Very first cocktail I decided to try is a simple concoction containing only After Shock and milk. It’s not so complex and it’s named – “Drool”. Not that tempting, when you think about it. But, beneath this unfortunate name lies very good drink, highly enjoyable. If you like to sip (instead of downing) After Shock cinnamon liqueur, this cocktail will definitely add another dimension to your experience – smoothness.

After Shock cocktail "Drool"

It has everything you ever liked about After Shock Hot & Cool cinnamon liqueur: hot spicy touch coming from dominant cinnamon flavor, cold mint feeling that fills your mouth, long aftertaste… With addition of creamy smoothness coming from milk.

I’ve got the impression that whoever created this drink meant it to be downed in one gulp; but it would be a shame “wasting” this drink just like that! Try it out yourself and decide on your own – is it to be sipped or downed in one gulp.

Recipe:

• 1 oz – After Shock Hot & Cool cinnamon liqueur (ie. “the red one”)
• 2 oz – milk (preferably cold)

Pour the ingredients in a rocks glass with a few ice cubes, stir and serve

Singapore Sling at Boat Quay looked like this one. Image taken from Fogged In Lounge blog

If you come to Singapore as a tourist and settle down in cozy, dreamlike bar at Boat Quay, first an Asian
beautiful waitress with long, black, straight hair and dark, hazel eyes offers you the cocktail menu. You
will know all of the cocktails, except one: Singapore Sling. The admirable waitress returns to our table
and you ask her about the Singapore Sling. With a strong Singaporean slang she replies: “Just try it lah!
Nice nice!” Seconds later the waitress vanishes with your order and you get lost in your thoughts while
you enjoy yourself next to the Singapore River.

On the back of the menu you could find everything about the Singapore Sling history. Certain time
before 1915, the bartender Ngiam Tong Boon developed the drink in the Raffles Hotel on his Long Bar.
The original ingredients contained gin, Cherry Heering, Bénédictine (cordial) and fresh pineapple juice
from Sarawak which should have enhanced the flavor and the foam top. It should have looked shiny red
with a white head because of the shaking.

However after a while, you haven’t read anything and you devote yourself wholeheartedly to your drink.
The cocktail itself looks just nice and reminds you of a Tequila Sunrise. The color changes from red on the
bottom slowly to orange, then to yellow on the top. Just the Maraschino cherry and a slightly foam on
top shows you the difference of the cocktail in front of you. Obviously, the bartender didn’t shake your
drink at all.

You take the first sip with your straw and strong taste of cherry and alcohol are wetting your whistle.
Nevertheless you cannot identify the alcohol. You like the sweet alcoholic taste which encourages you to
take the next sip.

The more you drink, the more you realize the taste of pineapple which comes along with a negligibly
slightly flavor of orange. The more you drink, the softer gets the drink and with the last dram, it tastes
like a soft drink.

After the Singapore Sling, you feel satisfied, relaxed and happy. You don’t know if it is due to the Cocktail
or the atmosphere at Boat Quay. It doesn’t matter anyway.

Ingredients:

• 30ml Gin
• 15 ml Cherry Brandy
• 120 ml Pineapple Juice
• 15 ml Lime Juice
• 7.5 ml Cointreau
• 7.5 ml Dom Benedictine
• 10 ml Grenadine

Put all ingredients together and shake well. Strain into a highball glass. Garnish with a slice of pineapple and Maraschino cherry.

Mirabell

Recipe for Mirabell:

• 3/4 oz – gin
• 3/4 oz – orange flavored liqueur
• 3/4 oz – sweet red vermouth
• 3/4 oz – orange juice
• sparkling wine (or Champagne) for topping up

Shake all ingredients, except the sparkling wine, together in a shaker with ice and then strain into champagne flute. Top up with sparkling wine and serve.

History of alcoholic drinks is also full with similar examples, although not as legendary as examples in history of science. For example, fermentation of fruits is probably discovered when people forgot their fruits and left them for longer than allowed. Aging in wooden barrels turned out to be beneficial to the taste of raw wine distillate only after such distillate was transported by ships to distant destinations – voyages that took many months in one direction. Etc…

Actually, it is the transportation by ships that turned out to be the main reason for ancient Greeks to try and perserve their precious wine in order for it to survive long voyages. One way of preserving their wines was to seal wine vessels with Aleppo pine resin. In this way they were able to keep the air out, but on the other hand, in this way wine also gets infused with resin aroma, thus creating a new style of wine – retsina. This style of wine became so popular that even with the introduction of wooden barrels, which elminated the need to use the resin to seal them, retsina survived and is still popular nowdays.

