A Midsummer Night's Shake.

In the heart of the dog days of summer, a heat wave hits Los Angeles. Now, granted, we know this is not as hot as other places in the country, but we reserve the right to whine as most of us don't have AC... and this IS Los Angeles. By law it was supposed to be sunny and 72 at all times. Anything else either requires extra electrolytes or Ugg boots (ok.. not really - those things are butt-ass ugly.) [please note: Ugg Boots, Crocs, Birkenstocks, and any other footwear deemed ugly by the management is strictly prohibited in the Balcony Bar]

To cater to the heat, we opted for a lovely summery flair to the menu and the martini options.
The lovely, sassy Stacia.

We also had another Shaker night guest - this one from New York. John joined into the fun via Skype and was a true delight. He is not only funny as all get out, he is frighteningly smart (at least I hear... ;) ) We are trusting he will join in again in the future. Check out his blog here.

Our evening began with a Provinçal martini.

A beautiful combination of vodka, an infusion of culinary lavender, lemon juice and honey. Nothing overpowered the other and the result is something refreshing and almost melodic. Do I wax rhapsodic? Yes, actually, I do.

This one ranks up there with the Parisian - I am thinking the French have even more to teach us about flavors then we might first realize. [Stacia here- C'est vrai!]

Our first course was paired with a lovely tray of cheeses and fruits. Sheridan highly recommends the Truffle Tremble and the Le Chatelain Camembert.
Offering John a grape.

Second on our list was a vanilla and lavender combination, aptly titled the Lavender Martini.

With a somewhat sweet overload from the flavored syrups, it ended up turning into another salvage martini. The addition of some slightly acidic fruit juices helped counteract the sweet. The salvage was not bad, but this one did not rank overly high. [Stacia again- I think the recipe was the problem. The syrups are lovely, you just need to use them sparingly to achieve a balanced 'tini and avoid over-sweetness]


Stacia came up with a fabulous chilled corn soup. I have to say, she does have a way with the soups. The flavors were mild and refreshing. The corn flavor was not lost among the other ingredients and it was garnished with green onions and thick-cut bacon.


She followed this with a lovely salad of chicken tenders (thanks to Sonic Drive-Ins!) mixed with mushrooms, bacon and roasted mini yukon gold potatoes. A lovely orange vinaigrette to go with it.
John joining us for salad.

Lastly we have the Orange Creamsicle Martini.

Being a tad gunshy from the sweetness of the lavender, but we decided that we would work with this one as is - after all it is a creamsicle. Creamsicles are sweet. This one was nice. It is a sweet finish to the selection and has a rather lovely mandarin flavor from the Monin syrup. [Stacia - can't wait to pick up some of Monin's other unique flavors and get creative with the tinis!]


As a finish to the evening, we have a gorgeous champagne sorbet from Surfas. [Swoon]

A special thanks to Beverly for our fabulous napkins! We love that she is following the blog. [as the napkin says, it is indeed 5 O'clock somewhere!]

You can also now follow us on Twitter @theredshaker!

Deep Thoughts.......

.....the summer 'tini casts a long shadow...........

Shake and Bake

Good evening thirsty 'tini fans. This hot weather has left us parched and jonesing for the sweet sweet relief that only an icy tini or four can give........

So tonight we decided to throw in an impromptu shakin'. As we discovered the Candy Store (ie, Beverage Warehouse) is closed on sunday (sobbing quietly), we decided to scrounge in the pantry and bar and see what we could throw together on the fly.

We begin our hot, hot summer afternoon with Golden Crown appetizers and summer sippers. Sheridan went with the Sweet Tea Vodka and her new bestest summer friend, The Drunken Arnold Palmer. Stacia chose a voddy spiked raspberry lemonade sparkler. Mmmmmm, oh so refreshing on both counts.


As the pizza dough rises, we delve into our recipe collection. Oh wait, did I neglect to mention we have home made pizza on the menu tonight? Well, stay tuned for deliciousness. If you haven't eaten, go grab some cheetos or something. It won't be as good as what we're having, but you'll keep the drool off the keyboard.

