Welcome to my Blogiversary! Enter if you dare! Because the theme of this party is The Devil! I’ve even dressed up for the occasion.
We’re about to get things started. But first, allow me to introduce you to our eponymous cocktail du jour – The Devil!
When I was younger I longed to be the kind of person who had HollyGolightlyesqe parties where glamorous women smoked cigarettes from ridiculously long cigarette holders, people danced in crowded rooms and a drunk invariably wore a lampshade on his head.People at these parties seemed to get drunk incredibly quickly and I had been wondering what it was that, seemingly in a matter of minutes could turn you from this:
To This:
Now I think I know. It’s this:
Beware! The Devil is Potent! Delicious but it’s got a kick like a kangaroo! And totally perfect to kick off my devilishly themed 4th birthday celebrations!
Even better, it’s hellishly simple to make. Just three ingredients and you’re done! The original recipe calls for a splash of lemon juice and a lemon garnish. I had some kumquats left over from last week’s canapés so I used them instead.
Add the ice cubes to a glass and stir in the port, the vermouth and the lemon (kumquat) juice.
Strain into the chilled cocktail glass.
Garnish with a twist of lemon or a kumquat slice.
Enjoy!
Just remember to go easy – I think where The Devil is concerned, we need to heed the words of Dorothy Parker.
“I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I’m under the table,
after four I’m under my host.”
On a non-birthday note, many thanks to both Donna and Yinzerella for letting me know the comments aren’t working. The WordPress support team of people a lot smarter than me are working to help me fix it! Until it’s fixed, please feel free to comment via Facebook or Twitter!
Have a great week! I”ll be preparing us some devillish appetizers!
Dear readers…you have no idea of the indignities I sometimes have to suffer to bring you this.
But first, let me tell you how my recipe for Cherry Beer Margaritas recipe came about. A little while ago, I was pottering around on Pinterest and I found several recipes for Cherry Beer Margaritas. Happy Days, I thought and began a clicking frenzy. Only, not one of these recipes was what I expected. I thought that these would be Cherry Beer Margaritas….i.e. margaritas made from Belgian Cherry Beer. Instead, they were all beer margaritas with some sort of cherry flavouring.
I could not find a Cherry Beer Margarita the way I envisaged it for love or money. And so I decided to make one.
First problem. I thought I would just run down to my local bottle shop and pick up some cherry beer and make me some margaritas. Uh uh. Not so speedy there, Gonzales.
They had Ginger Beer, Mango Beer, Lychee Beer, Chilli Beer, about a billion flavours of Cider and Perry but no Cherry Beer. This was repeated everywhere. I actually shelved the idea for several months simply because I could not find Cherry Beer anywhere.
That changed on the weekend. But not without a cost.
I finally tracked down the one bottle shop in Melbourne that sells Belgian Cherry Beer.
I asked for two bottles but they were on a very high shelf so the shopkeeper needed to climb up a ladder to get them. Whilst he was climbing he started telling me that they were getting more, different cherry beers in a few weeks. He rattled off some names.
“I used to drink a Cherry Beer…but it wasn’t either of those”
“Was it Belle Vue?”
“Yes! That’s the one”.
He said “That was a while ago”.
I had totally lost interest by then and was looking round the shop to see what else I could buy. “Yeah, I guess”
“Wow….was a REALLY long time ago” The dude was giving me a look that quite clearly said “Would you like a pension card and a zimmer frame to go with your two beers, Granny?”
“I beg your pardon what?” I asked him, giving him my best death stare and resisting the urge to kick that ladder right out from under him.
“Erm…nothing. Would you like anything else with that?”
How about one of these?
The Cherry Beer Margaritas were everything I wanted them to be. A gorgeous deep red, a great cherry and citrus taste, a good kick of salt and a pleasant hit of booze. Perfect drinking for a sunny afternoon!
I used a mix of vintage merlot salt I bought at Gewurzhaus and sea salt for the glass. The merlot salt is such a gorgeous colour and looked really pretty on the glass but any salt would do.
It’s almost a shame these tasted so good because I won’t be going back to that shop in a hurry. Anyway, I doubt these ancient bones would make the trip!
“Everyone knows what rockets at sea mean,” said the portly Boston Harbor pilot.
“They mean distress…It means, please come to me because I am in trouble. Simple as that.”
