New Year's Eve Cocktail: St. Germain Cocktail

Happy New Year! I snapped a photo with my iPhone of the cocktail we brought to our friend's New Year's Eve party, The St. Germain Cocktail. We chose it because it is a cocktail involving champagne, and partially because when we bought the St. Germain, the lovely people at the liquor store that we chatted with sent us home with a complimentary St. Germain pitcher as well. This pitcher has graduations for the proportions and ingredients for the cocktail marked on the side.

St. Germain Cocktail:

2 parts Champagne
2 parts Club Soda
1.5 parts Elderflower Liquor (St. Germain)

Stir and serve chilled.

The recipe I found later shows the cocktail in a highball over ice and states to garnish with a lemon twist, though this is not how we tried it. We also made it with a brut cava, which is Spanish sparkling wine, rather than true champagne.

The verdict: As you might imagine, the St. Germain added a floral note to the base sparkling wine favor. We both really liked it, as did all of our friends who tried it. I was surprised by the variety of people who said that they actually preferred it to champagne - from people who usually drink whiskey to people who prefer fruity drinks. I thought it might be too floral for some of the guys, but they all liked it.

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Cocktail Wednesdays: Wild Flower

It has turned colder here, and on Wednesday, I broke out the Woodford bourbon for a more spicy and warm cocktail.  Flowers were a bit of a theme for the night, since I also fried up some cheese-stuffed squash blossoms for dinner, so I ended up selecting Wild Flower for the night's cocktail.

Wild Flower:

1 oz     Gin
1⁄2 oz  Elderflower liqueur, St. Germain
1⁄2 oz  Bourbon
1 ds     Angostura Bitters

Stir with ice, strain into a large snifter.

The verdict: This drink was an interesting progression of flavors.  Rather than appearing all at once, we felt that taste began with the gin, them moved to the bourbon, and finished with an elderflower aftertaste.  One of our guests was particularly fond, and I liked it, but Scott was not much of a fan.  He said he preferred the other elderflower drinks we had tried.



Our friends brought over something else for us to try - a special limited edition mead from their excursion to the B. Nektar Meadery.  The brand is made in Ferndale, MI, just outside of Detroit, and we had a great time at their anniversary festival last year. This particular mead - Cherry Chipotle - is quite unusual, as they added cherry juice to the honey before fermentation, and steeped it in chipotle peppers after fermentation.  As the bottle recommended, we paired it with a chocolate cake, and it was a lovely, smokey, spicy combination.  I felt that it tasted more like a spicy cherry wine than a mead.

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Cocktail Wednesdays: Summer Blush

I chose Summer Blush for tonight's cocktail, since we have fresh cucumbers and we were watching Desperado, so it felt like a good time for a tequila drink.  This one calls for silver tequila, but since we had some nice Cabo Wabo on hand, I used that.

Summer Blush

1 1⁄4 oz Silver (Blanco) tequila
1 oz Elderflower liqueur, St. Germain
1⁄2 oz Lime juice
2 ds Rose water
4 ds Peychaud's Bitters
2 slices Cucumber

Muddle cucumber slices with rose water, Peychaud’s and lime juice. Add tequila, St. Germain and ice and shake. Double-strain into a cocktail glass, rub another cucumber slice around the rim and place on the rim for garnish.



The verdict: I was surprised at how girly it looked, when I mixed it up. I think the light pink color was thanks to the Peychaud's. Scott thought it was very girly, but still good. Personally, I didn't find it any more girly in taste than a margarita. With the knowledge of the amount of elderflower liqueur and the use of rose water in the drink, I was surprised that it wasn't more flowery. I thought it was nicely balanced by the tequila, and the cucumber kept it fresh. My one issue was that I was rather annoyed by the way the cucumber slice garnish kept sliding around toward my mouth, so I ended up tossing it into the drink.

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Cocktail Wednesdays: The Three Ships

I chose The Three Ships for tonight's cocktail because I was looking for something using St. Germain, and I had some lovely ripe pears that I kept forgetting to eat, and I didn't want to end up losing them like the pineapple I cut into this evening that was supposed to be part of our dinner. I thought the pear might be a nice pairing for the pork roast I ended up making.

The Three Ships

2 oz Vodka
3⁄4 oz Elderflower liqueur, St. Germain
1⁄2 oz Simple syrup
3⁄4 oz Lemon juice
1 Pear, cut into chunks
1⁄8 t Nutmeg, ground

Muddle pear and nutmeg together until well mashed. Add all other ingredients and shake vigorously over ice for 30 seconds. Fine strain into an ice filled rocks glass. Garnish with a thin slice of pear dusted with ground nutmeg.

