Green Tea Martini

Sometimes the internet will take you places you didn't know you wanted to go to. Like to a page where a Green Tea Martini is mentioned, and then that idea gets stuck in your brain and won't leave.

That is what happened to me today, and fortunately I had - or thought I had - the right ingredients for the cocktail.

A while ago I picked up a bottle of small batch vodka in a newly opened store in Copenhagen. The guy running the store had distilled it and he has chosen the name The Clumsy Bear for his vodka.

I thought this would be a good cocktail to test the vodka on.

The original recipe calls for a traditional japanese syrup called Kuromitsu made from black sugar. I have no access to that, but I figured instead I would use barley malt syrup for a flavorful sweetener. Also it ties in with the barley malt used in the vodka.

And then I was absolutely sure I had some small packets of powdered green tea - and sure enough at the back of my cupboard I found a stack of packets. Since I have no recollection of ever making green tea from them, I do not know if the powder have become too old and changed color or just are of a different kind than the type Takumi Watanabe uses.

In any event my Green Tea Martini was more of a bog swamp color than the bright green color in the pictured with the original recipe.

Taste wise I like it a lot - it has a dry quality to it which is a bit surprising with 3 cl creme de cacao in it. So maybe I should look for some bright green green tea powder and add it to my repertoire.

• 6 cl vodka
• 3 cl white creme de cacao - I used Bols
• teaspoon powdered green tea
• 1 cl barley malt syrup

I started by stirring the tea into the vodka and then added the other two ingredients, then filled my shaker with ice and gave it a good shake. Owing to the fact that the vodka bottle had a wax seal that had floated a few bits into the bottle I double strained the cocktail.

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;) )

Nettle Shoots

This year I somehow forgot to plant my garden, so right now rhubarb is the only thing I can harvest - strawberries, raspberries and currants will come later along with things I've probably forgotten about.

And as I cut the available rhubarbs the other day - there really wasn't any bounty to be had, at least not any I had planted, but I have plenty of stinging nettles and thought I would utilize those.

Sticking my hand in a plastic bag I picked a good handful of the young, top shoots from not very big nettles.

I poured about 2 dl of gin - Bombay was at hand - over them and let it stand for 45 minutes during which time the gin turned a lovely orange, almost Aperol color (as seen in the picture below).

When the cocktail hour rolled along I was ready to taste my stinging nettle gin in a creation I call Nettle Shoots:

• 4,5 cl stinging nettle gin
• 1,5 cl white creme de cacao
• 1,5 cl yellow Chartreuse
• 1,5 cl lemon juice
• Dash of Bittermens Xocolatl Mole bitters

Using my new Lewis bag - thank you for saving med the $30-40 getting one shipped to Denmark would have cost me - I stirred my cocktail with lot's of ice and strained it into a cocktail coupe and garnished with a maraschino cherry.

If I may say so - that is one tasty cocktail.

La Florida

A few days ago Tiare of A Mountain of Crushed Ice dazzled me with colored ice eggs - an idea she got a few Easters back from Camper English who resurrected it this year.

I knew I wanted to make some, but was also wondering what kind of cocktail would show them off.

This afternoon as I browsed through The PDT Cocktail Book I was intrigued by the mix of white creme de cacao and white rum i La Florida while I also imagined an egg would look good in it, so I set about my mixing.

And I have to say - as someone who enjoys The 20th Century cocktail  - La Florida was almost as good. And one of those Tiki-drinks that keeps sneaking up on me.

However to my palate gin adds an extra edge to the creme de cacao - but La Florida would make a wonderful hot summer evening cocktail.

• 6 cl white rum
• 1,5 cl creme de cacao
• 1 cl dry vermouth
• 2 cl lime juice
• teaspoon grenadine *
• Colored ice egg **

Pour first five ingredients into cocktail shaker over ice and shake well. Place colored ice egg in chilled cocktail coupé and strain cocktail into coupé.

*Grenadine - In saucepan boil twice as much juice from fresh pomegranate as sugar for 5-10 minutes. Let cool and then add dash of orange blossom water (or rose water) and dash of vodka. Bottle and keep in the fridge.

** Colored ice eggs - mix food coloring with water in as many colors as your want - remember blue and yellow makes green and blue and red makes lillac - then rinse and test inflate the appropriate number of balloons. Using a funnel pour colored water into balloons and suspend them from stick across freezer drawer. Wait at least three hours. Rinse eggs as you free them from balloon to minimize risk of rubber taste in cocktails. The process looks like this: