Unleash Your Inner Mixologist with UVC – Unlimited Vacation Club: Perfect Your Favorite Cocktails and Elevate Your Vacation Experience
If you absolutely need to have a cocktail during this period, you can always make your own.
As long as you have a base spirit (it can be whiskey, brandy, rum, tequila, gin, vodka, or even wine) at home, feel free to experiment with making your own drinks. This begs the question, though: Where do we start?
What drinks can we make at home that are simple and also use ingredients and tools that can be found at home?
First of all, don’t worry about not having the proper bar tools, as long as you have a kitchen, there are loads of items you can use to replace jiggers, shakers, muddlers, and other common bar tools. An old takeaway coffee mug can double as a shaker, teaspoons, and tablespoons can replace jiggers, a large cup can replace a stirring jar, and a chopstick can serve as a stirrer. If you were to make yourself some cocktails at home, you should definitely have to stick to classics.
If you have the ingredients to make them, you can make a Negroni, Old Fashioned or Manhattan. For something more refreshing, you can make a Margarita, Mojito or Daiquiri, and if you’re more adventurous, a Moscow mule, cobblers or swizzles. All these use simple ingredients that can be sourced from local grocers. Buy some fresh produce and just experiment away and see what works.
Here are some simple cocktail ideas that you can make at home:
Tall drinks
The simplest drinks to make at home are tall drinks like the Gin and Tonic and Whisky Highball, which just require a base spirit and a mixer (soda, tonic water, ginger beer, cola, etc). For rum drinks, there’s the Dark And Stormy, which is rum and ginger beer, or the Cuba Libre, which is rum and cola.
Vodka drinks are even easier to make, as vodkas are largely flavorless, and will go with any ingredients you use, i.e. a Screwdriver which is orange juice and vodka).
Homemade Whisky Sour
For a homemade whiskey sour recipe, all you need is whiskey (3-4 tablespoons), lemon juice (squeezed from half a lemon), sugar syrup (2 tablespoons), and one egg white. Put all the ingredients into the shaker and shake well with ice. Strain into a glass and add two dashes of Angostura bitters (optional).
Whiskey Remedy
Whiskey Remedy contains honey and lemon and whiskey, which makes it a delicious cocktail.
To make, pour 45ml whiskey, 20ml honey, and 20ml lemon juice into a glass, stir well and add ice. Top up the drink with water or soda and garnish it with a lemon peel and clove (optional).
Sangria
To make a Sangria, mix one tablespoon of strawberry jam, 45ml fresh orange juice.
Mix that with 90ml red wine, and 30ml gin or brandy in a blender, blend till smooth and serve over ice.
Alternatively, you can also put those ingredients into a mason jar or air-tight container, add ice, and shake for 10 seconds, and empty into a glass.
This drink has common ingredients available in most households and essentially is a glorified Iced Lemon Tea.
Just break one cinnamon stick, crack some cardamom pods, and put it into a mug. Add two, a teabag of English Breakfast Tea, and hot water and allow to brew for five minutes.
After that, strain the tea into a tall glass, add two tablespoons of brown sugar (palm sugar or honey works as well), and stir it until the sugar is dissolved.
Finally, fill the glass full of ice, add 10ml lemon or orange juice, and 30ml whiskey. Stir well until the glass is fully chilled and enjoy!