“But you see, that’s just my problem. If it is that simple, I’m trying to understand why the ship that The Titanic saw did not come….Is there any reason why the captain would not go to the aid of the distressed ship?”
“No, if he saw them, he must go. It’s the oldest tradition of the sea.”
The Californian was the closest ship to The Titanic on the night it sank, possibly only 8 miles away. It was close enough for crew members to see the lights on the sinking ship and the eight distress rockets sent up by The Titanic. They alerted the Captain. And, yet, they did not go to help.
This is the story of The Midnight Watch.
The Midnight Watch is a super read. I loved it and I’m sure it is going to rank high in my books of the year. Even though, it is also soooooo frustrating. Right from the start you know that The Californian did not go to help The Titanic. And of course, you want to know why. And at times you want to reach into the book and shake one of the people and yell “Why? Why didn’t you do something?” WHY?” Or, as one of the reporters in the book says to Captain Lord of The Californian
“If you’re the only one who can speak, then you must speak more!”
Chocolate Eclairs were served to the First Class Passengers on The Titanic.
The writing is beautiful. From tales of heroism and gallantry to cowardice and inaction, The Midnight Watch covers the best and worst of human behaviour both in the face of, and following momentous events:
“Because by now we knew the numbers. Fifty-eight first-class men has found their way into the lifeboats but fifty-three third-class children had not. It was an almost perfect correlation. For almost every rich man who lived a poor child had died”
American Ice Cream was on the menu for Second Class Passengers on The Titanic. Passengers in First Class were served French Ice Cream
“What Franklin (Head of The White Star Line) thought of the Captain I couldn’t know, but I did know that if he, Franklin, had been accused of abandoning so many people, the weight of shame would have broken him. And yet, Lord’s head was upright, he seemed to bear no weight at all”
So, so good. The Midnight Watch not only brought the story of The Californian but the entire period to life. This is the kind of historical fiction that I love; writing that truly transports you to another time and place. Oh and, if you wiki Captain Lord, he looks EXACTLY how I imagined he would!
When I read I see the words as a movie in my head and I think that this would make a fabulous film. The journalist searching for justice, the proud, flinty Captain; the second officer torn between loyalty and a desire to tell the truth. It would be amazing.
Third Class passengers on The Titanic were fed hearty, no frills fare. Fresh bread and butter, cold meat, cheese and pickles were part of their menu.
I was initially disappointed with the “answer” posited by David Dunn as to why Lord and The Californian did not go to the aid of The Titanic. Although perfectly plausible, It felt to me like an anti-climax; such a little reason for such an appalling consequence. But then I realised – pretty much any answer would have been disappointing. Because the only acceptable answer to the question of “Why didn’t you save the 1500 people who died that night?” would have been “Because we were too busy saving 1501 people elsewhere”.
Nonetheless a totally brilliant read.
Punch Romaine was served To First Class passengers on The Titanic as a palate cleanser between the first and second courses on the fateful night of April 14th. It is a white wine, rum and champagne cocktail served over…wait for it…. a mound of crushed ice. Which is surely worth it’s own line in Alanis Morisette’s Ironic. Don’tcha think?
On a total tangent, Romaine was one of the names my parents had picked out for me before I was born. Can you imagine a more foodie name than Romaine Fryer? Then again, Taryn was bad enough growing up, can you imagine going through life with the same name as a lettuce?
You know what else is a lettuce?
Iceberg.
Which brings us back to…..doh, oh, oh, oh….or Punch Romaine.
“I am the star of screaming headlines and campfire ghost stories.
I am one of the four Black-Eyed Susans.
The lucky one”
Black-Eyed Susans by Julia Heaberlin is the story of Tessa Cartwright. As a teenager, she was abducted and left for dead in a field of Black-Eyed Susan flowers along with other dead and dying girls. They become collectively known as the Black-Eyed Susans. Tessa is the only survivor.
Now, in her thirties, the man accused of the crime, the man whom Tessa’s testimony helped put away is facing death row. And Tessa is having doubts about his guilt. And if he’s innocent, then the real killer is still out there….
I came to this book in two ways.
It was one of the selections we had for our Crime /Thriller month in bookclub along with Maestra (the one we chose), The Method (which I am currently reading) and The Ex (which I just bought as I noticed it was super cheap as I was getting the link).
