Hey Toasties, what are you up to this fine Friday afternoon? I’m looking for good summer cocktail recipes, because I like the idea of sipping summer cocktails on my screened-in porch. If you have a favorite, maybe tell me about it in the comments, and maybe I’ll learn to make it this very weekend.
This was a short week that felt very very long to me. It was a good week, though!
Kaye M., who created the viral hashtag #YesAllWomen, wrote this important, honest reflection for its one-year anniversary.
Mallory’s The Thomas Hardy Boys made me so happy:
Frank reached into his jacket pocket to be sure several important legal papers which he was to deliver for Mr. Hardy were still there. Relieved to find them, Frank chuckled and said, “After the help we gave Dad on his latest case, he ought to set up the firm of Hardy and Sons.”
“The world is not ripe for us,” Joe said, with eyes black and unshining as dirt.
“Isn’t he one of the most famous private detectives in the country? And aren’t we bright too?” Frank asked. Then, becoming serious, he added, “I wish we could solve a mystery on our own, though.”
“A woman is a mystery,” Joe said. “Time is a mystery. A cupboard is a mystery. The human heart is a mystery, and we are too many.”
Joel Kim Booster told us why Vin Diesel would make a great boyfriend.
Anna Pulley gave the world the Tegan and Sara haiku we didn’t even know we needed.
Christine Kathleen McMahon shared how she tried to make sense of her arthritis when she was a child with a lot of curiosity and little spiritual guidance.
Marika offered some perfect advice on how “to be kind to oneself in the absence of love for oneself,” with help from Franz Wright’s “To Myself.”
Karissa Chen wrote this awesome piece on Asian/Pacific Islander American literature, how she thinks it should be defined, and why we need more (MUCH MORE!) of it.
I vented a little bit about stuff we hear as an interracial family. My husband asked me why I didn’t make the list longer (“I know you’ve heard way more than that”), and the truth is, I cut myself off because I just got tired and kinda mad all over again. LET’S DO BETTER.
Happy weekend, friends.
Tags: meta, toast points
The “Wellesley” cocktail (which I think I invented) is between a gin-and-tonic and a gimlet:
Fill a tall glass with ice. Add:
1 jigger (1 1/2 oz) Farigoule Thyme Liqueur
1 jigger Rose’s Lime Juice
1-2 jiggers gin
Fill the rest of the glass with tonic water. Garnish with a slice of lime and a sprig of thyme, if you have thyme on your hands.
thanks!!
Oh my god I love you.
It was my birthday yesterday and my girlfriend invented a drink for me with dark rum, brandy, ginger beer and a splash of apple juice. It was delicious. She’s calling it the Carribean Twister. (Please no one tell me that this drink already exists under some other name and some non-beloved-by-me invention.)
Happy birthday, a day late! Do you know the approximate amounts she used?
Mojitos are my go-to summer drink: half a lime cut into 4 wedges, a stem’s worth of fresh mint leaves, white rum, half cup of club soda, 2tbsp white sugar (super fine if you can get it), and ice. Muddle the mint and half the lime wedges, add the sugar and rest of the lime and muddle some more, add the rum and club soda, and pour over ice. A little fiddly but totally worth it.
I make mojitos a lot in the summer and LOVE them! I am just looking for some other fun drinks too. But those are also my go-to.
A couple of weeks ago I was out and had a “Spicy Mojito.” It was basically a dark ‘n’ stormy (dark rum, ginger beer, lime) with a lot of muddled mint leaves at the bottom. Heaven in a pint glass.
Fun twist on a mojito: toss some mango in a jar with rum, let it sit for some length of time that works for you, then make mojitos.
I found a whole bunch of old-ish rhubarb on clearance at my local grocery store the other day and made this: http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2015/04/strawberry…
I’ve been putting it in gin and seltzer water, but you could (and should) put it in pretty much anything.
Infused simple syrups in general are so easy! You just boil equal parts water and sugar until the sugar completely dissolves and then steep LITERALLY ANYTHING in it like weird tea. Herbs (basil and lemongrass are both especially great), tea, fruit, cloves, whatever. Then you are the fanciest lady with the fanciest cocktails.
thank you for the syrup tips!
I made a cocktail with honeysuckle vodka, lemon juice, lavender simple syrup and club soda that was delicious and sweet but not boring. I want to try it with honey, and maybe a few blueberries and regular vodka instead of the honeysuckle vodka.
