So I Discovered Lillet

Guys, I discovered Lillet (lee-lay). OK technically I'd read about it before and seen it in Whole Foods. But I'd never bought it because it was a bit pricey and I was a bit broke. But it's cheaper in Paris, so I have thus far splurged on 2 bottles. Now normally I don't go for sweet wines, but for some reason, I love this one. It's like the white wine version of a good port. My brother and I have been drinking it as we watch the BBC's new Sherlock series at night, and it might be one of the best ways you could ever spend your summer evenings.

Happy Hour at Corkbar

It took a recommendation from my parents to finally get me to try Corkbar. I had been avoiding it because their online wine list was quite pricey. But on a recent visit, my parents wandered in for happy hour and discovered $8 glasses of wine! It's not cheap, but $8 is within the range I can justify spending on a glass of wine. And it helps that their food (oddly enough considering their wine prices) is quite reasonably priced. So my boyfriend and I tried it out on a Friday, and it was lovely.

Corkbar is on the very very edge of the South Park neighborhood in downtown, which works to its advantage. The people who make the effort to come out there are serious about relaxing over some nice wine. So the atmosphere is calm and slightly sophisticated. It reminds me a lot of my favorite Philly wine spot, Tria. And the wine, oh the wine! Ok, to be honest we only tried one wine, the happy hour pinot noir. But it was the most delicious wine I can remember drinking in a long time. It was so fantastic that my boyfriend switched from beer to the pinot. It was so fantastic that we hunted down this wine at Bevmo this weekend. If you have $20 burning a hole in your pocket, order a bottle of 2010 Talbott Kali Heart pinot noir. It will be money very well spent. This seems kind of like an afterthought once I have waxed on about the wine, but the food is delicious too. The cheddar gourgeres are an absolute must. They melt in your mouth, and at happy hour, they're only $3 or $4!

I really wish I had been going to Corkbar for years now, but I hope to get the chance to go back before my impending move. I'd love to try it on a "Test Kitchen" Tuesday night. They make a new dish every week, and you get a mini portion of it for $2. Such a fun idea!

Cocktail Recipe: Rosemary Citrus Fizz

Now that I have my little bar, I'm trying to improve my cocktail game. Previously my "game" consisted of red wine, which I realize is not even a cocktail. So before my 3L gala the other weekend I tried out my own version of this Citron Rosemary Fizz. I did not have a citrus infused vodka, but I did have a rosemary infused gin! (Made it myself. I'm so proud of my boozy craftiness!) So I just switched the recipe up. I quickly whipped up a citrus simple syrup.

All it took was boiling:

1 cup water

1/3 cup lemon and lime juice (you can use any citrus juice though)

1/4 cup sugar

While the water was boiling down and the sugar was dissolving, I went to my new herb garden to snip some garnishes. 

Once my syrup had cooled and was ready to be cocktail-ified, I threw it and some ice into a cocktail shaker with my rosemary gin. I used about a 1/2 ounce of syrup to 1 ounce (or so . . .) of gin. Once chilled, I strained the mixture into a glass and then filled the remainder of the glass with club soda. (That's the "fizz" part.) Then I garnished with a lime and a spring of rosemary. The end result was pretty refreshing and tasty, exactly what you want for a warm evening. Once I finish this gin, though, I'd love to try it the other way around (citrus alcohol, rosemary syrup) just to see if I like it better. (And maybe to give me an excuse to make more cocktails . . . .)

PS: If you decide you want to try out the original recipe, all you need to do to make rosemary syrup is boil 2 cups of water with 1/2 cup of sugar and 4 sprigs of rosemary. Once reduced and cooled, drain the syrup (sans sprigs) into an air tight container. Voila!