Then, the very next day after we had made our choice, Heather who writes the blog Meta’s Meals wrote a very positive review of Black-Eyed Susans on Goodreads and I promptly decided that it was going to the top of my reading list!
I thoroughly enjoyed reading Black Eyed Susan’s. It was very suspenseful and the plot was original which is a really hard thing to do in crime fiction. I only hope Maestra which is our book club choice is half as good. Mind you, last year we chose Girl on The Train which…urrggghhhh…I cannot even tell you how much I hated that book.
But this one’s good. And it has a gorgeous cover!
Whilst reading The Black-Eyed Susans, I discovered that there is a cocktail called the Black-Eyed Susan. It is the official drink of the Preakness Stakes Horse race which is run in Baltimore each year as the winning horse is draped in a blanket made of these flowers.
This was delicious. I love pineapple juice and St Germain in cocktails so there was no way I wasn’t going to like this. The lime juice gave it a nice little kick of tanginess too!
The Black-Eyed Susan also got the thumbs up from resident bon vivant F Scott.
Oh, and before anyone complains, I know the flowers I have used in my photos are not Black-Eyed Susans. I am not even sure if they grow here, or, if they did when they would flower. Anyhoo, the gerberas were the closest (only) thing my local florist had that came close!
Here’s the recipe. Why not make one and have a sip whilst reading the book!
And what a way to bring it back, even if I do say so myself. Today we a celebrating the 1764 birth of a British Lord, with a drink inspired by our favourite filicidal maniac!
Charles Grey, born 13 March 1764 was the Second Earl Grey and the Prime Minister of Britain from 1830 to 1834. And yes, he is THE Earl Grey that gave the tea it’s name.
Earl Grey Tea, which is traditionally black tea flavoured with bergamot, is reputed to have been made for the Earl by a Chinese Mandarin to offset the taste of the dodgy water at the Earl’s ancestral home.
And today we are celebrating the Earl with my version of a drink named after Leland Palmer, which in turn is a twist on the Arnold Palmer. I know, it’s like going down a rabbit hole isn’t it?
For those of you not of a certain age, Leland Palmer is a character from the tv show Twin Peaks. He is the father of Laura Palmer and ****spoiler alert***** (if you can still have spoilers on something that is 25 years old) later revealed to have killed her whilst under the possession of an evil entity called Bob.
The Leland Palmer cocktail is the creation of Daniel Boelte who was inspired to make it after being hungover at his girlfriend’s house and watching an episode of Twin Peaks. The original Leland Palmer uses jasmine tea, whilst, in honour of the day, I used Earl Grey Tea – as well as being Charles Grey’s Birthday, it’s also my wedding anniversary. So I guess I can switch up my cocktails however I want.
So, did my twist on the Leland Palmer result in unleashing a Bob of cocktail? I am totally, utterly may be slightly biased but I think not. This was delightful!
The bergamot in the Earl Grey combined beautifully with the fresh citrus and the limoncello. The herby notes of the tea also works really well with the botanicals in the gin.
The bitterness in the grapefruit and the tea is balanced by the sweetness of the honey and the limoncello with the lemon adding some zing.
This is totally gorgeous. Everything balances beautifully and you can add as much or little soda as you like depending on your needs. We drank them quite long (ie with lots of soda) over a summer afternoon and it was perfection however I can also envisage drinking it with just a splash of soda in winter in colder months.
Happy Birthday Charles Grey, Happy wedding anniversary to me and the fussiest eater in the world, thank you Daniel Boelte for the original recipe and to Leland Palmer for inspiring you to make a drink.
When I was younger I longed to be the kind of person who had HollyGolightlyesqe parties where glamorous women smoked cigarettes from ridiculously long cigarette holders, people danced in crowded rooms and a drunk invariably wore a lampshade on his head.People at these parties seemed to get drunk incredibly quickly and I had been wondering what it was that, seemingly in a matter of minutes could turn you from this:
Beware! The Devil is Potent! Delicious but it’s got a kick like a kangaroo! And totally perfect to kick off my devilishly themed 4th birthday celebrations!
Even better, it’s hellishly simple to make. Just three ingredients and you’re done! The original recipe calls for a splash of lemon juice and a lemon garnish. I had some kumquats left over from last week’s canapés so I used them instead.
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