Wine and Whisky Cocktail: the Tam O'Shanter

On January 25th, we celebrate our favorite mid-winter holiday, Burns Night, commemorating the birth of Scotland's most famous poet, Robert Burns (I'm sure you've all sung Auld Lang Syne at the strike of 12 o'clock on New Years, well, that's Burns). This holiday dates back to 1801, five years after his death, when some of Burns's best friends decided to celebrate his birthday. For over 220 years, fans of Robert Burns have celebrated his birthday with fantastic dinner parties, serving a traditional Scottish plate of haggis, neeps (rutabagas) and tatties (potatoes), LOTS of Scottish whisky, and recitations of Burns's poetry. Robert Burns's poetry is written in Scots, which is one of the native languages of Scotland. It takes a bit of practice (or a lot of whiskies) to get the hang of reading Scots, but I don't think Burns would mind our terrible pronunciations!

This year, we wanted to make a welcome cocktail to start the party. While Eve loves Scottish whiskies, Ivy is not so much a fan. After a bit of searching, Eve found the perfect cocktail that combined our love of Robert Burns and our truest love: Wine. Enter the Tam O'Shanter. 

The Tam O'Shanter is a whisky and wine cocktail named after one of Burns's most famous narrative poems. It tells the story of a farmer named Tam and a night of drunken adventures, which includes dancing witches and the Devil playing the bagpipes. What's not to like?! We love this cocktail for its exciting combination of whisky and wine, the smooth sweetness of Drambuie, and the freshness from orange zest. 

xxx Ivy & Eve

This recipe makes one cocktail.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 oz Scottish Whisky (If you like it smoky/peaty, go for Laphroaig or Lagavulin, for something smoother, try Jura or Glenmorangie)

• 1 oz red wine (we suggest a Bordeaux blend)

• 0.5 oz Drambuie

• 3 dashes of orange bitters

• Cup of ice

• Orange peel garnish

Directions: 

1. Measure out ingredients into a cocktail pitcher with ice.

2. Stir all ingredients well with a cocktail spoon.

3. Strain and serve in a coupe or martini glass. 

4. Garnish with a flamed orange twist. Watch the how-to here.

5. Cheers!

Rosé Punch

Rosé season has arrived! WOOHOO!!! We are so happy to be enjoying the sunshine and warmth of summer after such a wet winter here in California. With rosé season upon us, we wanted to create a tasty cocktail worthy of sipping poolside. This rosé punch is just that: light, refreshing, and low in alcohol compared to other cocktails. It's the perfect drink for your #roséallday festivities!!! 

Ingredients:

• 3 bottles Rosé- We used Gruet Rosé

• 3 cups lemonade (freshly squeezed or just not from concentrate)

• 3 cups citrus flavored sparkling water- We used La Croix Grapefruit

• 3 grapefruits

• 3 lemons

• Ice

• Edible flowers for garnish (optional)

Directions

1. Squeeze 2 grapefruits and 2 lemons. Slice the last grapefruit and lemon into thin slices for garnishing glasses and adding to the punchbowl. 

2. In a large punch bowl or drink dispenser add the rosé, lemonade, grapefruit juice and lemon juice. Stir.

3. Add grapefruit and lemon slices.

4. Fill the punch bowl or drink dispenser most of the rest of the way with ice and stir. 

5. Add the sparkling water and gently stir. 

6. Top the punchbowl with edible flowers and serve. 

7. Enjoy!

Ivy & Eve Champagne-rita

Last weekend we had a family get-together to watch some Sunday Night Football. We made Mexican food and wanted to try and make a bubbly cocktail to go with the feast. Right then and there, the Ivy & Eve Champagne-rita was born.

At first we were apprehensive about mixing sparkling wine with anything, let alone tequila! We shuddered at the thought of wasting sparkling wine, in the event that the concoction tasted awful. Luckily, we ended up LOVING it so much we are making it a signature Ivy & Eve cocktail from now on (we knew it was good when Ivy, who cringes at the thought of a shot of tequila, sipped on hers rather quickly). We hope you try it out and let us know what you think!

Tip: Sip slowly as this has quite a bit of alcohol (about 1/2 a glass of champers and 1 shot of tequila). 

xxx Ivy & Eve

Makes one drink.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 of a lime

• 2 tsp agave syrup

• 1 shot (1.5 oz.) tequila

• Ice

• Champagne or other brut sparkling wine

Directions:

1. In a tall glass, juice 1/2 of a lime and add the agave syrup, tequila, and a few ice cubes. Stir until cold. 

2. Pour the mixture into a champagne flute.

3. Top with Champagne of your favorite bottle of bubbles.

4. Garnish with a twist of lime.

5. Enjoy!

Cranberry-Rosemary Champagne Cocktail

The holidays go with champagne like Christmas goes with Santa. So naturally we drink champagne during the holidays...a lot. With all of the festivities surrounding the season, it is one of the busiest times for everyone, so many parties to attend and to host. We decided to create a holiday cocktail that is simple, festive, and almost entirely effortless. This drink combines our favorite drink champagne, festive cranberries, (we recommend making our Sugar Dusted Cranberries, but plain works too), rosemary (basically the tasty version of a Christmas tree), a splash of simple syrup or bitters. Put them together and you get a drink that will simply WOW your guests and leave you time to actually enjoy your party! You're welcome. 

xxx Ivy & Eve

Ingredients:

• Cranberries 2-3 for each cocktail (see how to make these pretty & tasty Sugar Dusted Cranberries HERE)
• Sprigs of rosemary 1 for each cocktail (length depends on champagne glass 3-4" should work)
• 1 bottle of Champagne
• Simple syrup left over from the Sugar Dusted Cranberries (optional)
•  Your favorite bottle of bitters (optional)

Directions:

1. Remove leaves off the bottom half of the rosemary sprigs.
2. Slowly poke the stem through each cranberry one at a time.
3. Pour champagne in glass. (add simple syrup from the Sugar Dusted Cranberries recipe for a touch of sweetness and/or a dash of bitters)
4. Place cranberry-rosemary garnish on each glass.
5. Serve!

Cheers!

Cotton Candy Champagne Cocktail

We love sweet things and cotton candy has always been one of our favorite treats to buy at fairs and carnivals as kids. 

We have seen similar cocktail on Pinterest and always wanted to try but we could NEVER seem to find cotton candy in our hometown. So when we happened to find a shop that sold the real deal, we bought some for our carnival themed Halloween party we decided we must take full advantage of the opportunity. 

Our recipe is different to others in that they all let you dip the cotton candy into the glass of champagne, where we pour the champagne on top of the cotton candy. This recipe is much quicker to make then our Autumn Champagne Cocktail recipe since it only has two ingredients. Surprisingly, we found that the cotton candy did not make the cocktail super sweet. If you want it to be sweeter, just keep adding more cotton candy! The cotton candy melts within seconds so be sure to serve it in front of your guests so they can see the magic. We loved the bright color we got from the blue cotton candy but feel free to test out all the different colors! We are definitely planning to make for our next girls night or brunch.

xxx Ivy & Eve

Makes 4 cocktails.

Ingredients:

• 1 bottle of brut champagne
• 1 bag of cotton candy

Directions:

1. Place a small pinch of cotton candy in glass.
2. Pour bubbly in glass over cotton candy
3. Enjoy!

Autumn Champagne Cocktail

We love champage, and by now you probably know we LOVE autumn, so what better than combining two things we can't live without?! We love drinking champagne on its own but sometimes it's fun to spruce it up a bit and make a champagne cocktail. With all the autumn festivities going on, we started brainstorming cocktail ideas. Quickly, we narrowed it down to something with champagne and then decided to pair it with the quintessential fall apple cider. We are pretty happy with the results and it takes 5 minutes or less to make! This cocktail is perfect for any fall gathering and screams to be served during Thanksgiving dinner. 

xxx Ivy & Eve

Makes 1 cocktail

Ingredients:

• 1 bottle of brut champagne or sparkling wine (we used Charles Ninot Cremant de Bourgogne Blanc)

• 1 jug apple cider

• Caramel sauce (we used this Torani caramel sauce)

• Small plate of brown sugar for rimming

• Your favorite bitters (we used Angostura)

Directions:

1. Drizzle the caramel sauce on champagne flute rim.

2. Turn over the flute and roll the rim in the brown sugar.

3. Add a dash of bitters.

4. Pour about 1.5 oz (one shot) of apple cider into the champagne flute.

5. Pop that champagne!

6. Pour champagne into flute, fill to brim.

Cheers!

Red Wine Sangria

Sangria is one of our all time favorite drinks. It's cool and refreshing and has yummy fruit snacks to munch on while you enjoy it. We have put together one of our favorite red wine sangria recipes for you using Pacificana Zinfandel from our second Winc shipment (we will be reviewing it shortly). We hope you enjoy this as much as we do!

xxx Ivy & Eve

Ingredients:

1 bottle of chilled red wine, like this Pacificana Zinfandel from Winc

1/2 cup brandy

1/2 cup orange juice

1 cup club soda

1 orange (cut into thin round slices)

1/2 Meyer lemon (cut into thin round slices)

1/2 lime (cut into thin round slices)

1 apple (sliced into 1/2 inch chunks

10 Maraschino cherries

2 tablespoons Maraschino cherry juice

Directions:

1. Slice and dice fruit and place all in a pitcher.
2. Pour orange juice and brandy into the pitcher, mix, and let it marinate in the refrigerator for 15 or more minutes.
3. Add club soda and wine into the pitcher and mix.
4. Place pitcher back in refrigerator to marinate for 30 minutes or more. (optional step)
5. Add ice cubes to serving glasses and scoop out sangria fruit as you pour.
6. Serve! 

