Cocktail – Volcanic Isle

I am very pleased with how this cocktail turned out. A pleasant balance of sweet and sour this drink is foamy and delicious.

Makes enough for 2 glasses:

½ ripe pawpaw

Dozen red glace cherries (not drained)

½ lemon

6-8 dessert spoons of vodka (I used Stil Vodka)

lemonade

In a blender pulp the pawpaw. Add the cherries and juice from the lemon. Blend again so the cherries are diced but not mushed. Spoon in the vodka and hand stir together. Place it in the fridge to chill for a few hours. Once chilled spoon the mix into 2 glasses so they are about 2/3 full. Top up the glass with lemonade. Stir gently—the mixture will froth like molten lava & a nice creamy yellow foam form on top. Enjoy!

When Cocktails go wrong

I’ve been slack on creating a new cocktail but we’ve just got a new bottle of vodka, so I hope to have a new drink up by the end of this week. Until then I thought I would share one of my less than successful combinations: I made a coconut/lime mixture that Chris said tasted like a fish marinade…

Cocktail - Pacific Pacifier

This is it! The best ever cocktail. It takes a bit of effort as you need to make the coconut milk but it is definitely worth it. (Canned milk might be ok as a substitute, but I can’t say I’ve tried). To make it I cut up a coconut and placed chunks of the flesh in a blender with some water. Whiz it up and drain off the liquid through a sieve. (Apparently squeezing it through muslin is better but I don’t have any).

Pacific Pacifier:
o Fresh coconut milk
o Banana
o Vanilla essence
o Cocoa powder
o Cherry Bandy Liqueur

Ok, so take two cups of coconut milk, and blend with the banana and 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence and 2 teaspoons of cocoa. Place in freezer until slushy. Blend in 1 tablespoon of cherry brandy. Pour into wine glass and garnish with a sprinkle of toasted coconut. If required these can be left in the fridge for about half and hour before you need them.

You can toast the leftover coconut flesh from making the milk by lightly frying it – without using oil. It can then be used for making coconut ice or Kura’s Rum Slice-recipe to follow at a later date.

Raro Sling - Cocktail

This drink recipe is giving me a bit of trouble, despite its simplicity. Currently I think I’ve made it too sweet so I might think about swapping the lemonade for tonic water, or possibly using homemade lemonade instead of fizzy…

Anyway, here’s what I’ve done so far:

Sweet Raro Sling
- Lemonade
- Vanilla rum
- Grenadine
- Glace Cherries
Freeze sliced up cherries into ice cubes. Stack ice into cup. Pour in lemonade. Carefully spoon in Grenadine – don’t stir! Add a splash of rum. + optional cherry garnish.
Serve with fresh fruit platter.
Pictured here with: watermelon, oranges, pawpaw and starfruit.

Cocktail Of The Week – The Tragic Slapper

I was planning to unleash the Raro Sling this week but it didn’t work out. Fortunately the Tragic Slapper (after a few false starts) saved the day.
This is a really nice sweet drink – but don’t make my mistake and use lime as a garnish, just use 3 whole glace cherries.

The Tragic Slapper
- Fresh pawpaw
- Gingerale
- Cherry Brandy Liqueur (I used Continental Cherry Brandy Liqueur)
- Glace cherries to garnish

Pulp the pawpaw and leave in the freezer until it becomes a nice icy slush. Spoon the icy pawpaw into a wineglass to about ¾ full. Top up the glass with gingerale. Don’t stir. Gently pour over the top one dessertspoon of cherry brandy liqueur. Add the glace cherry garnish. Drink ASAP.

[Acknowledgement: I saw the of combination pawpaw juice and gingerale in the Cook Islands Cook Book.]

Cocktail Of The Week - The Jack Sparrow

With Chris working I’m going to have a lot of time on my hands. And while I laze on the deck, daydreaming of writing novels, I’ve decided I can best augment that experience by inventing my own Tropical Cocktails. Here’s my first attempt (a big thanks to Han for supplying the decorations):

The Jack Sparrow
- 1/3 of a fresh lime (skin on) per glass, blended with 3/4 of a cup crushed ice.
- Coca Cola
- Vanilla flavoured light rum (I used Cruzan Vanilla Rum) to taste
- Tropical themed Decorations

Apart from having to spit out the lime peel blended up with the ice I think this drink was a great success – refreshing and very tasty. Maybe next time I’ll just use plain lime juice. Live and learn. ; ) Next week’s cocktail, “The Raro Sling”…