I’ve been on a bit of a whiskey kick lately, which I am prone to do from time to time, particularly in stressful periods of my life. That sounds more pathetic than I mean it to, but nothing helps you unwind like a delicious beverage at the end of the day – obviously a time-tested tradition. I’m such a lady about whiskey, however, and need a lot of sweet and sour things to accompany it. My favorite is still the Maple Sour, and recently I tweeted a photo of that delicious beverage I was enjoying and Marta suggested I’d like the Bella Donna at Villains in downtown LA. A quick google search and I had the delicious looking recipe in my paws – a trip to the farmers market and I had blood oranges, mint, and blackberries ready for this party in my mouth. I don’t have shaved ice or the patience for somehow creating such a thing – I thought about using my blender to make crushed ice – but good god, the recipe seemed a little bit of a stretch for me anyway. In hindsight I think I’d spring for that, and I’ll tell you why in a minute.

Ok, here’t the original recipe, posted on blogdowntown:

The Bella Donna of Villains Tavern
Created by Dave Whitton

Ingredients:

• 2 oz Maker’s Mark
• 2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
• ½ oz fresh squeezed orange juice
• ½ oz fresh squeezed lemon juice
• ½ oz simple syrup
• fresh mint
• fresh black berries
• shaved ice
• cubed ice

Directions:

In a tin: Add Makers, bitters, Orange juice, lemon juice, simple syrup with ice. Shake vigorously. In a bucket glass, add a bundle of fresh mint and top with ice. Note: a smack with the hand will “open the mint oils up”. Strain ingredients from tin into glass and top with a bed of shaved ice. Top with a gramble (a muddled pool) of black berries. Sip and say ahhh.

Last night Lisa and I attended the LA Food Swap that I’d previously mentioned. To say that I got really into it is an understatement. I seriously became obsessed with making my trade offerings (flavored simple syrup, more on that in a minute), my life consumed by it for the past week. I was crazed by trying to find the right sized jars, the perfect organic ingredients, designing the perfect labels. Was it worth it? Probably not to the point of my obsession. I should have not spent so much time on it in hindsight, but damn, it was pretty fun. It also makes me giddy picturing someone loving and using my syrup at home.

How the swap works is that you bring anything homemade, home grown, or foraged and set up at a table (this one was held at Reform School in Silver Lake), then you mingle with other swappers, testing their goods, and then write your name down at their table letting them know you want to swap with them. Then everyone pounces on what they want to swap. It’s a bit awkward turning people down – I’m on a restrictive diet right now so I was aiming for savory goods and home grown stuff and I didn’t get a lot of my first picks, which was a bummer (wherever you are, spicy pickle girl, I want your pickles, dammit). But by the end there are no hard feelings and you feel pretty awesome if you have a popular item. I imagine that I would feel like crap if no one wanted to swap with me, but I don’t think I noticed anyone with no swaps – everything was so good there. The lighting was really harsh in there and did not make for the prettiest photos, but you can see them all here on flickr. I swapped for: walnut + almond + amaretto milk, grapefruits, oranges, chai tea mix, caramelized red onion relish, limoncello, chai tea jelly, and pickled carrots.

I talked A LOT about the swap on twitter, and was told that I must share recipes. So now I’m going to share what I made, how you can make it, and what to make it with (I included hang tags with the syrup with these recipes). I’m a huge fan of flavored simple syrups because they turn a boring gin and soda into mixologist-worthy gem. And I have to give credit to the girl who started me on this kick, Mrs. Kelly Carambula. She is the patron saint of flavored simple syrup and if I ever doubted an idea – “could cardamom be used in a syrup?” – I’d do a search on her blog and be assured that since she’d done it before, it would be a winner. She originally gave me a jar of rosemary ginger syrup years ago and I never forgot its deliciousness. So, thank you Kelly for your syrupspiration (sorry, I’m such a nerd). Onward!

1. Earl Grey Lavender Syrup
yields a little less than 3 cups of syrup and keeps in the fridge for about two weeks
2 cups water
2 cups sugar – I recommend using natural cane sugar, like sugar in the raw, because it yields a much more caramel-y syrup. I made one batch with regular and it was definitely inferior!
2 bag of earl grey tea (my favorite is Market Spice)
A few sprigs of fresh lavender (you can make it with dried as well – about 1 cup or so – I haven’t tried this so don’t take my word on it)

Boil your water, turn off the heat and steep the tea for roughly five minutes. Discard tea bags and turn the heat back on, bringing to a light boil. Add sugar, stir until dissolved. Add lavender and turn down heat and simmer for roughly 15 minutes. You can do a pretty accurate test just smelling the pot to see if it’s done, but very carefully spoon a tiny bit out and let it completely cool and test to see if the lavender is strong enough for your taste. Once it’s done, discard the lavender and let the syrup cool just a bit before pouring into heat safe jars. If you let it completely cool it will get really thick and might be a pain to put into the jars.

