Bloody Mary -

by BS

Cocktail O’Clock: A Greener Bloody Mary

(Photo courtesy of Noah Fecks)

When you’re in your 20s you spend the week before New Year’s planning out your drinking schedule for the big night.

When you’re in your 30s you’re more concerned with how you’ll treat the hangover the next day.

Fortunately, we’ve got that one solved for you. Putting a Southern spin on America’s favorite brunch cocktail, the Green Bloody Mary mixes up Ole Smokey Moonshine corn whiskey with tomatillos, pickles, and plenty of spice for a New Year’s Day drink that will kick your 2015 into high gear.

Green Bloody Mary

6 tomatillos
1 dill pickle
3 garlic cloves
2 yellow heirloom tomatoes
1 serrano chili (seeds remove)
1 oz. Ole Smoky Original Moonshine
1 1?2 tablespoon preserved lemon
1?2 teaspoon each sugar, salt and pepper
Juice of 1?2 lime
3 dashes Tabasco

In a blender, puree ingredients. Fill glass with ice and strain in blended mixture.

To salt rim of glass: Put 1 tablespoon each salt, pepper, sugar and Aleppo pepper (optional) in a saucer. Wet rim with lime wedge, dab in saucer.

*Cocktail recipe courtesy of Distilled NYC

by cyborg

Sunday, Bloody Funday: Bloody Geisha

Look; if you see me on a Sunday afternoon, it is safe to assume that I’m drunk. Why? Because of this Bloody Geisha. This Sake Bloody Mary is the perfect drink to accompany your eggs benedict or any other brunch gems.

Let me just blow your mind by saying: bacon.bits.rim. YES!- Why has this not been instituted elsewhere? I refuse to live in a world where bacon bit rims aren’t a part of daily life. So if you need a twist to your Sunday brunch, follow my lead. Also, just in case you were wondering, those are blue cheese-stuffed olives and deep-fried jalapenos casually sitting next to BACON. Lets get jiggy.

Bloody Geisha

Endless Poptails: Bloody Mary Popsicles

Thanks to last week’s commenter, Angela, whose request for a Bloody Mary reminded us that being in cruise control sucks. With that, we decided that, hell yeah—let’s interrupt the summer sweet series with a savory Bloody Mary Poptail.

To start things off, we used heirloom tomatoes, because well, that’s what is in our backyard right now.If you don’t have any in season where you are, regular tomatoes will work just as well. Or for complete ease of mixing, skip the fresh tomatoes for some tomato juice and adjust the flavor accordingly. Whatever you use for the body, don’t forget the chili powder.

We guarantee you that this chili powder infused Bloody Mary on a stick will be a summer addiction to remember.

Bloody Mary Popsicles

Just In Time for Summer: AP Settles Barbecue Debate; Deems Foodie Real Word

Today the Associated Press releases its first ever food section for the 2011 AP Stylebook. What does this mean for food lovers? We can finally settle the debate on what barbecue means: Can grilling and barbecuing be used interchangeably?

Growing up, I would use barbecue to simply mean a party where we grilled foods. We were not eating actual food that had been barbecued: no pulled meats, with either dry or wet rubs coating the skin. We ate dogs and burgers. As I learned more about the severity of the vinegar vs. tomato-based barbecue debates, I became careful not to use the term barbecue when I all I wanted to do was grill jalepeno poppers. Although, now it looks like I’ve been doing it right all along:

barbecue: The verb refers to the cooking of foods (usually meat) over flame or hot coals. As a noun, can be both the meat cooked in this manner or the fire pit (grill). Not barbeque or Bar-BQ.

But this isn’t the only food war settled. Among AP Food Editor Jason M. Hirsch‘s most interesting findings, which he detailed on a call last week:

Bloody mary is not capitalized, but sloppy Joe is;
Fluffernutter is trademarked, as well as Broccolini;
Use foil when referring to aluminum foil, and definitely not tin foil. (“It’s never been made out of tin,” Hirsch discovered.)

