Run, run as fast as you can.....

......you're gonna want to taste this gingerbread man! The Christmas season has inspired us to make merry once again with a holiday themed tini. Forget visions of sugarplums, visions of martinis dance through our heads. And we welcomed a friend for his first Red Shaker tasting-hi Ref!

Another friend sent us a link to this recipe (thanks Diane!)

The Gingerbread Martini:



We first tried this as the recipe stated and the unanimous verdict was ok, but not "gingerbready" enough. So we did what the Shakers do and tweaked and twisted. Gingerbread perfection! Basically, we replaced the gingerbread Monin syrup (too sweet from past experiences) with an interesting liquor:Hiram Walker Gingerbread liquor, doubled the quantity and cut the kahlua (overkill and gets lost in the flavor profile). This naughty little man gets blended up with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. Garnish with some freshly grated nutmeg and a gingersnap cookie, you have a very enjoyable dessert martini. Creamy, not too sweet, one is perfect for a holiday treat.

Shakers One and Two give this 4 1/2 olives

Ref threw in a solid 4 1/4 (he's a gin drinker, so don't hold it against him).

As we wrap up a quick Sunday night shake we send out a special holiday wish to our Shaker friends:

May all your spirits be bright and your martini glasses full.

turkey and.... violets???

On this eve of Thanksgiving, the Shaker Girls decided to have a decompression night and try an interesting new liqueur that Shaker One has been itching to try for quite a while.... an Austrian violet liqueur. The label reads that this concoction comes from the Austrian Alps and made of wild violets from the mountainside. Now, this is not some run of the mill schnappsy beverage, it is a rather unique drink that is a bit more on the aromatic side rather then an overpowering synthetic flavor. It also gives the drinks a fun bluish color! We like fun colors.

We first tried the Creme de Violette alone, since neither of us had tasted it before. It was slightly sweet, but not cloying.

Our first drink was a Violet Fizz, which we tweaked a bit using vodka rather then gin ('cuz we are vodka girls, not gin girls..and it's our blog, so there.)

The result was not bad, but we felt that there was a bit too much lemon in the drink-it really overpowered the violet. So we halved the lemon and got close to a lovely drink ( the lemon proportion totally overshadowed the violet)

As written, it gets 1.5 stars.... tweaked, it gets 3.5.

We also like that the drink matched Stacia's dress!!


Next was our own concoction of champagne sorbet (thank you, Surfas!), Creme de Violette, vodka, a splash of lemon juice and a splash of lemon bitters (thanks, Lynda!!) This was quite lovely - but then again, it was based on champagne sorbet, how can you go terribly awry??

Both of us felt this was well worth the liqueur's fairly subtle flavor.

Our third drink of the night was Creme de Violette with champagne. Oh yeah, baby.. this one was good. The flavors made friends in the glass and complimented each other well. Definitely going to be a repeat guest in the menu, methinks.

On the night before Thanksgiving, we would like to thank all of you who read our blog. This is a lot of fun and has been educational on so many levels. Much love to our family and friends. We will return after the turkey coma has subsided and the food babies have gone away.

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.

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.