Hawaii O - Mixology Monday

As a child I did not much like chocolate. Most of my little school friends liked milk chocolate and most adults liked dark chocolate. I found the first overly sweet and the latter too bitter.

I preferred liquorice - the black, salty kind.

But then I tried a Hawaii ring. A candy shaped like a slice of pineapple out of the Del Monte can - consisting of a pineapple tasting jelly center coated with dark chocolate.

I loved it.

For some reason I thought about this candy, that has long been discontinued, when I read the theme for this months Mixology Monday.

I asked Stewart - the gracious host - of the party if it was okay to invert candy into cocktail and got the go ahead.

So here is my contribution - a liquid dessert:

• 6 cl white rum (I used Banks 5 island white rum, but a slightly drier white rum would be a tiny bit better)
• 3 cl white creme de cacao
• 12 cl fresh pineapple juice
• Dash of Bitter Truth Xocolatl Mole Bitters

Shake everything over ice, double strain into a cocktail coupe and garnish with freshly grated dark chocolate.

Enjoy and thanks for hosting Stewart! (For some reason I always imagine that the hosts of Mixology Monday try all the cocktails people come up with and then set to work on the write-up;) )

Suhm Heering Float

As a Dane I considered it my patriotic duty to try out any cocktail I come across with Cherry Heering.

It was first produced in 1818 in Copenhagen and have since conquered the world.

So when I stumbled upon the Suhm Heering Float at Cocktail Virgin Slut I knew I had to mix it.

Root Beer is a mystery to most Danes - the taste is recognizable from a certain brand of chewing gum but that's the extend of most of our reference.

I personally love the taste and knew I would like the Suhm Heering Float - if it's not as perfect as I hoped for it's only because Cherry Heering is not as good as it could be these days. But that is another story.

• 6 cl Cherry Heering
• 2 cl golden rum
• 1 egg yolk
• chocolate mole bitters
• root beer

Add the first four ingredients to a shaker and shake hard without ice for 15-20 seconds, then add ice and shake until the mixture is very cold.

Strain into a highball glass and add the root beer. Garnish with some tasty Maraschino cherries.

Weeping Ukulele

What is a gin hound to do when the theme for the next Mixology Monday hosted by the Pegu Blog is TIKI?

Well I could lie down and weep or be bold. I choose the latter.

Two things inspired me: A wonderful Danish cherry wine and my first batch of syrup for home made tonic water, made by pretty much following Jeffrey Morgenthaler's recipe, but with a few changes described here.

• 6 cl (2 oz) Appleton Estate V/X rum
• 2 cl (3/4 oz) Picon
• 2 cl (3/4 oz) Frederiksdal cherry wine (Cheery Heering would work, but then only half as much)
• 1 cl (2 teaspoons or 3/8 oz) Campari
• 2 cl (3/4 oz) fresh blood orange juice
  
• 1 cl (2 teaspoons or 3/8 oz) tonic syrup (or 4 cl (2 3/4 oz) tonic water)
• 3 cl seltzers (not if tonic water is used)
• Dash of Bitter Truth Xoxolatl Mole chocolate bitters

If using tonic syrup, shake first 6 ingredients with lots of crushed ice. Pour into generous glass, add the seltzers and the dash of bitters and garnish with a slice of fresh pineapple and couple of maraschino cherries and umbrella.

If using tonic water just shake the first five ingredients and then add tonic water, bitters and garnish.

Enjoy - or weep!

Cherry Coke

Cherry wine is a really old tradition in Denmark going back to the 17-hundreds.

When I was young - before Bacardi Breezer's - teenagers first got drunk on either beer or cheery wine.

Since then cheery wine went completely out of fashion and is not even brewed as such very many places any more, mostly its watered down spirits with artificial cherry color and taste.

But one places makes it the old fashioned way: Frederiksdal and this drink takes me way back to my teenage years:

• 5 cl cherry wine
• 1 cl Maraschino liqueur
• 25 cl Coca Cola
• Dash of chocolate bitters

Everything in a tall glass full of ice and then garnish with a slice of lime and a couple of Maraschino cherries. A truely retro taste!