Who’s ready for a drink?
This week we have Curacao Cocktail from John de Kuyper’s Complete Guide to Cocktails from 1965. I seriously love this book. It has a whole section of “dessert recipes” which mostly consist of alcohol poured over ice cream, desserts you can set on fire AND alcohol poured over ice cream that you can set on fire. So it’s pretty much got the whole package.
- Orange Bitters
- 2 1/2 ounces De Kuyper Orange Curacao
- 2 1/2 ounces orange juice
- 1/2 ounce dry gin
- 1/2 ounce brandy
- Rinse cocktail glasses with a dash of Bitters. Shake remaining ingredients with ice. Strain into the prepared glasses. Makes 2 drinks.
But we stumbled upon some Orange Bitters recently, so we have been looking for cocktail recipes that use it to try for the blog. And this one fit the bill!
Tom and his sidekick.
“Ahhhh!”
The Verdict: Spicy Orange Juice
From The Tasting Notes –
The bitters in this drink were very interesting, but this basically just ended up tasting like spicy orange juice. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great either. Tom’s Dad, who was visiting, didn’t care much for this drink and said he would have rather just skipped all this Orange Bitters nonsense and had a screwdriver.
Mmmmm…..orange bitters! I make myself a long drink with absinthe (a crappy brand, don't waste your good stuff), fizzy lemonade, lime juice and orange bitters with lots of ice. It does the job.
And a bonus baby photo – although she’s sure growing! I so enjoy your blog, especially the recipe tests. Keep them coming!
Have you checked out Ted Haig’s Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails? I think you would find it interesting. It compiles cocktails from vintage books and includes histories about the recipes and ingredients. It also has a great list of vintage books to look into. There’s even a page dedicated to orange bitters and several cocktails that use it.
Interesting recipe…. but amazing to see baby Alex! They grow up so fast!