Though we lament the absence of St. Germain in the house to make our beloved Parisian 'tinis, we peruse the Lillet site for inspiration..........

Hmmmm, the Absolute Lay* looks interesting (or in the interest of full disclosure, more like the Stoli-n Lay). Not bad. Light, but with too much of a white wine taste for this shaker.


As we heat up the oven, we mix a batch of what will become a summer go to 'tini:

The Lillet Sin*.

If this is a sin, just book the penthouse in hell, Satan. And have a pitcher of these ready for us.
Run, don't walk to the liquor store and get what you need to put these in your glasses. So incredibly refreshing with a perfect balance of ginger, lime, mint, lillet and a splash of sparkling water brings near perfection to our lips with every sip. Sigh. Swoon. More please.
.....maybe even 4 3/4.

You know, screw the menu delving, we're sticking with this one until dessert tonight.
Mmmmm, the pizza is in the oven. We're having Rosemary Chicken Potato Pizza. I know, it sounds really weird, but it is oh so tasty. Trust us. Ok, I should really stop telling you to do that. But in the food/bevvie realm? Go ahead! You won't be disappointed.


So back to the Lillet Sin.....it's almost perfect. And that means it is approaching the holy grail of 'tin ratings: The Golden Olive. When five olives are not enough to contain the tini goodness of a drink, we bestow upon it the ultimate rating: THE GOLDEN OLIVE. It shines, it shimmers, it drunkens all that bask in it's deliciousness. So far we've not met that Tini, but we shall perservere until we can share that level of perfection in a glass with all of you faithful followers.

These lushes are all Sunday nighted out. Thanks for joining us for an unplanned but enjoyable end to the week. Stay cool and stay tuned for more martini fun.

Lushes out.

(* Sheridan here.
/rant
I would LOVE to link you to the recipe, but as is the nature of most freakin flash websites, you cannot directly link to pages within the site.. so go to the main Lillet site and you can find it within their recipes. Flash sites irk me for this reason... and a few others - but we'll just focus on that one for this entry.
/rant off)

le quatorze de juillet

Happy Bastille Day! We took time out on a school night to celebrate this historic day French style. Hors d'oeuvres included les fromages, la petite charcuterie, vichyssoise and a tapenade Sheridan was craving.


We began the evening with a Parisian Martini.

Admittedly, this was stepping out with some ingredients that were not normally in the Shaker repertiore: Lillet blanc and St. Germaine. This drink had us hesitantly sniffing to see if we could get a clue as to what this might taste like - it was lovely. Slightly sweet, a few hints of herbals... it made us anticipate what was to come - we were not disappointed.

The flavor reminded Sheridan of less sweet orange muscat wine. It was slightly sweet, with a depth of flavor that kept giving hints of other flavors melding together. Can you tell this was a hit? It is a lovely drink and one we look forward to bringing back as an encore - perhaps a martini showdown.

Sheridan bestowed 4 olives, Stacia 4.25.

Stripey came out to join us in the cool air on the patio.

Next up was the French Martini.

This one was pleasant, but did not stand out as anything overly original. Stacia assures me that they can be done better and with a bit of tweaking, there would be vast improvement. As is, it is still a nice drink.

Stacia gives it a 4 - though done better. Sheridan a 3.5 (she has not had another variation - so improvement is open to future experimentation. )

Our final drink of the night was French 75 .

This drink has an interesting story behind the name - in essence it is a champagne cocktail with variations (as most cocktails have.) Overall nice and refreshing with a bubbly accent.

As a sparkling end to this school-night edition of The Red Shaker blog, Stacia bestows a 3.5 olive rating on it, Sheridan a 3.25. A positive vote from both Shaker girls.

We capped the night off with a lovely champagne cocktail with raspberry liqueur. It was a light, refreshing ending to the evening.

Enjoy the rest of your week! Stay tuned for another edition soon.

End Note: we dipped into the remainder of Sheridan's cinnamon ice cream - it gets better as it matures. The cinnamon flavor really comes through with a bit of maturation.

A Shake and a Wave Goodbye!

Tonight we raise a glass to wish a faithful shaker friend goodbye as she leaves California for new adventures. Sheridan ferreted out some of the mythical Sweet Tea Vodka from her weekend of debauchery in Palm Springs.

