It’s that time of the year when the mood is light, love is in the air, and a pronounced effort to appreciate your significant other is made. So, while making your usual dinner reservations at your favourite restaurant is a routine, how about you skip the flowers and the dinner date for a change? Score yourself some brownie points with a party for two at home, and yes, there are cocktails as part of the course.
Now, while this may seem daunting for a beginner, let me assure you that Valentine’s Day is a few days away, so this gives you lot of time to prepare. If your significant other enjoys cocktails, a cosmopolitan is a good choice. With flavors of vodka, sweet lime and cranberry, cosmopolitan is a cocktail quite popular cocktail among women. Among various popular themed cocktails, the ones that most popularly work well are bloody margaritas, chocolate martinis, between the sheets, sex on the beach, and more.
Chocolate is one item that is widely sold and consumed on this occasion. There are also many interesting ways chocolate can be used in cocktails. Infusion is the best way to get this dominating flavor. For instance, chocolate can be infused in a White Russian. Melted chocolate can be infused with Baileys in a few concoctions. Even strawberries can be coated with melted chocolate and added to drinks!
Another perfect combination is chocolate with red wine. Notes of chocolate go very well when infused with red wine. Both dark chocolate and milk chocolate pair well with a merlot or pinot noir. One can make a nice warm mulled wine cocktail which is infused with chocolates. Additionally, dark chocolate goes well with port wine. One can also get a good bottle of red wine and get a slab or bites of chocolate to go with on the side, to enjoy a cosy evening.
One can also recreate classic cocktails on Valentine’s Day. One drink could be the whisky sour — take 45 ml of whiskey, 20 ml of lemon juice, 10 ml of sugar syrup and 1 egg white as ingredients to re-create a Valentine’s special whiskey sour for your whiskey loving partners! Another one that can be recreated is the old fashioned. Take 60 ml of bourbon, a dash of angostura bitter and for a twist, add 1 tsp of brown sugar and see the magic work! For gin lovers, recreate a perfect Valentine gin martini by bringing together 45 ml of gin, 15 ml of martini Bianco and add 15 ml lemon juice. And Voila!
When experimenting, always keep it simple. Find a base recipe and work with easy to source ingredients. For any recreation experiments, begin with vodka for spirit, orange juice as mixer and mint as garnish. Cheers!
Binny Dhadwal is a mixologist and flair bartender at Flaming Trio