Also, I’m having people over for a cocktails by the pool party tomorrow- it’s the first Real Party I’ve ever hosted and I’m nervous but excited. Since the theme is “bring a pitcher of cocktails to share and hang out by or in the pool” I’m hoping it’s foolproof but still. My inner Southern Lady is worried about not having enough food or ice.
that sounds really good. I don’t know, I always think these things sound good, and then I try to make them myself and remember why I’m not a mixologist.
I don’t have detailed instructions for this, but the best summer cocktail is one I had once in a restaurant under the name “Tears of Icarus” but which was (I am now sophisticated enough to know) merely a sidecar made with Metaxa in place of cognac. it is a very good replacement and makes a very good drink.
Aviations are good for every season.
1 1/2 ounces gin (type of gin impacts taste strongly but it’s always deliciousl)
1/2 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice
3/4 ounces maraschino liqueur
1/4 ounce crème de violette (optional)
Maraschino cherry, for garnish
If your champagne hand is empty – French 75
2 oz Champagne, 1/2 oz Lemon juice, 1 oz Gin, 2 Dashes Simple syrup
or a Champagne Cocktail
Drop a sugar cube in the bottom of a glass, soak in angostura bitters, fill glass with champagne.
I have a really lazy cocktail I made a few times in the winter that is: whiskey, ginger ale, frozen berries (raspberries usually), and sometimes lime, but the point is that now that it’s summer I am making it my job to put frozen berries in as many things as possible.
I am a big fan of a lavender gin and tonic! Lavender gin is one of the lowest-maintenance booze infusions, in my experience. The whole process typically goes:
– Put 2 tbsp lavender buds into a quart-sized mason jar
– Seal the jar, shake, and infuse for 12-24 hours (sorry for the wide range… it depends on the potency of the buds!)
– Strain out the buds (with a seive, or just the lid of the original jar)
– Pour yourself a glass of your delicious infusion and add your tonic!
Oh man, when my lavender finally flowers, I’m going to have to try this! Are those dried buds, or fresh?
My favorite summer cocktail is Campari and soda, only partially because so many people hate Campari that I could leave it around in grad school/ giant shared apartments and no one else would drink it. But basically it’s 1 part Campari to 2 parts soda water, a giant handful of ice, and a squeeze of lime.
If anyone has more creative things I can do with Campari, I would like to hear those too.
It is because Campari tastes like bitter ashes dying in my mouth!
That said, it goes into cocktails with OJ and grenadine. I’m not saying it’s better than what you’ve already got, because ugh. Campari 😉
Campari fans unite! Historically I’ve done variations on the Campari and soda like Campari, soda and a splash of elderflower or blackcurrant syrup but my big triumph came a few months ago when I mixed a splash of Campari with half a glass of unsweetened agua de jamaica and topped it off with club soda. Beautiful, ruby red and refreshing. I live in Mexico so jamaica –a dried red hibiscus with a tart, slightly cranberry-ish flavor– is everywhere. You can probably find it in any Latino market, but if you don’t have one around, just use Red Zinger or any other hibiscus tea.
Or you can just pretend you’re in Venice and make a Venetian Spritz.
If you want a more alcoholic punch, mix 1 part campari to 2 parts gin, add a splash of soda and a generous slice or wedge of orange. Served on the rocks. It’s not quite a negroni. Good mixers for Campari include prosecco, orange juice, gin, vodka, mezcal and vermouth.
Complicated and bitter is one of the best ways for alcohol to be! I like Cynar & soda even more than campari, so you should give it a try if you haven’t ever.
(But also, Pimm’s cups are the very best of all summer drinks — made with good ginger beer, sliced cucumber, strawberries, and lime, and mint and basil leaves. I make them pretty weak, because I like having a few and I’m a delicate flower, but you can add gin and make them stronger.)
y’all are making my pomosas look really basic.
I LOVE THEM THOUGH AND THEIR ANTIOXIDANT POWER
Lately I’ve been drinking dark ‘n’ stormies (hooray for summer!) but with bourbon instead of dark rum. The bourbon is a bit smoother than the dark rum, which brings out the spicy taste of the ginger beer even more. DELISH.
Last year I learned that this is called a Kentucky Mule! Cheers!
My best friend’s sangria recipe is the best: bottle of red wine, one cup of sprite, one cup of peach brandy, one cup of orange juice, one cup of cranberry juice. Cup up limes, lemons, oranges, apples, and peaches and leave them to soak for a while. Enjoy!
