Just a quick post to let you all know that I’m currently away on vacation but fear not! Updates will start again properly as soon as I’m back. Afterall, there are so many great cocktails for us to make!
// Dave
Category: Other
Mozart White Chocolate Cream Review
Mozart White Chocolate Cream
Category: Cream liqueur
ABV: 15%
Produced: Austria
Website: http://www.mozart-white.com
Similar Products: Baileys Irish Cream, Coole Swan Irish Cream, Amarula Cream.
About
.
Mozart is an Austrian liqueur brand and along with the white chocolate that we’re looking at today also make gold and dark chcocolate liqueurs, chocolate bitters, and interestingly, a dry chocolate spirit. We’ll cover these products in later posts but now we’re going to focus on the white chocolate cream.
(Check out Easy Guide to Liqueurs for more information about Liqueurs and how they are made)
The liqueurs base distillate is made from sugar cane which is blended with cocoa butter and skimmed fresh cream. The combination of skimmed cream and cocoa butter gives the liqueur a longer shelf life and a lower fat content than you would expect from many other cream based liqueurs without the need for buckets of added preservatives.
Extra flavour is provided by macerating Bourbon vanilla from Madagascar and caramel into the distillate.
.
Taste
.
In the glass the liqueur is white in colour and relatively thick and viscous from the cream. Vanilla and caramel notes show through quite strong on the nose and through to the actual tasting providing a rich, creamy flavour that doesn’t taste artificial like many of its competitors. If you love chocolate as much as I do (damn those vices!) then this is a dangerous product.
.
In Cocktails
.
I find that cream liqueurs mixed with vodka tend to be a bit boring and watery tasting and generally prefer to mix them with darker base spirits such as dark rum or an aged whiskey. In the past I’ve had positive experiences matching it with heavy rums such as Goslings Black Seal or Myers, and also with the excellent Santa Teresa Selecto.
Other flavours commonly mixed with cream liqueurs include coffee, vanilla, chocolate, orange, mint; think of the flavours that you would mix with cream in cooking and deserts and you should be on the right track.
Add coffee flavours either from a coffee liqueur (Kahlua or Tia Maria) or even from a shot of espresso. When adding chocolate or vanilla flavours it’s worth remembering that the liqueur itself has these flavours so don’t go overboard or your flavours will clash.
.
Careful!
Care is needed when you use this product in cocktails – cream can curdle with many ingredients (especially citrus fruit and juices) and this can give your cocktail a pretty nasty appearance and mouth feel. Not good!
.
Verdict
.
A silky mouth feel and rich natural flavours makes this a liqueur worthy of consideration for your home bar.
Example Cocktail
.
White Martini
- 25ml Dark Rum (Goslings Black Seal)
- 25ml Mozart White Chocolate Liqueur
- 25ml Milk
Measure and pour all ingredients into a mixing glass and fill with ice. Shake hard and fine strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Mixing Cocktails 101 – The Methods – Shake and Strain
Shake and Strain
For more info about bar equipment check out the ‘Essential Equipment for your home bar’ blog post
Post contents
Depending on the ingredients used and the overall effect we are seeking there are a number of mixing methods that we can use to make cocktails. We’ve covered built drinks already and today we’re going to look at the most visible – shaking.
Shaking and cocktails appear to go hand in hand – it often seems like anytime more than two ingredients are involved they have to be tossed into a tin and shaken around by an enthusiastic bartender. Shaking is an aggressive mixing motion and helps us to mix and chill multiple ingredients quickly and efficiently. The aggressive nature of shaking means that getting the correct technique is very important.
Technique
You can start by setting your mixing glass on a table, giving yourself enough room to work.
Add your ingredients
Add your ingredients (whiskey, lemon, syrups etc) into the mixing glass, being careful to measure for the correct amounts.
Fill the mixing glass with ice – we add the ice last to minimise dilution.
Place the shaker tin on top of mixing glass, being careful to have a slight angle to avoid a ‘perfect seal’ (which is a real pain in the wherever to try and get off) and give a nice, hard tap to seal the glass and the shaker.
Ready for some shaking Start shaking
Hold the shaker, ensuring you have a solid grip of both the mixing glass and the shaker tin (we don’t want to let go by mistake!), and shake hard in nice big movements allowing the ice to travel from one end of the shaker to the other. The further the ice travels the better as it will mix and cool the drink faster – you’ll hear a ‘clack clack’ sound as the ice hits each end of the shaker if you’re doing this correctly.
.
Continue shaking hard until you have the right level of cooling and dilution – the exact time depends on the style of drink, but around 10-12 seconds will usually be good. If you’ve shaken hard enough then there should be condensation on the shaker tin.
Separate the shaker and mixing glass
Now its time to separate the shaker. Hold the shaker tin in one hand and use the palm of your other hand to give a hard ‘tap’ on the tin where the mixing glass and shaker meet. This should break the seal and allow you to lift the mixing glass off and away.
