Not An Alcoholic

  Attempting to make my own drink.     This might stray a little from a normal review of mine, as I'm not working with a set recipe. I'm going to attempt to explain my thought process as I attempted to make my own variation of a drink. I'll start off by saying I knew I was going for a variation of a French 75. I knew it was going to have sparkling wine, and I also wanted to try something with pisco. Pisco is a grape brandy, just like cognac, which is used in some specs for a French 75. But Pisco is a lot more earthy and bright, where cognac is quite raisin-y and deep. I thought that with the use of the Pisco, a lime juice made more sense than lemon juice, I wasn't trying to cut through the darker tones of the cognac, I wanted to play with that Pisco. So I started with an oz of Pisco, a half an oz of simple syrup, and a half oz of lime juice. Then I went to add sparkling wine, I was shooting for around 2oz, but I probably added closer to 4. But, it was in the glass now, ...

  French 75 Review!      The French 75 is another common celebratory cocktail that is reasonably low ABV, and often drank at parties around the turn of the new year. Mine in particular smells very heavily of lemon oil, I was trying to get quite a bit into my drink. But I also get raisins from the cognac, and it's effervescent from the sparkling wine. Super light and fun, sweet, easily my favorite cognac drink I've had. A little tart, but not sour. Lovely. 9.7/10 Brief note: This drink is often made with cognac or dry gin, both are totally acceptable. I thought cognac made a bit more sense as a celebratory thing, so I went with cognac. My Spec My spec is: 1oz Cognac 1/2oz Lemon Juice 1/2oz simple syrup also put a small amount of lemon peel in the mixing glass Mix with ice until very cold, pour into drinking glass, top with cold dry sparkling wine. If you want to make the garnish I have, you'll need a "channel peeler" and you want to get a continuous peel of lemon w...

  Egg Nog Review     Sweet, very lightly alcoholic, the nose is full of cinnamon and nutmeg, probably because I grated cinnamon and nutmeg on top of it. I do get some cinnamon in the taste, but the nutmeg is mostly lost. It doesn't taste like raw eggs, but the egg is adding some creaminess and thickness to it. I also get some vanilla and peanut notes from the bourbon. The cognac is a bit more subtle, but I think it's giving a tiny bit of interplay with the cinnamon. Very nice 9/10 My Spec My spec is: 4oz Milk (whole is better, but 2% works, try to avoid skim) 1 Whole raw egg 3/4oz Cognac 3/4oz Bourbon 1/2oz Demerara simple syrup 1 dash of angostura aromatic bitters 1 dash of angostura cocoa bitters Grate the top with cinnamon and nutmeg DRY SHAKE FIRST, that egg is going to expand as you shake it, and doing a good dry shake first makes sure that it expands properly, and that you're keeping your shaker sealed well. After the dry shake, shake it again with ice to ...

A pisco sour! Smells like the angostura bitters that garnish it, but the egg white froth blocks almost everything else. It's tart, earthy, creamy, smooth, maybe not for everyone, but certainly a fine cocktail. 8/10 2oz Pisco 1/2oz Lemon Juice 1/2oz Lime Juice 3/4oz Simple Syrup 3/4oz egg white Dry shake to froth egg, then shake with ice Double strain, be gentle with the foam drop a couple drops of angostura onto the foam gently for garnish Mom said this was better than the paper plane I made last night. But she still was not a big fan. It is a lot closer to her preferred drink, the margarita, but hopefully I'll find something soon that she enjoys.

Smells like grapes (It is basically a Peruvian grape brandy), but there's also a lot of earthy notes. In the mouth it's sweet and earthy, with little fruity notes, and also some vegetal notes. 8/10

Definitely get apples on the nose, like a yellow apple, not a red or green variety. A lot less flavor than I was expecting frankly. Nothing bad, tastes more like a weak green apple. Just not a very strong flavor. Very drinkable though. 8/10Definitely get apples on the nose, like a yellow apple, not a red or green variety. A lot less flavor than I was expecting frankly. Nothing bad, tastes more like a weak green apple. Just not a very strong flavor. Very drinkable though. 8/10