Cucumber Tom Collins are good- muddle a bunch of cucumber slices and pour your basic Tom Collins (gin + lemonade, or gin + simple syrup + lemon + soda) on top. You could also do this with tequila instead of gin and lime instead of lemon- given how good lime-cucumber gatorade is (totally awesome) I bet it would be tasty.
Margaritas are good but kind of a pain to make, and 1000% stickier than all other cocktails.
And for when I’m lazy, we lay in a stockpile of vinho verde, which is obviously not a cocktail, but still delicious.
Oh man, like most of the folks above, I love a good gin drink during the summer. My go-tos are a cucumber lavender one I named The Sabrina (after my roommate’s mother, as she was the first to try one) and a grapefruit one. To make The Sabrina, mix like 10 dashes of lavender bitters, juice from half a lime, and some agave syrup together. Add 2 shots of gin and maybe about the same amount of cucumber juice (this is great if you’re making tzatziki sauce, cause you can just save what you squeezed out of the cucumber you’re turning into sauce). Then throw in some ice cubes and top with club soda. And for the Grapefruit Drink – mix a bit less than half a shot of Benedictine with juice from half a lime, 1-2 shots gin, juice from a quarter of a grapefruit, ice, and club soda. Note that all of my measurements are approximate. I just mix stuff together until I like what I taste.
Also, Nicole, I went to the JHU Arts & Sciences Masters graduation ceremony last Friday and saw your name under outstanding graduates in the Writing program. Congrats!
Thank you so much!! 😀 It was a BIG SURPRISE, no one told us ahead of time that we’d be receiving awards, so I showed up to the spring reading (just as an audience member, to see the spring graduates read) and I had to go onstage in front of everyone and my hair looked bad and I looked like a tomato; it was pretty awesomely awkward but fun! My brand.
My patio garden is full of herbs and cucumbers so I’ve been making these gin cocktails:
– muddle some mint and slices of cuke (I use a veg peeler to make strips) in a shaker.
– add gin & ice & shake
– pour over ice, pour in some elderflower liquer and top off with club soda
– garnish with more mint & cucumber
(this, essentially: http://www.gordons-gin.co.uk/cocktails/elderflowe… )
🙂 i actually came here to suggest elderflower. i get the syrup from ikea and mix that with dry gin and tonic water. it is FANTASTIC and tastes like summer.
…i will now be heading to Ikea tomorrow
I’ve been experimenting with basil in cocktails. Also red wine. I’m trying to find the right proportions, but gin, red wine, and basil go much better together than you’d think.
My friend made me a cocktail with basil, gin, lime and club soda? I think? It was bright green and delicious and I drank too many of them and forgot what was in it
The joy of forgetting what’s in a cocktail is that you then have to experiment to try to re-create it.
You know what’s great, just some wine in a big glass. Also gin, lime, touch of pineapple juice, and some soda.
Also, does anyone have suggestions for rosewater in cocktails?
Slo Gin fizz! It is just Slo Gin (1 oz) + soda (to fill a pint glass) with ice, and it tastes like cotton candy!
I also really enjoy amaretto sours. 1 part amaretto, 1 part ice (always fresh, from a jug if you have to, NEVER bar lemon), shake, serve. I am a lazy bartender.
I meant to post this earlier, but life got in the way – BUT, yesterday afternoon, I found myself reading The Toast while eating toast, and then I realized that I was actually reading toast points while eating toast points (if my snack of toast cut into quarters with a slice of cheese on top counts as toast points, and I’m sure it does). I’m so meta.
Okay, so this is The Laziest Summer Cocktail but it’s so damn good. Fresca (YES I SAID FRESCA) and gin over ice. Do it. You won’t regret it.
I used to drink these at a friend’s house and forgot how much I loved them! Thanks.
Spicy Gin Cucumber Lemonade!
OMGsh…best summer drink ever.
2 ounces gin
8 ounces lemonade
1 pinch cayenne pepper
1/2 lemon, thinly sliced
4 thin slices (longways like ribbon) of cucumber
ice
Mix it all together and stir!!
My summer cocktail of the moment is a $20 spacebag, shared with friends. But you know, I could stand to class it up. Maybe a $30 space bag.
PIMMS. with lemonade, not tonic water, and with frozen orange slices as well as non-frozen sweets. cucumber if you must.
PIMMS. with lemonade, not tonic water, and with frozen orange slices as well as non-frozen sweets. cucumber if you must.