Cocktail Recipe: Angostura Fizz

It is cloudy and drizzling in downtown LA right now, but that kind of matches my energy level after attending the end-of-the-year party for my law school journal last night. (So much fun!) Maybe a little hair of the dog is in order later today? Last Friday, I tried a new drink at Cana with which I'm now obsessed, an Angostura Fizz, and the bartender kindly taught me how to replicate it at home. If you like your cocktails sweet, this is not the drink for you. Myself, I'm a fan of bitter flavors, and Angostura Fizz delivers. It call for a full shot of bitters! If you've ever mixed a Manhattan or an Old Fashion, then you know that most drinks only call for a few drops of bitters. But don't let the shot of bitters turn you off. The drink balances it out. Just see below!

The recipe, as you can see, calls for the "house pomegranate reduction," which in layman's terms means homemade grenadine. You could just buy Rosa's from any old grocery store, but Cana makes their own because they want to be able to control the sweetness. The bartender recommended using 1 part sugar to 4 parts pomegranate juice. So I put 2 cups of POM and 1/2 cup of sugar in a pan and heated it at medium for 5-10 minutes. The sugar will eventually all dissolve, and the juice will begin to reduce, leaving you will a slightly syrupy homemade grenadine.

Now that you have your grenadine (and you let it cool a bit), you can get down to business. You will need a cocktail shaker, 1 egg (whites only), 1 shot of lime juice, 1 shot of grenadine, 1 shot of Angostura bitters, a dash of cream, a few ice cubes on hand, and club soda. The key to this drink is egg whites. It will make your drink frothy and light, which is a wonderful compliment to the bitters.

 Mix the bitters, lime juice, grenadine, cream, and egg whites together in the shaker without ice. (The bartender called this a "dry shake.") Once all the ingredients are mixed, throw in the ice cubes and shake again. At this point you are cooling the drink, so just shake until it feels cold. It should only take a few seconds. (I highly recommend doing all the shaking over a sink. As the egg whites get frothy, they take up more room and create pressure on the lid. This caused the lid of my shaker to start to come off.)

Once you mixture is cool, strain it into a glass. Then (we're almost done, I promise!) toss a bit of club soda onto the left over ice cubes and swirl it around. A lot of the froth has remained on the cubes, so the idea is to use the club soda to wash it out. After a few swirls, strain the club soda-froth mixture onto the top of your drink. Then enjoy! I found my cocktail tasted just like the one at the bar but did not look quite as lovely. If you're a real pro, you will hopefully end up with something as beautiful as this:

PS: If the Angostura Fizz is old hat to you, then mix it up!

• You can try other bitter liquor bases. I found that I could use half a shot of Fernet Branca and half of shot of bitters for a slightly milder drink (maybe tone down the lime juice and grenadine a smidge if you do this).
• You can try reducing other kinds of juice for a different flavor.
• You could also try using some of the many many kinds of flavored bitters available. If you live in LA, stop by Bar Keeper in Silverlake. That shop has dozens of varieties.

Rollaway Bar

I am way way too excited about what is essentially some rickety old shelves on wheels that I found at the Rose Bowl flea market. I mean, just look at that proud smile. I look like a kid who just learned to tie her shoes for the first time. But the reason why I'm so proud is because these rickety shelves on wheels (with a little elbow grease and a little love) have the potential to be the perfect rollaway bar. Just look at what 45 minutes of Windex and a few well placed bottles did to perk the thing up!

Doesn't seem like such a waste of $30 after all, does it? I've still got to get some sand paper, wood stain, wood glue, and a few screws in order to make my little bar ship shape. But once I'm done, I think it will have been worth the effort. I thought the bf was going to mock my moment of do-it-yourself-ness, but it turns out that he really likes having a designated bar. It clears off a lot of kitchen space. Plus, its a perfect mood setter for Mad Men!

PS: Wondering about the jars? (Probably not, but indulge me while I tell you about them.) The big Bulleit Whiskey bottles are from the RB flea too. They were $10 for 2. (If you buy them at the store, it's about $40 for 2, but they come filled with whiskey instead of empty so its not a bad deal.) I bought them so we can start infusing our own liquor at home. Right now, we've got a rosemary gin soaking. (Herb infusions seem to take a week or two.) This week, we'll do a habanero tequila in the other bottle. (That will only take a few hours.) The smaller bottles are from Reform School in Silverlake, and they contain some homemade syrups. Violet syrup in the tiny jar (made by boiling water, sugar, and dried violets from Spice Station) and grenadine in the larger jar (made by boiling POM juice and sugar). A pretty artisanal set up!