Cheers!

The Drink of Summer 2016: Frosé

You may have noticed a certain pink drink popping up on social media...no we don't mean the Pink Drink from Starbucks (although that one is delicious!) we mean Frosé!

Frosé is a slushy like drink made of...you guessed it, ROSÉ! As soon as we saw a photo of this magical beverage, we knew we had to try it. We haven't seen it on any drink menu near us so we looked at some recipes online and the recipes vary a lot. We picked up a bunch of strawberries from the farmers market so we thought why not add that to the mix? This recipe would also be great to make cheeky alcoholic popsicles as well. Enjoy!

xxx Ivy & Eve

Ingredients

1 bottle rosé

3 oz. sweet vermouth

1 cup strawberries

Agave syrup to taste (optional)

Mint to garnish

Directions

1. Cut the tops off the strawberries.
2. Place the strawberries in a blender (or food processor) and puree.
3. Strain the strawberries using a fine mesh strainer into a large bowl. Use the back of a spoon to push the puree through without pushing the seeds through. 
4. Pour the bottle of rosé through the strainer to help get the last bit of puree through the strainer and discard the leftover seeds and pulp.
5. If there are some seeds and pulp in the bowl you can strain once more.
6. Add the sweet vermouth and stir.
7. Taste test to see if you would like to add any agave syrup and add if you would like. 
8. Pour the liquid into a large glass dish or several ice cube trays and place in freezer until frozen (depends on the dish you use but this should take around 4-6 hours)
9. Once frozen, break up the frozen mixture with a spoon  and place in a blender. 
10. Blend until smooth, pour into glasses, garnish with a strawberry and some mint and a straw.
11. Serve immediately!

DIY "Cheers" Cocktail Napkins + Printable!

We decided we wanted to add a little glamour to our bar cart and upgrade to linen cocktail napkins. They make any event seem fancier, plus they are good for the environment since you won't have to throw them away! Eve came up with the cute idea to make our own stencils with "cheers" printed in different languages on each napkin. 

Cheers around the world:

Cheers: English, means "good wishes"

Skál: Icelandic, equivalent to "cheers" or "good health"

Sláinte: Irish Gaelic & Scottish Gaelic, translates to "health"

Kanpai: Japanese translates to "dry glass"

 Prost: German & Austrian, in latin the translation for prost means "may it be good/beneficial for you!"

 Saluti: Italian, translates in english to "regards"

xxx Ivy & Eve

Materials:

Linen cocktail napkins - 6"x6" (we bought ours here)

Fabric paint (choose any color your heart desires!)

X-acto knife

Sponge brush

Cardboard

Newspaper

Our paper stencil (here) 

Directions:

1. Print out our paper stencil HERE!
2. Cut out each card (follow the black lines)
3. Once you have 6 separate cards use the x-acto knife to carefully cut out each letter.
4. Prepare an area for painting with newspaper 
5. Place stencil on the napkin where you want the word printed
6. Sponge fabric paint lightly till each letter has been filled in with paint, be careful not to move the stencil while painting.
7. Let dry for 48-72 hours.
8. Hand wash recommended to prevent fading.

Cheers ! Skál ! Sláinte ! Kanpai ! Prost ! Saluti !

Pony Party: DIY Cocktail Stirrers

We like to make any occasion a celebration and the easiest way to achieve that is to add a bit of whimsy and sparkle! We have loved horses since we can remember and pony parties have always been a go-to party theme. These little cocktail stirrers add a bit of fun to any cocktail party big or small, and are super easy to make! You can switch it up and use any plastic toy to top these stirrers. Next on our list to make are cats, dogs, and dinos! Yay!

xxx Ivy & Eve

Materials:

Cocktail stirrers (Amazon)

Plastic horse toys (Amazon)

Gold spray paint

E6000 (or any permanent craft glue)

Drill with drill bit that is slightly larger than the diameter of the cocktail stirrers (this beaut was provide by our Dad haha)

Newspaper

Steps:

1. Gather all materials together and cover workspace with newspaper. It is best to do most of this DIY outside.

2. Take drill and drill holes about 1/8 inch deep in the center bottom of the horses bellies. Test to make sure the holes are large enough to insert the drink stirrers.

3. Spray one side of the horses at a time with spray paint; making sure the entire surface is covered. You will probably have to do two coats. Allow to dry a few minutes between coats. (Make sure you do this either outside or in a well ventilated room)

4. Once the horses are painted and dried, apply a small amount of adhesive into the drilled holes and insert the drink stirrers.

5. Allow to dry a few hours before use.

Cheers!