The verdict: My source described this as a fall drink, and of course the nutmeg adds that element, but the floral notes of the St. Germain and the brightness of the lemon brought it to a more versatile place in the palate. It is sweet, and has the pear flavor, but it's not a typical fruity drink, and despite the floral liqueur and added syrup, it's not a girly drink. I liked the drink and so did our guest. Scott didn't have any because his stomach was acting up. The hard thing about this drink is straining it. I ended up having to get out a big strainer with a fine mesh and pour it into a pitcher with a wide mouth before pouring it into the glasses.  If you're going to have to get out the big strainer and the pitcher anyway, that's a good reason to make a big batch, thought the shaking might be an issue.

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Cocktail Wednesdays: Songbird

Songbird

1 1⁄2 oz Gin
1 oz Elderflower liqueur, St. Germain
3⁄4 oz Green Chartreuse
3⁄4 oz Lemon juice

Shake over ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a Maraschino cherry.

The verdict: The cocktail is a tasty, summery one. The combination of gin, Chartreuse, citrus, and a sweeter liqueur has some reminiscence of The Last Word, but more sweet and flowery, thanks to the elderflower liqueur.

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Cocktail Wednesdays: East End Cooler

This week's East End Cooler includes the St. Germain elderflower liqueur we recently added to our repertoire as well as strawberries and mint, which have just begun to harvest from our garden.

East End Cooler

1 oz     Gin
3/4 oz  Elderflower liqueur, St. Germain
3/4 oz  Lemon juice
1/4 oz  Simple syrup
1/2       Strawberry (muddled)
1/2       Strawberry (sliced, as garnish)
1 sprig Mint (as garnish)

Muddle 1/2 strawberry in a mixing glass.  Add gin, elderflower liqueur, lemon juice, and simple syrup.  Shake over ice.  Fill a highball glass with ice and slices of strawberry. and pour strained mixture into it.  Garnish with a sprig of mint.

The verdict: We both like this one very much.  It is a refreshing summer drink.  We were surprised by how well the elderflower blended with the gin and the mint.  All of the ingredients play nicely together.  In fact, Scott was saying how it seems that most of the gin drinks he likes involve citrus and fruit.  The East End Cooler serves a similar role to a mojito, gin and tonic, or a mint julep; refreshing, crisp, and summery, but not really fruity or tropical.

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Cocktail Wednesdays: Bitter Blossom

Sorry for the delay in posting. We didn't do the cocktail on Wednesday, as we were at a rehearsal dinner that night. We ended up postponing it to Friday, then, as I was writing the post, my power cord was nocked out of my computer, and I couldn't reboot despite trying to reboot from the backup drive and the OS CD. I didn't touch it Saturday or Sunday thanks to the wedding and the fact that we spent Sunday just hanging out and enjoying each other's company Suddenly, this morning, it worked fine.

On Saturday before last, we picked up a bottle of St. Germain while we were in Ann Arbor for the Scottish Dance Ball.  We happened upon a liqueur store with a huge selection and gourmet catering when we were looking for a little snack to make up for all the dancing as well as walking we did at the walk-through before the dance, and we chose to try something one new bottle that I've seen in recipes a lot.  It turned out that it was lucky I picked St. Germain, as there has apparently been some issues getting it in Michigan lately, and we happened to be at one of the places that managed to get their hands on it.

St. Germain is an elderflower liqueur. This flavor was an entirely new thing for us. I don't believe I've ever even tried elderberries. It does make me think of that insult from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "You mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries." I had hear that the elderberries part referred to alcohol. The elderflower liqueur is sweet and floral, not the sort of thing I would associate with heavy drinking. On the other hand, the more I sipped, the more sippable it became.

We tried Bitter Bossom, which is a sort of a twist on a Manhattan.

Bitter Blossom

1 oz Sweet vermouth
1 oz Rye
1/2 oz Elderflower liqueur, St. Germain
3 ds Orange bitters

Stir with ice and strain.

The verdict: As I recall, it was a lovely floral, rather different from the last time we tried something floral. Both Scott and I enjoyed it. The St. Germain is nicely warmed and spiced by the rye, and the sweetness is brought down. Still, the St. Germain dominates. I also like to try the idea suggested by some of the comments on the recipe to add another 1/2 oz of rye.

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