If anyone other than Sheridan had suggested this, I would have politely declined. But I trust her drunken instincts, so we eagerly awaited as she mixed us up a glass of Drunken Arnold Palmers. If you did not know it was booze, you'd think you were drinking a Snapple. Amazing. A perfect refresher for a hot summer evening. Or morning. Or mid afternoon.....
I think we've found a new summertime friend.

Warning: you do not feel like you are having a 'real' drink, so it would be way too easy to overindulge with these. They do pack a punch, so take it nice and easy. Or go ahead and get plowed, as long as you're not driving.
Over the traditional dinner menu of Chicken Caesar Salad and Our Famous Stuffed Mushrooms, we discussed the merits of various summertime beverages.

And then we did a guests special request 'tini. She perused our offerings to date and selected the Lenin-ade. An excellent choice! Goodbye MyLitte Pony- may Colorado offer you it's best!

Hotter than a.... (use euphemism of choice)

Howdy Shaker fans, Sheridan here with a quick weekend post from Shakerland. I just got back from a lovely weekend in Palm Springs with old friends. I thought I would write a little post recapping a fabulous find in this Shaker's world.

So for those not familiar with Palm Springs, it is a kind of resort town east of Los Angeles and historically known for being a playground for celebrities (its heyday being in the 60's with the likes of the Rat Pack, Doris Day, Bob Hope and many other stars of years gone by escaping the wilds of H-wood for this little oasis in the middle of the desert) and retirement folks and the gay community. A mix of mid-century modern and Spanish architecture nestled at the base of Mount San Jacinto...in the desert.

Keyword here being desert.

Meaning this shaker spent the last couple of days in what felt like a blast furnace. 114 degrees to be precise. Don't give me the line about it being a dry heat. Anything over 95 is hot. I am from Texas, I grew up in hot. I am not a fan of hot - at least weather wise.

To try and avoid and counteract some of this lovely weather, my friends planned a trip up the tram to the top of Mt. San Jacinto for a nature hike with some lovely views of Palm Springs below. It was 25 or so degrees cooler up there, so that was nice. Until we descended back into the center of hellfire. We took a bit to shower, then headed to the Riviera Palm Springs for a couple cocktails (the three of us all being dirty in our selection - ratings from mildly profane to X-rated on the dirty scale.) the bartenders served up some fine examples. Mine even had some gloriously delicious ice chips in it. Water it down, you say? I took it as a bonus to help keep this girl cool. The Riviera has recently been remodeled into a gorgeous homage to it's Hollywood Glam history. Fabulous - go check it out just for the interior alone.

Next we went to dinner at Wang's in the Desert. This is a lovely Chinese restaurant with good service, tasty fried wonton and fabulous mandarin pork and tangerine beef. They also had a tasty concoction on their drink menu that propelled the night into full speed. Here is the description from their menu:

Palm Springs Iced Tea Cocktail $5.5

Cool and refreshing cocktail made with

Seagram’s Sweet Tea Flavored Vodka,

Lemonade and a splash of Soda

served on the rocks in a 1/2 liter personal carafe

I was skeptical, but my friend Jim said I needed to try this. I mean seriously - Sweet Tea flavored VODKA?!? It sounded foul. Jim basically said shut up and order it.

I did.

O. M. G. In a million years I would not have believed that this would be good. I would have been so wrong maintaining that belief. This was a luscious alcoholic Arnold Palmer. It was smooth, cool, refreshing and had a kick. I would also like you to note the price. $5.50 for a half liter carafe. squeeeeeaaallll!!!

Our trio inhaled a couple of these each, then moved onto another hotspot: Hunter's. On a whim, we asked if they had the Sweet Tea Vodka and could they make us an Arnold Palmer with it. Joy! They did and they could. Katy bar the door, let the drinking begin. This version was made without the soda, so had a bit more of a kick then the Wang's version - but just as effective in smoothness, flavor and refreshment. Cost: $5. I am used to $12-$14 per drink. It was like Christmas in the desert!!