Cocktail Recipe:

Herbal Lady
1 1/2 oz gin (preferably Hendricks or something similar)
1/2 oz citrus juice (lemon, orange, or grapefruit)
1/2 oz earl grey lavender syrup
seltzer (optional)

Place ingredients in cocktail shaker full of ice. Shake the devil out of it and strain into a small cocktail glass. Top with seltzer if it’s too strong for your taste.
Makes one cocktail

2. Rosemary Ginger Syrup
yields a little less than 3 cups of syrup and keeps in the fridge for about two weeks
2 cups water
2 cups natural cane sugar (like sugar in the raw)
A few sprigs of fresh rosemary (don’t use dried)
2″ chunk of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped

Boil water, add sugar and stir until dissolved. Turn heat down and add rosemary and ginger, simmer for 20-30 minutes. Discard the rosemary and let the syrup cool just a bit before straining the syrup into heat safe jars.

Cocktail Recipe:

Rosemary Ginger Lemonade Slushes (this might look familiar)
2 cups of ice
1/2 cup of gin or vodka
Juice of 2 lemons (preferably Meyer if you can get ‘em)
2 oz of rosemary ginger simple syrup

Fill a blender with all the ingredients and blend until the ice is smooth. Pour into glasses and garnish with rosemary sprigs if you’re trying to impress someone with your hostess skills.
Makes two cocktails. Or one, you lush.

3. Meyer Lemon Cardamom Syrup
yields a little less than 3 cups of syrup and keeps in the fridge for about two weeks
2 cups water
2 cups natural cane sugar (like sugar in the raw)
Peel of 1 Meyer lemon (if you can’t find Meyers I think this would still be damn good with regular, or, no lemon at all)
1 tablespoon of decorticated cardamom (this is what I used) or about 20 whole cardamom pods

Boil water, add sugar and stir until dissolved. Turn heat down and add lemon peel and cardamom, simmer for 30 minutes or more (this is one you really have to test because it depends on the cardamom you’re using). Let the syrup cool just a bit before straining the syrup into heat safe jars.

Cocktail Recipe:

Cardamom Fashioned
2 oz whiskey
1/2 oz Meyer lemon cardamom syrup
2 dashes angostura bitters
lemon or orange peel
Seltzer (optional)

Combine whiskey, Meyer lemon cardamom syrup, bitters and ice in a glass. Stir until cold. Garnish with citrus peel. Top with seltzer if it’s too strong for your taste.
Makes one cocktail

Other ideas for any of the syrups:
Add to lemonade
Drizzle on top of vanilla ice cream
Drizzle on pancakes
Pour on top of crushed iced for homemade snocones
Add to hot or iced tea
Add to champagne
Any of the syrups work beautifully with the first recipe for the earl grey syrup. My favorite cocktail to make, by far.

Ask and you shall receive. So many of you emailed or commented asking for the recipe for the rosemary gin lemonade slushes that I mentioned in Bits Of My Weekend that I thought a post was in order. The idea of the recipe was inspired part by Kelly’s recipe for herby lemon cocktails and her recipes for slushes she posted this summer. I thought I’d combine the ideas and use gin instead of vodka because I’m not a fan of vodka (but I think it would still be delicious, gin is just a more versatile purchase for us.) They’re a little bit of work (well, time) if you don’t have the syrup already made, but they are so worth it.

Rosemary Lemonade Gin Slushes – makes 2
(I realized this was a more accurate title for the drink than the former)
I’m famous for guessing ingredient measurements, so don’t take these too seriously

2 cups of ice
1/2 cup of gin (this makes a STRONG drink, the way we like ‘em, but you could use less)
juice of 2 lemons (meyer lemons would be stellar for this if they were in season)
1-2oz of rosemary simple syrup, depending on how sweet you like them

Fill a blender with all the ingredients and blend, until the ice is smooth. Pour into glasses and garnish with rosemary sprig if you’re trying to impress someone with your hostess skills.

Rosemary simple syrup
makes about 1 1/2 cups (way more than you need, but you’ll have more ready for later boozing!)

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
2 sprigs of rosemary

Stir water and sugar until disolved over medium heat. Add rosemary and simmer for about 30 minutes. Remove rosemary. Let syrup cool before using. Store extra in the refrigerator.

photo by me, an outtake from a little project I’ll share soon

I don’t quite know where to start with thanking all of your for your heartfelt, touching, honest, wise, amazing, holy crap where did you all come from comments on my home post. And emails. And tweets. Not only did you give me so much to think about, but I’ve never felt less alone in my life. Good god, you guys, we are all in the same boat in life! I do want to point out for some of you who sounded like you may have thought I’m feeling pretty bummed out right now, but I assure you that I’m not Charlie Brown-ing up the streets of LA lately. When people ask me how LA is, I respond, “great!” because life here is totally a-ok right now in the grand scheme of things.

Things that are good, things that feel right in my home right now: jaw dropping sunsets, a strong, delicious drink and a boyfriend who makes you the best sandwiches in all the land.

Have a drink with me? It’s been a long week, and this is my very favorite, ever:

Maple Sour
2 oz whiskey or bourbon (I prefer Makers Mark, or Knob Creek)
1/2 oz lemon (if you use a meyer lemon [yum], use a little more as it’s not as sour)
1/2 oz maple syrup (if you are a whiskey newb or wuss, use a little more)

Pour over ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake the shit out of it. Strain into a glass. Garnish with a lemon peel if you’re fancy, huh/have too much time on your hands/are trying to impress someone. Be careful, they are dangerously delicious.

If you don’t drink, and/or still need a little pick-me-up, watch this.

Friday Bits? Maybe next week. Have a wonderful weekend!