Paso Robles Winery Reviews (where I gush about J. Lohr)

The pictures above another glimpse of my spring break road trip. (I'm slowly getting the photos up!) This is wine tasting in Paso Robles. My friends and I stumbled upon the most amazing tasting room eeeeeever up here: J. Lohr. (Pictures 1 & 3. Pictures 4-8 are another winery with cute scenery but less memorable wines.) They're a decent sized brand, so you may have seen some of their mass produced wines in your grocery store. At their tasting room they do something a little unusual, they list 20-30 wines. Some are from their national labels, some are distributed only in selected locations via high end restaurants, and some are found only at the tasting room. You can pick any 6 from the whole list, so I picked 6 reds. 1 from the national labels, 3 from the select distribution group, and 2 from the tasting room only group.

I would not lie to you and exaggerate the quality of a tasting room, so believe me when I say that every single one of these wines was amazing. My friend, who usually is a beer drinker, also feel in love with all of her wines. We died and went to wine heaven! On top of that, our wine pourer (does that person have a title?) was sweet and friendly and gave us a 10% discount on the bottles we bought for no reason. But that's not all. When I got back to LA and unwrapped my wines, I realized the checkout lady gave me a chardonnay instead of the pinot noir that I had asked for. I called the tasting room, and they apologized and immediately overnighted me the correct wine! Talk about amazing customer service. The J. Lohr tasting room and their wines are not to be missed!

Solvang

Here's another stop from my spring break road trip. We stopped in Solvang, which is mostly known for 2 things: 1) the entire town is built and decorated to look Danish and 2) it was featured prominently in Sideways. I thought it was going to be really touristy and cheesy, but my SoCal friends had always mentioned this place so it seemed a shame to never see it. Well I was only half right. Solvang is touristy and cheesy but it is also endearingly adorable and really fun! We were only there for a few hours, but I can't wait to come back after graduation. See what we did below:

We stopped for lunch at Succulent Cafe and Trading Company. Sooo good! You might miss this place since it is a little tucked away in comparison the giant traditional Danish eateries (i.e. pancake houses), but it is worth finding. The food choices are decidedly not Danish. It's more California fresh fare with an emphasis on pork products (though there is a lot of non pork too).

After lunch, it was straight to the wine tasting, of course! We stumbled into Sevtap's tasting room. It was cute, and there was lots to look at on the walls as you can tell. Also, if you're traveling with pets, Sevtap is doggie friendly so you don't have to leave Fido behind when you go tasting. As for the quality of wine? It was decent, but we ended up not leaving with a bottle.

So we followed wine up with more food. Solvang is known for its traditional Danish baked goods, so we popped into a few bakeries. To be honest, I think all the baked good looked better than they tasted. There was just a bit too much sugar and icing and not enough chocolate, in my opinion. The only exception was Russian tea cookie for Olsen's. That cookie was the perfect combination of sweet and savory! Half cookie/half bread. The experience was kind of like eating good shortbread, where the sweetness does not overwhelm you so you feel like you could just eat a million. I could definitely have eaten a million of those tea cookies (which, by the way, are not pictured because I ate mine too fast. Those cookies below are meringues shaped like duckies.)

And we finished out the afternoon at Solvang with what else but more wine! This is the Wandering Dog tasting room. The nice thing about this tasting room is that they also sell beer in case you are tired of wine, and they have really yummy truffles. The downside is that its pretty kitschy. Lots of goofy fake plant decorations and pictures of dogs you can buy. I got the Wandering Dog pinot noir, which was ok, but again I didn't leave with a bottle. I would definitely come back and by those truffles by the pound though! They were really delicious.