Retsina Malamatina - bottle label

The retsina I had a chance to taste is Retsina Malamatina. It is one of the most popular brands of retsina in its homeland Greece. With 11% of alcohol per volume, it’s as strong as many other white wines. However, strong but pleasant aromas of pine trees will dominate your nose the very first moment you open the bottle, followed by dominant taste of pine trees as soon as you take the first sip. It has a power to instantly take you to a Mediterranean island, with rocky beaches crowded with pine trees.

Retsina Malamatina

However, although pleasant, dominant pine tree aromas and taste will quite soon become too much – one glass is quite enough to enjoy retsina.

From left to right: "Dracula's kiss", "Scropion", "Black cat"

Dracula’s Kiss:

This one is very sweet. As sweet as you’d expect a kiss to be… Especially a kiss from a Dracula – vampires are said to be good lovers :) But, it might be way too sweet for your palate. With hints of cherry and with cola dominating, it is not a complex cocktail, but its visual appeal is great (especially if you have glasses with narrower bottom), combining two layers: low red layer at the bottom and high “black” layer to the top of the glass.

Recipe:

• 1/3 oz – grenadine syrup
• 1 oz – vodka
• 1/2 oz – cherry brandy
• cola (for topping up)

Coat bottom of the glass with grenadine syrup. Add plenty of ice. Then add vodka and cherry brandy and top up with cola.  (Optionally) garnish this cocktail with a few maraschino cherries.

Scorpion:

Scorpion is a very potent tropical cocktail. It might “teleport” your Halloween party to the Caribbeans (unless you really live there :D ) for a moment with its tropical taste. With (acidic) citrus tastes dominating, and strong influence of rum, you’ll certainly feel like a pirate for a moment. But beware of Scorpion’s sting, ’cause it can easily turn your Halloween night into hell-of-a morning! :) You’ve been warned! :)

Recipe:

• juice of half a lemon (or lime)
• 1,5 oz – orange juice
• 3/4 oz – brandy
• 3/4 oz – dark rum
• 3/4 oz – light rum
• 1/4 oz – triple sec

Put all ingredients into shaker with ice cubes and shake. Strain into highball glass with plenty of ice (cubes). Garnish with a slice or wedge of lemon (or lime).

Black cat:

Black cats might seem mysterious or scary if you come across them or if they cross your path. But once you come close to them, you realize that they actually might be very cute (of course, we’re talking about domestic black cats, not about panthers or something :) ).

It’s the same with this highball cocktail. Being black and unappealing at first glance, it reveals itself as sweet and fruity after you taste it. It can almost make you purr… :)

Recipe:

• 1 oz – vodka
• 1 oz – cherry brandy
• blueberry (or cranberry) juice for topping up
• cola for topping up

Pour vodka and cherry brandy into a higball glass filled with ice. Top up with cola and berry juice in equal measures and serve.

Happy Halloween!

Mimosa is an elegant cocktail, refreshing, with strong citrus dominance, namely the orange, because of both curacao and orange juice.

Mimosa

Recipe for Mimosa cocktail:

• 1 oz – orange juice (use freshly squeezed juice for best results)
• 1/3 oz – curaçao
• dry Champagne or other sparkling wine for topping up

Pour the orange juice into the Champagne flute. Add curaçao and stir. Top up with sparkling wine. Adequate garnish for this cocktail would be an orange wedge.

AfterShock Hot & Cool (close-up)

Anyway, if you’re unfamiliar with this drink, let me introduce it to you. Red After Shock variant, Hot & Cool, is a cinnamon flavored liqueur. But it has much more to it than just the cinnamon flavor. First of all it both tastes and smells with full, strong cinnamon feel. But the taste is a strong combination of cinnamon and “spicy” alcohol (hot) and menthol (cool) feel. When combined in a liqueur, these tastes create a powerful feel in your mouth and further down your throat.

Aimed at younger customers, it was promoted as a party shooter ever since the first launch in 1997. Therefore, to fully understand the name After Shock, you should have to take a shot of it and then take a deep breath. What you’ll experience, in short, is first the hot wave coming from the shot itself, followed by the cool wave coming from the air combined with menthol. Truly amazing experience!