Hirsch admitted he was “puzzled over whether to include foodie.” But he deemed the word “pervasive” enough in the culture to provide it a proper definition:

foodie: Slang for a person with a strong interest in good food.

While I hate the term, I do find it useful when describing the current crop of food lovers. It’s more fresh than gourmet: “a person who likes fine food and is an excellent judge of food and drink;” but also sits above the fine line of gourmand: “a person who likes good food and tends to eat to excess; a glutton.” (Or does it?)

My favorite find, though, brings me back to the frightening, yet ridiculous days of post 9/11: the changing of french fries to freedom fries. Why is the f in french not capitalized when talking about these magically fried spuds: “lowercase french because it refers to the style of cut, not the nation.”

in Trends 6 comments

by BS

Top 10 New Things to Put in Your Drink

We’ve certainly never been against drinking here at ES — it just traditionally takes a back seat to eating. However, in the last year we’ve found ourselves getting more and more excited about cocktails — because every time we go out we discover our favorite ingredients have migrated from the plate to the glass. From fruits and vegetables to spices and more, here are our top 10 favorite new things to mix in our drinks.

10. Saffron

A saffron ice cube anchors the Venetian, one of several new food-inspired cocktails at Tulio in Seattle.

Not just for paella anymore, the Spanish spice has started showing up in cocktail glasses, too. Saffron Restaurant and Lounge in Minneapolis has mixed the pricier-than-gold flakes into saffron-mango mojitos, saffron-blood orange martinis, and their current offering, the gin-based Saffron Rose. Tulio, an Italian restaurant in Seattle, recently introduced The Venetian — a vodka cocktail poured over an orange-y saffron ice cube. For those experimenting at home, the folks over at Video Jug have a video on how to mix a saffron vodka martini. (Tulio photo: Evan Johnson)

9. Beets

Fresh beet juice, ginger and vodka make up the Beetnik at Colorado's Dogwood Cocktail Cabin.

It’s hard to make a drink look more dramatic than when filled up with bright red beet juice, as in the beet sangria at New York’s Tailor or the Beetnik, a vodka-ginger-beet concoction served at Crested Butte, Colorado’s Dogwood Cocktail Cabin. Meanwhile, the gals at The Humble Kitchen have a recipe for their own tequila-based Beetnik. (Dogwood photo: eenwall)

8. Mole

Mole bitters liven up the Palermo Gentleman at Death + Co. in New York.

Mexico’s spicy-sweet chocolate treat is making the surprising transition from tamales to cocktails via Bittermens Bitters newest product, Xocolatl Mole Bitters. A neat way to add quite a substantial kick to any drink, the mole bitters are showing up in new cocktails like the tequila-based Chipilo at Brooklyn’s Buttermilk Channel and several options at Manhattan’s Death + Co. (Photo: Vidiot)

7. Sriracha

Every Top Chef contestant’s favorite secret ingredient can save a cocktail menu too, as in “El Scorcho,” a fiery mix of habanero infused vodka, sriracha, and jalapeno foam at Bend, Oregon’s Blacksmith restaurant. The sauce also makes a great replacement for Tabasco in bloody Marys — the blog White on Rice Couple has a great recipe, and if you want to get super-serious, check out their instructions on how to make sriracha from scratch. (Photo: White on Rice Couple)

6. Chinese Five Spice

A Chinese five spice grilled lemon garnishes the Fortune Teller at Bar Pleiades in New York.

Another ingredient Chinese chefs may be shocked to discover in American cocktails, C5S is showing up both as a garnish, as in the Fortune Teller drink served at the Surrey Hotel‘s new Bar Pleiades in New York, and as the basis of a drink, such as Imbibe magazine’s Five-Spice Fizz. (Photo: Bar Pleiades)

Next: Top 5 New Things to Put in Your Drink

in Drinks / Eggs / Endless Cocktails / Featured / Lists / Trends 13 comments