One of my finer skills in life is coming up with great excuses for mixing up a fancy cocktail, and with the Oscars coming up next Sunday, an awards show libation was just too easy of an excuse to pass up. I have been craving a drink that’s got a bit of a summer-y flavor to it, a Salty Dog, which combines some of my favorite flavors: sea salt and tangy grapefruit. With some IZZE sparkling grapefruit and a sprig of rosemary I think this is a cocktail I can easily enjoy all year round. Full recipe below, and cheers to great excuses for tasty cocktails! 
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Christmas gets egg nog, New Year’s Eve gets a champagne cocktail — but what’s our go-to Thanksgiving drink? I’m all for mixing up cocktails at family Thanksgiving celebrations, and my friends-giving parties tend to have a few drinks flowing too. A holiday as delicious as Thanksgiving (my second favorite holiday, actually! carbs!) deserves one, don’t you think? I started thinking this week about some of my favorite autumnal flavors that could make up a festive cocktail for friends-giving gatherings and a marrying of pomegranate (fresh seeds + IZZE Sparkling Pomegranate), sage leaves, and the herby flavor of gin felt like the perfect combination when served in festive flutes. Check out the full recipe below!
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You didn’t think you could love a mimosa more than you already do, right? Well, prepare to be amazed. I’ve been participating in a little drink recipe contest with Better Homes & Gardens and Simply Juices, and I’m excited to announce I’m a finalist for the best recipe: A Frozen Berry Mimosa — everything you love about frozen drinks, combined with the greatest brunch cocktail a girl could ask for, the mimosa. The recipe for this tasty concoction is below, and if you’re feeling kind please head over to BHG to vote for my drink!
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Every year at our annual New Year’s Eve celebration, I stock the bar with the usual suspects (champagne, wine, beer) and then add one signature drink to the mix that is festive and easily prepared in advance. This year my color scheme is revolving around mints and golds, so I thought a peachy colored drink would look great on the bar. After some brainstorming, I landed on a grapefruit juice based cocktail that I’m calling the ‘Grapefruit Sparkler.’ To make a batch for yourself start with a pitcher or carafe and mix together 3 cups of chilled grapefruit juice, 1 cup of white rum, and 1/4 cup of elderflower liquor — use this ratio to double or triple the recipe depending on how large your party is. To serve, pour the mixture 3/4 of the way full in a flute and top the remaining 1/4 of the glass with a bubbly prosecco and a sparkly drink stirrer — cheers!
Find similar champagne flutes here: Anthropologie | Waiting on Martha
The Harvard Common Press is celebrating their New England ties by hosting a virtual cookbook potluck with a bunch of local food writers. So when they reached out to me to join on the fun, I of course said yes and said I’d bring the cocktails! I dug through the Harvard Common Press’ book Party Drinks! and found one recipe that seemed like the perfect fit for the occasion: a Ward 8 — named for the 8th Ward of the city of Boston. In a cocktail shaker over ice you pour 4 oz of Rye, 1/2 oz of Grenadine, 1/2 oz Simple Syrup, and fresh lime juice. Shake it up, strain it out into two glasses, and garnish with an orange and cherry, and of course give a clink of the glass and toast to something fun!
Please note: Harvard Common Press sent me a complimentary copy of Party Drinks!; all photographs and opinions are my own.
There are a few ‘trigger’ ingredients that I look for on a cocktail menu when I’m making a drink selection, and the tartness of grapefruit of is always one of my trip contenders. I mixed up sweet and herb-y drink to balance the tart grapefruit flavor in a tasty drink with Brugal Rum. To make one yourself, follow these instructions: in a rocks glass over ice add 1 tsp of honey, fresh grapefruit juice (1-2 grapefruits, depending how much juice you can get out of them!), and 1.5 oz of Brugal White Rum. Stir vigorously, and garnish with a sprig of fresh thyme – swirl it around in the glass to release some of the flavors into the drink, and enjoy!
Brugal Rum provided me with sample products to test, all opinions are my own.
I’ve got another fun rum cocktail for you today after some more experimenting with Brugal Rum — a blueberry basil smash. My idea for this drink came from a peruse through my fridge, I had some leftover blueberries and basil that were ready to use! To make your own version of this drink, follow these steps: In a cocktail shaker, muddle 1 tsp of sugar, 2-3 lime wedges, a handful of blueberries, and a few sprigs of basil. Pour 1.5 oz of dark rum over the muddled mixtures and shake with ice. Pour in a glass and top with soda water; serve with a fresh lime wedge and a striped straw for good measure! 
It’s been awhile since I’ve shared a cocktail recipe — the past few weeks have been jam packed with summer fun, but I’ve barely been at home to test out new ideas! The folks at Brugal sent me some of their rum last week to test out, so I took this as the perfect occasion to get mixing! I was inspired by a blood orange soda that I grabbed at the store and paired with some elderflower liquor and fresh citrus:
- 1.5 oz of Brugal rum
- 0.5 oz of Elderflower Liquor
- 2.5 oz of Blood Orange Soda
- Fresh Lemon juice
- Ice
Pour rum and elderflower liquor over ice and stir. Top with blood orange soda and a squeezed wedge of fresh lemon juice. Serve with a lemon garnish.
Please note: Brugal Rum provided me with product samples, all opinions and recipes are my own.
If you head on over to Style Me Pretty Living today you’ll see some pictures from a Crafts and Cocktails party my girlfriends and I threw to kick off the holiday season earlier this month. But before I share a few of my favorite pictures from the day, I thought I’d focus on the signature cocktail I whipped up for the event, priorities, right? I called it the Cran-Bourbon Fizz — just a little sweet and a little strong, a perfect combination if you ask me. And the cranberry and anise garnishes look so darn festive, don’t they? Full recipe below!
Cran-Bourbon Fizz
2 oz Bourbon
.75 oz Grenadine
Seltzer water
Cranberries
Star Anise
Ice
Mix bourbon and grenadine over ice and stir to combine.
Top the glass with seltzer water to taste.
Garnish with cranberries and star anise.
All images by Bring To Light Photography, floral design by Little Flower Cottage
I shared my brie and jam pinwheel bites last week from my friend Elizabeth‘s blogger holiday party, and realized I hadn’t yet shared the cocktail recipe we used for the event (brie and pastry dough are delicious, but they’re nothing without a tasty cocktail to wash them down with!). Elizabeth decorated stemless wine glasses with metallic gold dots that looked like sparkly little bubbles, so of course we had to fill them with something bubbly! We added to each glass about an ounce each of pomegranate juice and Grand Marnier signature collection liquor (it’s raspberry and peach flavored, holy yum.), and then filled the rest of the glasses with champagne — and of course, gave them a swirl with a tinsel-topped drink stirrer. I didn’t have a name picked out for this concoction just yet, and one of my fellow bloggers said, I think you should call it the Blogger Bellini! I’ll cheers to that.
