Buon Giorno from Pienza. Yes, this is where I am right now:

I can imagine my friends back home in North America saying 'how nice'. I'd respond with yes, it is lovely, but I know what you really mean by 'how nice'. In fact, I can still hear Palma telling the joke. :-) Just ask her - she tells a wonderful joke and everyone giggles.

Anyways. Yet again I had all sorts of plans for apples - a delicious panna cotta . . . a crisp . . . a tart . . yet when the frenzied pace of work and trip prep threatened to put me in a rubber room so I made a drink. In the end it served a host of purposes.

Those who follow my blog know I make drinks often. In fact, the pic beside my name off to the left is a drink that I made. In fact, that particular drink inspired my recipe for this week's apple flavour!

For this week's entry I combined apples and vanilla to make an infused vodka. This then was mixed with cider, cinnamon, and Calvados to make a zippy pre-dinner beverage.

Harvest Martini

Infused vodka:

1 cup vodka
1 apple, thinly sliced
1/4 whole vanilla bean

Pour vodka into a jar with a lid. Place apple and vanilla bean in vodka. Cover. Let sit for at least an hour or longer for more flavour.

Martini:

2 oz cider
1 oz Calvados
1 oz infused vodka
thin slice of apple sliced crosswise (for garnish)
sprinkle of cinnamon

In a martini shaker mix the first three ingredients. Shake with ice. Strain into a martini glass. Garnish with the thinly sliced apple. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

This recipe involves three steps - the first being a cranberry infused vodka. You’ll need to start making this in advance to really let the flavours meld. Then you whip up a citrus infused simple syrup to bring some wonderful lemon and orange goodness to the drink. Once these are ready you can pull everything together.

I should caution you - these are really very good. We had mom over for dinner and she knocked her martini back in record speed and promptly wondered where her second one was. Be careful though because the simple syrup and juice masks the alcohol - someone needed to lay down before we could eat dinner . . .

Infused Vodka
3 cups vodka
3 cups cranberries

Mix together and let stand at room temperature for at least 6 hours. Strain. You could reserve the cranberries for adding to some baking . . . they'd give it a wonderful 'flavour'.

Citrus Simple Syrup
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
1 T lemon zest
1 T orange zest

Bring the water and sugar to a boil in a small pot. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. When cool add the lemon and orange zest. Allow to sit for at least six hours to allow flavour to develop. Strain.

Martini
1 1/2 oz infused vodka
1/2 oa Grand Marnier
1/2 oz Pama (a pomegranate liqueur - adds a wonderful red colour to the drink)
2 oz cranberry juice
1 oz citrus simple syrup

Add the martini ingredients to a shaker with ice. Shake. Strain into a martini glass. Garnish with some of the reserved cranberries and small pieces of lemon, orange, and lime.

Cheers!

Those who know me, knew it was just a matter of time before I'd post a "hooch" recipe for the weekly flavor assignment. Oddly enough, Beet Liqueur was the very first thing I ever I consulted The Flavor Bible for.

It was late fall of 2009. I'd admired the book in the cooking reference section at Barnes & Noble, but was yet to purchase it. Then we decided our next trip would be to Estonia, and as is my habit, the first thing I began researching was the country's food traditions. With its proximity to Russia, it is to be expected that those traditions include beets.

I'd just finished a new batch of Carrot/Ginger liqueur and was in a groove with root vegetables, so I checked Andrew & Karen's recommendations and a new liqueur recipe was born.

Beet/Tarragon/Orange Liqueur

2 cups - Everclear (grain alcohol)
2 cups - Vodka
1 large ORANGE
1 bundle (6-8 five inch stems) fresh TARRAGON
6 small or 3 large red beets
3 cups - white granulated sugar
2 cups - water

Peel beets, cut into cubes and put in a large glass jar that can be tightly sealed (I use gallon sized jars with rubber gaskets and metal hasp latches.)

Peel the orange in as large strips as possible, making sure to take only the peel of the orange and as little of the white inner pith as possible. Add these strips to the jar
.
Rinse and shake dry the tarragon and add to the jar.

Pour in Everclear and Vodka and seal down lid. Shake to mix, and store in a cool dark place for 10-20 days. Shake the bottle every day to redistribute ingredients.

Once the infusion is a deep dark red and most of the color has leached out of the orange peel and tarragon, remove all solids and strain liquid through a coffee filter into a clean sealable jar.