Time for a taste test
Now it’s time to taste test the cocktail. Use your finger to cover the end of a straw and dip it into the cocktail so that you can get some liquid to taste. You want to check whether the cocktail tastes balanced (the right levels of sweet/sour/bitter) and make sure the flavours are correct. If you need to make any adjustments then do so now and either stir or give another quick shake.
The cocktail tastes good (of course!) so it’s time to transfer the drink from the shaker to a glass.
Ice in your glass?
Check your recipe to see whether you need to fill your destination glass with ice (if you’re using a Collins or an Old Fashioned, you will probably need to). If you do, fill it right to the top, as more ice = colder drinks.
Strain and pour
You can use your Hawthorne strainer to pour your drink into the glass without any ice or other junk in the shaker following along for the ride. If you are pouring into a cocktail glass, you won’t be using icing the glass, so you can double or fine strain by pouring through a tea strainer placed between the Hawthorne strainer and the glass – this will help collect any small pieces of ice or fruit that and make the cocktail look better.
Finish off by adding your garnish and a straw (if necessary).
All done!
Weekend Cocktail – Cuba Libre
Cuba Libre
Another nice and easy cocktail just in time for the weekend, but don’t let the simple ingredients fool you as this is more than just a humble rum and coke – the addition of fresh lime juice gives a balance that makes this an easy drinking cocktail perfect in warmer weather. The balance in this case is achieved through the combination of sweet:sour ingredients, with the sweetness coming from the sugar in the Coca Cola and the sour from the citric acid in the lime juice.
.
A little History
The Cuba Libre, as the name suggests, originated in Cuba sometime around 1900 when Coca Cola was first introduced to the island. The name is thought to be based on a battle cry of the Cuba Liberation Army during their war of Independence in 1898, and was called out in recognition of their newly found independence during some heavy drinking sessions.
Making the Cuba Libre
You will need
- Collins/Highball glass
- 50ml Rum (preferably Cuban)
- 1 lime (preferably ripe)
- Coca Cola
Mixing Method
Take your highball and use your measure to pour in 50ml Cuban rum (I’ve used Havana Club as it’s actually Cuban but if you’re from the USA then this isn’t going to be available – light Cruzan or Bacardi will do).
Next, cut your lime in half and use a citrus press to squeeze 15ml lime juice (you can use your measure again to ensure you get the right amount.
Fill your glass with cubed ice – nice big ice cubes are best as they will melt slower than smaller ones. Make sure to get as much ice in the glass as you can – more ice will allow the drink to cool faster and also stops us from pouring too much Coke.
Rum, lime and ice in the glass means it’s time for the Coke. Fill the glass with Coke to the top, but leave a small amount of room so that you can actually pick the glass up and move it around without spilling your cocktail.
Finish the Cuba Libre by cutting a nice wedge of lime and dropping it into the glass, and feel free to add a straw if you feel like it.
Cuba Libre, ready to drink Done!
Variations to Try
Since you already have the ingredients a good little experiment is to make a Rum and Coke (Cuba Libra without fresh lime) and try the two drinks next to each other. What you should notice is that the addition of the sour citric acid from the lime juice in the Cuba Libra has offset the sweetness of the Coca Cola and helped even out the flavour, or balance, when compared to the rum and Coke.
The next easy variation to try is changing up the rum. Cuban rums tend to be very light in style so if you swap it out for something darker (Mount Gay, Appletons or even darker with something like Goslings Black Seal) you’re going to end up with a heavier, ‘richer’ flavour. You could also try using a spiced rum (Sailor Jerrys, Kraken, Captain Morgan’s Spiced), depending on which brand you use you can get some strong vanilla, citrus and cinnamon style flavours coming through.
Let me know what combinations you try and how they work out by leaving a comment below or posting on the facebook page.
/David
Booze News – Bols Natural Yoghurt liqueur
A new release in the world of booze and alcohol today.
.
Image (C) Bols New Product – Bols Natural Yoghurt Liqueur
.
An interesting new liqueur is being added to the international line-up by the Dutch liquor company Bols.
Bols Natural Yoghurt liqueur is getting ready for launch in the UK and some selected markets soon and looks like it could be an interesting variation on the standard cream liqueur options that are currently available, such as Baileys or Amarula.
Bols say that the yoghurt is made from milk from Dutch cows and ‘made of only natural ingredients’ – it looks to have a pretty long shelf life though so I’ll be interested at having a closer look at the bottle to try and see how they’ve achieved this.
.
I haven’t really used much from the Bols range lately, but the yoghurt liqueur catches my interest as it’s a step in a new direction and could provide some new flavours and textures to use in cocktails.
.
I’ll try and get a product to review sometime in the near future and let you know if it’s actually worth the hype.
.
/ David
