November 20, 2015

What I’m Drinking: Snow Leopards at Dawn

Sometimes, you can both help out and enjoy yourself – and this is one of those times! As we’re in the season for giving, I wanted to whip up a drink that in itself helped out a cause I believe is a good one, and Snow Leopards at Dawn is that drink. It starts with Snow Leopard vodka, which is the world’s first vodka made from Spelt grain, a rarer grain, and one grown without pesticides and such. Spelt (plus natural spring water) gives the vodka its taste, too, which is crisp, clear, and slightly nutty. All cool stuff! But even cooler is that 15% of all profits from the vodka are given directly to Snow Leopard conservation projects through the Snow Leopard Trust. That’s awesome! Snow Leopards are endangered, and can use the help. All of which leads to having the below cocktail. Drink up, help out. That’s a pretty darn swell combination.

snow-leopardSnow Leopards at Dawn

Ice cubes
2 ounces Snow Leopard Vodka
1 ounce Pierre Ferrand dry orange curaçao
2 dashes Regan’s orange bitters
1/4 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the vodka, curaçao, bitters, and juice. Shake well.

2. Strain through a fine strainer into a cocktail glass. Drink up.

November 5, 2013

Cocktail Talk: Is He Popenjoy?

is-he-popenjoyMy un-stopping love for the great English novelist Anthony Trollope continues with each of his books I read (there are a lot, luckily). Recently I finished the lesser-known treasure Is He Popenjoy?, all about class and legacy and inheritance in multiple ways. What I wish now is that some fine bartender out there would make up a drink called The Popenjoy. I would pay a pretty penny for that, if it was awesome. It would have to contain cherry brandy, which is mentioned in the books, as well as curaçao, which is in the dandy quote below (oh, if you do make up a drink here, go with Pierre Ferrand curaçao, please). If you create The Popenjoy, please let me know asap.

She was in the habit of sitting by him and talking to him late in the evening, while he was sipping his curaçao and soda-water, and had become accustomed to hear odd things from him. He liked her because he could say what he please to her, and she would laugh and listen and show no offence.

–Anthony Trollope, Is He Popenjoy?

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