I cannot WAIT to hunt the Seagram's Sweet Tea vodka down and enjoy a summer of gloriously refreshing AP's with a kick.

Serve them over ice with a spring of mint and wedge-o-lemon if you choose.

Cheers!

Stacia here- don't worry kids, the Shaker Twins are not gonna split....we sometimes just take separate Shake-cations! Sher, I want one of those Drunken Arnold Palmers (should we call them John Dalys?).

Stay tuned. We may fit in a little shake for Bastille Day..........a bientot!

Red (White and Blue) Shaker Night!

America, F yeah! Oops, sorry. for those patriots of more delicate constitution, Happy 4th of July!~


Tonight's theme is all American, red white and blue 'tinis. And we'd like to welcome our first Special Guest Star:
Kim! Can we say, Kim is the guestest with the mostest....she dove right in there mixing 'tinis and crafting one of our highest rated efforts to date. But more on that later.....let's dive right in to our first round.

As we graze on warm spiced nuts (heh), olives and caprese bites we sample the:

#13 Cucumber Cooler Martini

From a Texas warm weather drink recipe collection. Refreshing, pleasant, not too sweet. Would be great over ice in a tall glass (Kim- maybe with gin instead of vodka?), we enjoyed this.

Ratings ranged from
(Stacia)
(Sheridan)

Helpful hint: use the immersion blender to muddle. Much faster.

And on to round 2 with the #14 Cosmo-not Martini.


Ok, well Stacia had recipe fail here and read a key ingredient wrong. Also, we neglected to notice that this was a non-alcoholic(!?!?!?) 'tini (oxymoron, I know). So Kim tweaked, tinkered and twirled (hi Simon!) and created Kim's Cosmo Haute!


Delicious! We needed two rounds of this. Soooooooo tasty. Brava Kim~!
Perfectly balanced peach, cranberry, citrus.....they all play so well together. Your mouth will be happy. Trust us. Um, ok. Don't actually trust us, that's a bad idea. But make this drink. You won't be sorry. Mmmmmmmm.

And then we decided to actually eat some food. The booze was lonely. We had quite the feast with Sheridan's mom's pigs in a blanket, mini cheesie burger sliders with carmelized onions (Stacia rocks the sliders...mmmmm) , sweet potato fries and Sheridan's delicious Orzo salad.

And, because we thought it would be so cute, we chose a blue tini:

#15 The Blue Print!

I shall let the peanut gallery comments speak for themselves:
"Ohhh, Windex!" "It burns!!!!!"

Yeah, so the pretty ones don't taste so good. Kinda like in real life.

Rather than waste all that boozy goodness (we're all about recycling and repurposing - especially vodka) we remixed that bad boy into-

#16 The Octopussinki!

Now this is even better than our last salvagetini. Inky pretty color, nice flavor. Not bad. This may just about hit a 3 olives.

(Sheridan's working on her home made ice cream! Two flavors! We are very excited)

Tonight was doubly productive, as we have come up with several more Shaker night plans/menus for the future. Stay tuned for.... luai-tinis, field trips, Russian night, Sake-tinis, MadMen night, south of the border themes, Trailer Trash 'Tini night, vodka tastings and numerous other evenings of silliness we have talked about.

oooh... next round is coming up.

Warm mini apple pies with home made cinnamon ice cream. OMG, yum on the cinnamon ice cream.

And sadly, we paired it with a

#17 Coconut Cream Pie Tini.
(Emong joined in on this one - he was also a bit let down.)

Ok sadness, disappointment, remorse.

Again, it sounded so much better than it tasted. Meh. You know, they have the five stages of grief? We need to make the five stages of martini disappointment. Delicious description, lovely ingredient excitement, mixing glee, pouring/straining anticipation, tasting fail. 1 1/2 olives.

Take a pass.

Overall, another lovely evening 'tini tasting, despite several bailing guests. An excellent ending to a wonderful holiday weekend. Celebrate, marinate, macerate!
(Side note... we all found it rather funny as we realized we were now measuring vodka in measuring cups - saves time rather then count out jiggers.. but still... measuring cups!)

Come back soon. You know we get thirsty often. Good night and see you next time. Same channel, same shaker.

Lushes out.