Last week was a Thursday Drink Night with the theme of “w(h)ine.” The duality of the event title was parsed as creating a recipe using a wine product as an ingredient and naming it after a gripe of some sort. The wines varied from red to white and fortified to non, and the complaints ranged from romantic issues to the one captured in the meme above. Without further ado, here are some of the highlights of the evening:

Camper English of Alcademics‘ lament was sluggishness, and he spiked this port drink with a strong shot of caffeine. The richness of the coffee roast complements the full flavors of the port.
Port Pick Me Up
• 2 oz Ruby Port
• 1 oz Triple Sec
• 1 oz Espresso or Strong Coffee
Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Frederic Yarm of CocktailVirgin complained of lacking guidance in life. He shaped this claret drink into a spiced nautical punch or cooler.
Rudderless
• 2 oz Dry Red Wine
• 3/4 oz Batavia Arrack
• 1/2 oz Lemon Juice
• 1/2 oz Pineapple Syrup
• 1/4 oz Becherovka Liqueur
• 1 dash Angostura Bitters
Shake with ice and strain into a rocks or highball glass filled with ice. Garnish with a long orange twist and freshly grated nutmeg.

Dan Chadwick of the KindredCocktails drink database expressed his woes about when wine goes bad through oxygen seeping in through a bad seal. With fruit and chocolate notes, the Corked cocktail seems like the perfect winter drink.
Corked
• 2 oz Tawny Port
• 1 oz Apple Brandy (Dan used Laird’s 7 1/2 Year)
• 2 dash Xocolatl Mole bitters
Stir with ice and strain into a rocks glass containing fresh ice.

Lastly, Sean Mike, one half of Scofflaw’s Den, shares the traumas of being put into the friendzone. With a theoretical similarity to Dan’s drink above, this recipe is intensity personified (in a good way though).
“She said we should be friends”
• 4 oz Dark Red Wine
• 2 oz Fernet Branca
• 1/4 oz Aromatic Bitters
Stir with ice and strain into a rocks glass containing fresh ice.

This is a cross post with A Mountain of Crushed Ice. Every month the members of the CSWOG (Cocktails and Spirits Online Writers Group) posts on several interesting topics related to the world of cocktails and spirits here on the Mixoloseum blog.

Wine in cocktails dates back to somewhere in the in the mid-19th century and were very popular in the 60s and the 80s and then they seemed to have more or less dissappeared – until now that is. Now they are slowly becoming popular again but its not the old style wine cocktails we are talking about, the new winetails are innovative and uses fresh fruits and spices. A wine cocktail both cleanses the palate and is refreshing before dinner.

Wine as cocktail ingredient also lovers the alcohol content and makes cocktails more food friendly and wine-tails-food pairing is an interesting subject. If reduced to a syrup some of the acid content is toned down and the flavors becomes more concentrated, that way it can be used in small quantities to add a specific flavor component to a cocktail. Interesting area of experimentation!

And don`t forget the grapes! Checking what types of grapes the wine is made of and their taste notes and pairing those flavor notes with similar and complementing flavors in the mixers and spirits creates harmony and balance.

Thus i have tried my best to do that and the wine i have used here is a dry organical wine from Sicily with taste notes of grapefruit, pineapple, honey and white pepper and these i have paired with fresh pineapple, ginger and white rum.

Personally i`m very fond of sparkling wines and in my opinion a little topping of a lively sparkling wine makes for a happy wine cocktail, especially now in the spring and summertime. Red wine is naturally better suited for fall and winter and white and rosé for the spring and summer.

 Here is a light and refreshing summer drink with a sturdy ginger flavor.

CASABLANCA

1 oz white rum
1 oz fruity white wine (i used Kalis grillo)
2 thin ginger slices
3-4 pineapple chunks
0.5 oz ginger syrup
0.5 oz fresh lime juice
Top with a fruity sparkling white wine
crushed ice
Garnish pineapple stick and something green ( i used a fig leaf)

Muddle ginger, pineapple and ginger syrup in shaker. Add fresh lime juice and rum, shake. Strain into a glass filled with crushed ice and top with sparkling white wine. Garnish with pineapple stick and green leaf.(I used a fig leaf)

This drink is perfect on a warm sunny day before or after a hot meal.

Red wine is naturally better suited for fall and winter and white and rosé for the spring and summer. The next drink is a simple take on the Caipirinha just adding the same white wine with citrus and pineapple notes as i used in Casablanca plus a topping of some sparkling rosé.

WINE CAIPIRINHA

½ lime cut in quarters
1 tsp fine raw sugar
1 oz cachaca (i used Leblon)
1 oz white wine with citrus fruit notes
1 oz jamaica (or sub 0.5 oz hibiscus grenadine)
Top with sparkling rosè wine

Muddle lime and sugar, add cachaca, wine and 0.5 oz jamaica and shake over ice and pour into a rocks glass with crushed ice. Top with sparkiling rosè wine and remaining jamaica.  Garnish with a lime wheel spiral.

To make the lime wheel spiral: Stick a chopstick through a lime and start cutting the lime all the way down to the stick in a spiral manner all around.The difficulty with this garnish is to cut even slices that aren´t too thick..you need a thin sharp knife to begin with (which i don`t have for the moment)

JAMAICA

5 dl water to 2 handful of dried hibiscus flowers
9 cl agave syrup
Boil for 5 minutes
Cool for 2 hrs

Strain and bottle and keep in the fridge, it will be fresh for about a week.

My conclusion is that wine cocktails are fun to make and tasty to drink. Cocktails with wine may also attract people who don`t drink wine into appreciating it and vice versa, get winedrinkers into cocktails – a win for both the wine and spirits industries and the drinkers.

I surely will come back in the fall with some winetails based on red wine and fall fruits. I hope though it will will take looong before the fall sets in…i love the summer!