But be aware! Although it’s marketed as liqueur and supposed to be consumed in shots, this drink is quite potent with its 40% alc/vol (although I’ve read that the alcohol content was reduced to 30% in 2009). Also, a note for you to take: even if you’re not a party-type of a person, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this great liqueur, because it’s as great when sipped as when taken as a shot.

Another thing definitely worth mentioning is its bottle design. Diamond-shaped bottle with straight edges is blurred at the top, giving the impression that the bottle is frozen at the top. That icy touch, in combination with vibrant red color of the drink, depicts the Hot & Cool label the best way possible!

After Shock Hot & Cool

As I’ve mentioned above, this liqueur was first introduced in 1997 by Jim Beam Brands. That fact inspired some people to claim that its based on a bourbon, but I wont suggest taking that claim for granted. Yet the greatest confusion to the story behind After Shock is created by a lack of information about it – even the official website is more than a decade old and it’s no longer available at it’s original web address; it can only be found on Internet Archive.

Besides the Hot & Cool (i.e. the red) version, there are (or were) also: Cool Citrus (blue, citrus flavor), Thermal Bite (green, aniseed flavor), Cranberry (black, berry flavor), Electric Taste Sensation (silver, apple & Red Bull flavors) and Spicy Apple (orange, apple flavor). But I’ve never tasted any of these. If you’ve tasted them, feel free to drop your comments on them.

Northern Light

Recipe:

• 3/4 oz – light rum
• 3/4 oz – triple sec
• sparkling wine (or Champagne) for topping up
• (some variations also call for a piece of orange peel)

Shake light rum and triple sec in a shaker with ice, then strain into the champagne flute. Top up with sparkling wine. If you’re using the orange peel, squeeze it over the glass and serve. If you’re going to garnish this drink, you can perch a slice of orange on the rim of the glass.

This is aromatic cocktail with orange flavors dominating, of course (coming from triple sec and etheric oils from orange peel). Sparkling wine contributes to the fruit feeling, while rum adds to the kick I’ve already mentioned.

That’s exactly what I was doing recently during my holiday. With just one more detail. I was drinking a simple mix I’ve came up with: ouzo mixed not with water, but with pink grapefruit juice.

Ouzo mixed with pink grapefruit juice

It’s common for Greek people to drink their ouzo with water. Now, when I think about it, most aniseed spirits are mixed with water, all around the Europe. Water turns it into cloudy white drink, known as “lion’s milk” in some parts of the world (Turkey, for example).

Pink grapefruit juice is pale red, and in combination with ouzo it creates an appealing cloudy orange drink.

What you need is:

• 2 oz – ouzo (or other aniseed spirit/liqueur)
• 4 oz – pink grapefruit juice

Fill a highball glass with ice cubes, add ouzo and top it up wi thgrapefruit juice. Add straw and optionally garnish it with slice of pink grapefruit. Feel free to change the quantity of grapefruit juice, to suit your taste.

Now the beach scene is complete. Enjoy!

Negroni & Negroski

Here’s the recipe:

• 1 oz – gin
• 1 oz – Campari
• 1 oz – sweet red vermouth

Pour the ingredients in a rocks or aperitif glass over ice, stir and serve. Optionally, you can garnish it with orange (or even lemon) peel.

Gin definitely adds the kick here, but Campari is still the dominant ingredient in this classic cocktail. Sweet red vermouth adds a bit of sweetness, while contributing to the herbal flavors. Since gin is clear and Campari is always in vibrant red, color of this cocktail can vary according to the color (and texture) of the particular vermouth you use, but generally it’s going to be red and appealing.

Since it’s popular cocktail, Negroni produced quite a few variations over time. One of those variations is Negroski. Basically, it’s Negroni made with vodka instead of gin. Measures are the same:

• 1 oz – vodka
• 1 oz – Campari
• 1 oz – sweet red vermouth

Same as with Negroni – pour ingredients in a rocks glass over ice, stir, garnish and serve.

This variation makes Campari even more dominant, because vodka is (or should be) completely flavorless, so the cocktail loses taste of juniper, dominant in gin. If you find it less appealing than with gin, try it with lemon-flavored vodka.