Put sugar in a saucepan and add water. Heat over medium heat to melt sugar. Bring to a rolling boil and continue to boil until sugar syrup is clear. About 3 minutes should do it.
Remove pan from heat and allow sugar syrup to cool to room temperature.

Pour cooled syrup into filtered beet liqueur. Stir to mix, seal lid, and return to cool dark place.
Allow to mellow for as long as you like. Several weeks to several years.

The picture above is what the liqueur looked like just a few weeks after bottling.
The one below is what it looks like today, two years later. You can see that when young it retains the red color of the beets, and after mellowing it becomes a golden whisky color.

An interesting side note about that trip to Estonia that led to the development of this recipe -- the glass you see in this picture is a souvenir. While in Tallinn, we visited the "Soviet Life Museum", a funky and fun collection of common items from everyday life under Communist rule. The museum receives donations from Estonians all over the country and supports itself by running a sort of flea market to sell the items it can't use for display. I loved the chunky look of this glass and knew I had something waiting to pour into it.

Yes, when banana week rolled around I knew I didn't want to make a loaf/muffin or dessert which were the things that naturally came to mind when I thought of cooking with bananas. The Flavour bible suggested such things as butterscotch, banana liqueur, caramel, cream, and vanilla. I decided to combine all of this into a rich but bloody delicious martini!

Be careful, this recipe serves 2 and makes a potent but beguiling beverage - sip slowly because you won't taste the alcohol until you try and stand up!!!!

Toffee Banana Martini

4 oz toffee liqueur
3 oz banana liqueur
2 oz vanilla infused vodka

Measure into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Strain into a martini glass. Garnish with a sliced banana.

Growing up my mom used to make these special drink for my dad and his friends (and for herself, too). So I tried this out with spectacular results. Here's the recipe for the concoction but you could really play with it. The photo below gives you an idea about the accuracy (not) of the measurements.

The addition of the coconut was not my favorite but some of the "testers" like having the chew the little bits which gave an interesting texture to the drink.

Pink Pineapple Rum Delight serves 4 generously

4 ounces Rum
2 ounces Cointreau
2 cups fresh pineapple chunks
1/2 cup fresh strawberries, quartered
1/2 cup coconut juice
1/4 cup grated coconut
1/3 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 Tablespoon honey
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice

Put everything into a blender with about 4 ice cubes. Blend until smooth.

That's it!

Just for the fun of it--here's a shot of my "testers" on a rainy Tallahassee afternoon.

Our ingredient this week is lemons. As I was contemplating what to make, I remembered a drink recipe I came up with last summer. I named it "A Taste of Sunshine". It reminds me of a sunny summer day. Okay, here in Alaska we've had over twice the normal amount of snow, it's dreary as I'm writing this post, but I can only dream about summer not being too far away. Ago, it's still about 3 months away for us, but I can still dream.

A Taste of Summer
1 teaspoon honey
1 ounce fresh-squeezed lemon juice
1 1/2 ounces limoncello
1 1/2 ounces seltzer water
Rosemary sprig

Dissolve the honey in the lemon juice. Pour this mixture, along with the limoncello and seltzer water in a shaker filled with ice. Shake briskly and strain into martini glass. Garnish with rosemary sprig.

For lemon week I wanted to make a drink for my recipe.

OK, you caught me. I want to make a drink for EVERY week of the challenge but it doesn't always fit. I'm not sure I'd enjoy a salmon martini although I'm sure it has been done.

One of the things that I have been playing with during this challenge is with making infused vodkas and simple syrups to flavour cocktails. I made an infused simple syrup for this drink by adding blackberries, lemons, and thyme. Shaken with lemon vodka and some of the small batch Rocky Mountain Blackberry Liqueur that we brought back from Denver last summer and the result BRILLIANT!

Lemon, Blackberry, Thyme Martini

Infused Simple Syrup
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup water
3 lemons, cut in half (I used meyer lemons that I had in the fridge)
1 small bunch of fresh thyme
1/2 cup fresh blackberries

Martini
2 oz lemon vodka
1 oz blacberry vodka
2 oz simple syrup

To make the simple syrup, place the sugar and water in a saucepan over high heat. Bring to a slow boil. Add in the lemon halves, thyme, and blackberries. Slowly simmer for 10 minutes. Cool. Strain into a jar. Refrigerate until needed.

To make the martini, place all martini ingredients into a martini shaker with ice. Shake the bejesus out of it. Strain into a martini glass.

Enjoy.

Make another . . . you're going to want to!!!