Dan and I have recently been really enjoying making cocktails at home at the weekend. We are definitely not big drinkers but sometimes it is just nice to have a weekend in and when you make a cocktail at home you can have it exactly the way you like it :).
We appear to have somehow accumulated a number of bottles of alcohol that are half full and are just taking up too much space, so homemade cocktails were a great solution to downsizing the stash lol. It’s also my birthday this weekend so that’s another great excuse to have a cocktail or two :).
When it comes to us making cocktails at home, Dan is all about the contents and I am all about the presentation, so between us we think we make a pretty good cocktail lol (we are aware that self-praise is no praise, but still…).
There have definitely been some that have turned out better than others, so I thought I would share with you the ones that we have enjoyed the most 🙂 . They are all relatively easy to make and taste delicious!
Rosemary and Grapefruit Vodka Twist
Ingredients
For the rosemary syrup
½ cup caster sugar
½ cup water
2 sprigs rosemary
For the Cocktail
1.5 fl oz (45ml) vodka (or gin if you prefer)
½ cup freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice
1 fl oz (30ml) of your rosemary syrup
Ice
Method
Step 1: Start off by making the rosemary syrup. To do this, place the water, sugar and rosemary sprigs into a saucepan. Bring it to the boil while stirring. Once it has boiled, turn to a medium heat and allow to simmer with the lid on for three minutes. Take it off the heat and leave it for five minutes before pouring it through a strainer into an airtight bottle or jar.
Step 2: Pour the vodka, grapefruit juice, rosemary syrup and ice into a cocktail shaker and shake vigorously for about 20 seconds. If you don’t have a shaker you can just stir all of the ingredients together really well.
Step 3: Pour directly into a glass of your choice and garnish as you like 🙂
I tried to make my glass look nice and fancy by giving it a gold rim. I did this by dipping the rim into a bowl of lemon juice and then into edible glitter which I had scattered onto a plate. I was really happy with how it turned out but the glitter was all over my face by the end so it’s really not practical! Lol.
I garnished the cocktail with a simple slice of grapefruit :).
I was afraid that this cocktail might turn out too sweet but it was actually perfect. The grapefruit and rosemary balanced out the sweetness of the syrup and it really tasted delicious!
Elderflower Gin and Tonic
Ingredients
2 fl oz Gin
6 fl oz Fever Tree Elderflower Tonic
Handful of blueberries
Rosemary Sprig
Method
Step 1: Chill your glass for an hour (it really makes all the difference when your glass is ice cold for this one)
Step 2: Add ice to your glass and pour in the gin and elderflower tonic
I garnished this one with a sprig of rosemary and a few blueberries which I placed on a cocktail stick.
Elderflower Gin and Tonic has suddenly become a super trendy and popular drink, and for good reason. It is a really nice twist on the classic G&T. This is such a simple but tasty, no fuss cocktail.
Candy Floss Champagne
Ingredients
Champagne (or sparkling wine)
Handful of candyfloss
Sugar swizzle stick (or sugar cube)
Method
Step 1: Pour a glass of champagne (3/4 full)
Step 2: Add a sugar swizzle stick to the glass
Step 3: Add piece of candy floss to the top of the glass (make sure the candy floss does not touch the champagne or it will dissolve immediately.
When I saw a picture of this cocktail on Pinterest, with candy floss in it, I was so intrigued that I just had to make it! Firstly, I don’t remember the last time I had candy floss and secondly, I just thought it looked so pretty in the glass of bubbles.
I didn’t actually realise you could buy candy floss in a supermarket. I thought you could really only get it at a carnival and circus or places like that lol.
It turns out that the most difficult part of this cocktail was trying to get my hands on swizzle sticks! Swizzle sticks are basically a fancy way of presenting sugar (for places where a sugar bowl or cube just don’t make the cut) lol. The most frustrating thing was that I had previously seen ‘swizzle sticks’ in the supermarket beside where we live at Christmas time, but as soon as I am actually interested in buying them, they become completely unavailable in every single shop in Abu Dhabi!! I even attempted to make my own but this turned out to be a complete disaster! :(. In the end, good ol’ Amazon came to the rescue as always, but this was literally the only place online that I could find swizzle sticks at a price that was not absolutely ridiculous for sugar!
You can definitely just pop in a cube of sugar if you struggle to find swizzle sticks like I did!
The effort involved in getting the ingredients for this drink were however worth it in the end. It tasted amazing (a sweeter version of your average glass of champagne) but I think it also looks amazing. These would be such nice cocktails to serve at a party or for a very nice occasion :).
Let me know if you have any favourite ‘at home cocktails’ or if you try to make any of the ones I’ve suggested.
As it’s my birthday tomorrow, I feel as though a candy floss champagne would be the perfect way to celebrate, so I think I will enjoy a few of these this weekend 🙂
I hope everyone has a great weekend x