I love the exploratory process of creating new recipes, getting to travel through so many unknowns as I connect ideas and ingredients. Exploring new and unfamiliar possibilities with my creativity fills me with incredible joy. This new recipe brought a lot of joy in the creation process and in the enjoyment of the drink, which I’m currently sipping on whilst I type.
Wherever you are and whatever your viewpoint is on quarantine or no quarantine, mask or no mask… one thing that most can agree on is that a cocktail at home tastes rather good these days. More and more people are advancing their bar skills alongside their cooking and baking skills, and it’s a sweet deal for mangoes, which make a perfect cocktail and mocktail additive in their many various forms. Continue Reading…
I often hear that my recipes seem complicated. I also hear once given a chance and actually made, they are easily executable, work well and are enjoyable to make. In the kitchen (and maybe life) I teeter between the quick-and-easy and the more-steps-than-usual (but still easy). It’s kind of like walking many miles; the walking part is easy; the many miles part takes simple action and will.
This recipe is seemingly complicated. It has a lot of steps and many ingredients. It offers deeply exotic rewards, but requires will… and work. Sometimes I get a weird idea, and it unravels into something even more weird. But as my therapist always says about my unraveling, I always land somewhere pragmatic. This recipe is just that.
I by pass the sugar cube and modernize the classic old fashioned by incorporating mango essence into a simple syrup. The taste is just as exquisite as the classic version if not better.
This is one of my favorite classic drinks in which to impart mango essence. The slight sweetness and perfumed nose the mango conveys in this drink tames the whiskey, just slightly. The egg white is really not optional in my opinion as the sweet mango froth that is born here communicates both flavor and texture to the drinker.
A Mango Daiquiri offers aged rum with tropical sweetness
The classic daiquiri is one of the simplest and pure drinks of the times. It’s a drink that has the perfect balance of sweet, sour and spirit. This dark rum or aged version utilizing mango pit syrup, showcases the deep, rich and warm, tropical notes of a fresh mango which tend to bring out the caramel notes of an aged rum with ease. The faint tropical essence perfumes the nose with sweetness and the fierce power of the age rum leaves a warm smoky aftertaste.
Mango Negroni gives this classic a perfumed, slightly tropical twist
This negroni is a classic cocktail and I’m generally not one to shy away from “creatively enhancing” a classic cocktail with fresh ingredients. But the negroni is one you must alter carefully- as it has a cult following. This version, showcasing the subtlties fo mangoes, adds a bit of sweet perfumy mango essence by infusing the gin with fresh mangoes. The infused booze makes the Campari taste a tad less bitter and slightly sweeter without adding sugar. The slight, added mango essence is balancing and therefore a bit more inviting to those on the fence about the bitterness of Campari. It’s a drink enjoyed year round, but this -scant of tropical- version is exceptionally nice in winter, where the brightness and vibrancy of the fresh mangoes gracefully shines through the potent and botanical booze without tasting sugary sweet.
Nothing says authentic Mexico quite like a Margarita. Or does it? This potent “bebida” was invented somewhere near Rosarita (Northern Baja) in the early 1930’s for a B-list American movie star named Marjorie King. Marjorie was allergic to all hard alcohol except tequila and she didn’t find the spirit palpable on its own due to its brawny wallop. Thus, Cointreau and lime juice were added, it was shaken and served over shaved ice with a slightly salted rim. The original inventor, Carlos “Danny” Herrera, essentially made what he called a “girly drink” out of the entire tequila shot experience: the lick of salt, the shot and the lime chaser. Since then, the Margarita (Spanish for Marjorie) has gained worldwide popularity and continues to be one of the world’s most beloved adult beverages. Like all things popular, it became corrupted, and not in a very good way. The main bastardization coincided with the processed food revolution and the kitchy booze movement from the 70’s and 80’s, producing many watered-down, overly sweet drinks, unrecognizable to the originals.
