The quickly fading colours of fall have many of us longing the days where we are at the beachside, enjoying a cocktail with friends and bulking up on vitamin D. Of course, you could book an expensive trip to the southern hemisphere to do just that. However, the cocktail crash course at the Bascafé was a perfect opportunity to have that beachside feeling for a more friendly price.
As one might expect, the results were mixed (do not triple your rum, ceteris paribus). For those whose cocktail may have wiped the recipe from their memory, a quick refresher of what you made follows below.
One of the classics, is the Mojito.
Ingredients:
- Half a lime
- 5-8 leaves of mint
- 1 Tbsp. of brown sugar (or 20ml of liquid cane sugar)
- 40ml of rum
- Crushed ice
- Sparkling water (alternatively, Sprite can do the trick)
Firstly, cut your lime and squeeze the juices into your glass. Put the lime wedges in there too and add the sugar. Next, take the mint leaves in one hand bruise the leaves by clapping your hands. This vital step releases the aromas and flavour of the mint. After you put in the mint, add the rum and fill your glass up halfway with the crushed ice. Take your sparkling water fill it such that you can still vigorously stir, then stir and top off with more ice and/or sparkling water. Finally add a straw and a little umbrella for that beachside feeling.
This next cocktail is the main character in a clarinet major’s song we all know. According to IMDB he admitted to never having had a Piña Colada prior to writing the song.
Ingredients
- 40ml rum
- 375ml fresh coconut milk
- 20ml fresh pineapple juice
- 3-4 chunks of pineapple
- Ice cubes
- 2 teaspoons of granulated sugar
- Pineapple slice to garnish
Start off with mashing the pineapple chunks in a shaker. Drench the chunks in both the pineapple juice and the coconut milk. Add the sugar while you stir and pour the rum. Next, throw in the ice and shake. All that is left is to pour it into a glass, grab a straw and garnish with more pineapple. If you are looking for a quicker fix of this cocktail, you can replace the fresh ingredients and the sugar by using a Piña Colada fruit smoothie mix.
By the time the third cocktail was presented, some chose more liberal interpretations of the instructions. This caused some obvious complications with distilling the actual recipe. If you’re curious about that mystery, tequila-based cocktail, ask a friend who was there!
.png)
