Saturday, May 22, 2010

Friday Night Cocktails

In the last few years my wife and I have started a Friday night ritual, cocktail time. Instead of going out we stay home and prepare snacks and special drinks as a prelude to dinner. For the price of a couple drinks in a local bar, we can pay for the complete dinner at home. On occasion we have guests over and share the wealth.

I spent a long number of years in the bar business and have a good repertoire of cocktails to call on. When the PR person for Beverage Artistry-The Perfect Puree of NapaValley offered to send over some samples of their product I said, "Sure let's give them a try." In my past experience cocktail mixers were horrible things; I was a bit skeptical of what might show up.

When FedEx delivered the frozen samples I popped open the box and started opening the containers to inspect what was inside. The first one that caught my eye was El Corazon (the heart). I spooned a bit into my mouth and the flavor exploded! It captured my heart indeed. This company has taken the time to prepare some excellent purees and provide expert recipes that will make exceptional cocktails on the professional level or at home. For this post I concentrated on the El Corazon and the White Sangria and used the product in cocktails that I would normally make. The results were stunning. I look forward to experimenting with more flavors.

The El Corazon is described as a melange of blood orange, passion fruit and pomegranate. I used it in a Margarita. My wife's reaction to her first sip "boy that's good!"
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Add the White Sangria to some Sauvignon Blanc and instant Sangria!
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Perfect for a Friday Night Cocktail






1 comment:

Zoomie said...

My parents always had a cocktail before dinner each evening - usually a martini - mellowed them out. I like the relaxing ritual idea and your idea of 1x weekly makes more sense.