Ice cream - quick and easy recipes - page 5

Indian spiced tea—masala chai—has a lovely delicacy and a fortifying strength. We harnessed both qualities for these refreshing milkshakes that should help you get through the muggiest summer afternoon. Chai tea bags are handy, but we suggest making your own sachet, using cheesecloth and a good-quality masala chai, a blend of loose-leaf black tea with whole spices such as cardamom pods, cloves, fennel seeds, black peppercorns, cinnamon, and dried ginger.

Christopher Longoria of restaurant 1760 in San Francisco devised this beautifully colored, wonderfully aromatic cocktail to highlight mezcal in a way that smooths out its rustic edges. It’s bright and sophisticated, not to mention wickedly strong. What to buy: You’ll need a bottle of Hangar 1 Kaffir Lime Vodka and a moderately smoky mezcal, such as Del Maguey’s Vida. Special equipment: A wooden muddler is best for crushing the basil, and a four-prong bar strainer is a handy tool.

Substituting tangerine juice for lime in a margarita is a revelation. The taste is gentler, a little sweeter, and far more aromatic—the tangerine flavor acts as a shadow for the orange liqueur, amplifying its presence. If you can get a Meyer lemon to garnish with (it adds a final burst of citrus perfume), go for it. If not, a regular Eureka lemon will do just fine.

Who doesn’t love a good G&T? Well, the Spanish certainly do. Condé Nast Traveler reported that Spain is home to the biggest gin drinker population (per capita) in the the world. Although this refreshing take on the classic gin and tonic would be great on a hot summer day, we’d be happy to sip on one (or a few) as a pre- or post-dinner libation all year round. Perhaps make a batch to wash down a feast of our homemade paella recipe.

Named for the French Quarter in New Orleans (a.k.a. the Vieux Carré), this sophisticated, spirits-driven cocktail is a lot like the Big Easy itself: a fun and potent blend of diverse elements. What to buy: Bénédictine, a gold-colored liqueur first produced by Benedictine monks in the 16th century, adds a sweet, aromatic flavor to cocktails. Peychaud’s Bitters were created in New Orleans around 1830 by the Haitian apothecary Antoine Amédée Peychaud.

Proportions for the classic Manhattan are two (sometimes three) parts whiskey to one part sweet vermouth, with a little aromatic boost from bitters. The drink is believed to date from 1874, created by a bartender at New York’s Manhattan Club. “Since New York was a rye town in those days,” writes cocktail expert Dale DeGroff in The Craft of the Cocktail, “the original Manhattan was made with rye whiskey.” Bourbon Manhattans are a thing in the South.

Classic, elegant, and stiff, the martini is a simple fusion of gin and dry vermouth, stirred together with ice, and strained into a chilled glass. The main variables are the proportion of gin to vermouth, and what you choose to garnish with. This recipe uses a 2-to-1 for the former, though 4-to-1, even 5-to-1, is popular. For some, washing the martini glass with dry vermouth, then dumping the vermouth in the sink before stirring straight gin with ice, is just right.

Except for the gin and tonic, no other cocktail is as quintessentially English as pink gin, also known as gin and bitters. A few drops of aromatic, sweetly spice-scented angostura bitters are a gentle enhancement for the bracing, juniper-driven taste of London Dry–style gin. We give you two options: a simple version (just chilled gin and bitters), and the same thing served over ice, topped off with a splash of soda water.

According to Rob Chirico, author of the Field Guide to Cocktails, this iconic New Orleans cocktail dates to the 1850s, when it was served at the Sazerac Coffee House. American whiskey eventually replaced the brandy of the original. Rinsing the glass with absinthe gives the cocktail the right touch of herbal perfume without upsetting the balance—you can always substitute Pernod if you don’t happen to have a bottle of absinthe.

The G and T has become the dominant warm-weather gin cocktail, maybe because it’s one of the simplest: just gin, tonic water, and an aromatic boost from a lime wedge. Variations on the gin and tonic include taking it Barcelona style. And if you want to try making your own spiced tonic water, go for it.

Famed New Orleans barman Henry C. Ramos is said to have invented this rich, potent, and frothy egg white and cream cocktail in the 1880s. Orange flower water gives it a lovely aroma.

This is a classic, refreshing sparkler made with sloe gin, regular gin, and lemon juice, shaken and topped off with club soda. What to buy: Sloe gin is a red liqueur made from gin infused with sloes (also called blackthorn), a relative of plums.

During the late 1990s, it was impossible to enter a bar and not hear a few ladies (and occasionally some dudes) declare, “I’ll have a Cosmo!” Nowadays, the drink carries a shroud of shame—it’s pink and passé after all—but it’s still a tasty cocktail that packs a punch.

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