. Garnish with a lemon wedge and serve with a straw.
• MAKES 1 DRINK.
BENNIGAN’S IRISH COFFEE
Time for the ultimate Irish coffee clone recipe from the country’s favorite Irish-themed chain restaurant. It wakes you up, takes you down, kicks you around, and looks great with green crème de menthe drizzled over the whipped cream and a nice little cherry hat.
1 ounce Jameson Irish whiskey
½ ounce Kahlúa liqueur
10 ounces hot coffee
whipped cream
splash crème de menthe
GARNISH
maraschino cherry
1. Pour the whiskey and Kahlúa into a coffee cup.
2. Add coffee to the top of the cup.
3. Squirt a big pile of whipped cream on top of the coffee.
4. Drizzle crème de menthe over the whipped cream.
5. Garnish with a cherry on top of the whipped cream and serve.