We’re a Speakeasy finalist!

Posted on May 19, 2014 by BoozeNerds

july-5th-2We found out today that we made the finals in the Speakeasy cocktail competition from Slow Foods with our July 5th cocktail. We’re very excited! We’d love to encourage all of you to vote for us so we can represent the great PNW in Italy in October. However it pans out, we’d like to thank Dr. Pickett’s shrubs, Sound Spirits, New Deal Distillery, and Letterpress Distilling for making the fantastic ingredients we used to create this cocktail. Cheers, everyone!

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MxMo: The Macedonian & New Year’s Eve 1977

Posted on May 18, 2014 by BoozeNerds

It’s Mixology Monday time again. We sat out last month’s theme of temperance. As our tagline says, it’s all about our ridiculous love of booze. No booze, no love. 🙂 This month we return with Aw Nuts! courtesy of Elana over at Stir and Strain.  This one spoke to us more as there are lots of nutty things that we enjoy in our cocktails. Read on for what we came up with.

nuts

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Posted in chocolate vodka, cognac, licor 43, Mixology Monday, pistachio orgeat | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Okolehao

Posted on May 11, 2014 by BoozeNerds

lovebirdsA while back, we were searching through one of Beach Bum Berry’s drink apps for something new to try, and we came across the recipe for the Happy Buddha. It called for okolehao, which we’d never heard of. Being inquisitive nerds, we were curious as to exactly what it was. After a quick internet search we discovered that it’s a native Hawaiian spirit. It is made by cooking the root of the Ti plant to break the starches down into sugars, fermenting the results, and then distilling them. This sounded like a unique and interesting spirit, so being us, we had to acquire some.

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Posted in amaretto, aperol, okolehao, orgeat | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Cinco de Mezcal

Posted on May 4, 2014 by BoozeNerds

bierces-close-upTomorrow is Cinco de Mayo, which is one of those weird ‘Merican holidays in our minds. It’s a popular holiday in the states, but in it’s country of origin, Mexico, it’s not that big of a deal. So if we were going to acknowledge it at all, we felt it was important to celebrate one of the more interesting spirits of Mexico. We’re big fans of mezcal here at Booze Nerds HQ, we have quite a number of different bottles of it. That being the case, we thought we would focus on that for this week and introduce more people to this unique spirit.

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Posted in absinthe, apple brandy, drambuie, dry vermouth, mezcal | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Julep Season

Posted on April 27, 2014 by BoozeNerds

icyJulep “season” is almost upon us, what with the Kentucky Derby around the corner. Though if you’re like us, you don’t stand on ceremony, and a nice julep is welcome any time once the weather gets reasonably warm. Which means above 50 degrees around here. 🙂 With that in mind, we decided to try a few different classic juleps as well as noodle around with our own variation on the recipe, because that’s what we do around here. 🙂

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Posted in aged rum, apple brandy, bourbon, calvados, cognac, Original Cocktail, peach brandy | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Slow Cocktails

Posted on April 20, 2014 by BoozeNerds

cascadian-1We both love living here in the Pacific Northwest, the region has tons to offer: a vast range of landscapes and climates, amazing produce and seafood, gorgeous summer weather, and of course a wealth of distillers and other craftspeople who make the booze we like best. Oh, and rain, if you like that sort of thing 🙂

So when Slow Food decided to host a cocktail competition featuring handcrafted regional ingredients, we certainly had to throw in a couple of submissions. We picked up several new shrubs at the farmers market, tasted through our local spirits to pull out a couple to experiment with, and made sure we were well stocked with our favorite local liqueurs.  And then we started to assemble some drinks…

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Posted in branca menta, gin, ginger liqueur, limoncello, Original Cocktail, rye, shrub | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fort Sumter

Posted on April 13, 2014 by BoozeNerds

fort-sumter-closeThis week, we give a quick tip of the hat to American history. The Civil War (or the War Between the States if you prefer) started 153 years ago on April 12th at Fort Sumter. We know that whiskey was like gold on the battlefields that followed, and we were inspired to make something that a soldier of the day might drink.  We set forth to create a libation using the sorts of ingredients that were realistically available at the time. And so we made the Fort Sumter.

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Any Port in a Storm

Posted on April 6, 2014 by BoozeNerds

garnetWe are both fond of port as a nice after-dinner drink, but it also makes a great mixer. With it’s sweetness and fruity/caramel-y notes, it adds depth and richness to a cocktail. We decided to experiment with both tawny and ruby ports to see what we could come up with. Read on to see the results.

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Posted in black walnut liqueur, Cocktail, ruby port, rye, scotch, tawny port | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Wild Kingdom

Posted on March 30, 2014 by BoozeNerds

wild-kingdom-closeMarch 28th was Marlin Perkin’s birthday. When we were kids in the 70’s, he hosted Wild Kingdom, which influenced us in many ways. We both have fond memories of watching it on Sunday evenings, where Marlin and his crew exposed us to many wild and exotic animals, and helped form us both into animal lovers and environmentalists. As adults, we wanted to pay homage to a man who was a great conservationist and also a strong character (read the bit about his interview with Bob McKeown, we hope we’re that badass when we’re in our 70’s). As such, we wanted to create a drink to honor him. Read on to see what we came up with.

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Posted in iris liqueur, mezcal, Original Cocktail, triple sec | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

MxMo: State Fair Sour & Fourteen Shillings

Posted on March 23, 2014 by BoozeNerds

It’s time again for Mixology Monday. This month’s theme is preserves from Craig at World of Drinks. From the description:

The aim of the challenge is to go back to the days of the preserve, pick an ingredient, seasonal or not and treat it as if you won’t be seeing it again for quite some time. Syrups, sorbets, jam, shrubs and the like are all fair game, anything that will preserve the integral character of your favourite ingredient.

With that in mind we searched through our pantries to see what sort of preserved ingredients we had. Read on to discover what we came up with.

ginger

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Posted in bourbon, curacao, peach brandy, vodka | Tagged , | 3 Comments