As if you didn’t know already, Valentine’s Day is this Saturday. Whether you see that as a blissful day full of flowers and luuurve or the perfect excuse for a night in to pamper your solo-self, the day is upon us and we must prepare! Rather then fight the crowds for a table, we suggest spending the day relaxing with your partner over some delicious cocktails. Everyone has different tastes when it comes to the perfect drink: bitter, sweet, sour, boozy… the list goes on. This Valentine’s Day, we teamed up with Huckberry, purveyors of good taste for the manly set, for the perfect Yours & Mine cocktails.
Believe us when we say this: two different cocktails is definitely not a hassle! Our resident cocktail expert, Ashley Rose, has created two cocktails for all kinds of palates to enjoy — made with some of the same ingredients, many of which you may already have in your fridge or pantry!
First up is the ‘Yours’ cocktail. A twist on the traditional Ramos Gin Fizz, this creamy, velvety cocktail contains citrus notes that dance on your tongue. Fizzes always have citrus and carbonated water, but the Ramos Fizz kicks it up a few notches with cream and egg white for a glorious, cloud-like head. I swapped out the traditional orange water with rose water and replaced the lemon juice and simple syrup with the almost-too-good flavors of the Preserved Lemon Syrup.
‘Yours’ Cocktail
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 oz Homemade Gin (or other gin)
- 1 oz heavy cream
- 3/4 oz Morris Kitchen Preserved Lemon Syrup
- 1/2 oz lime
- 1 egg white
- a few drops of rose water
- club soda
Directions:
Add all ingredients except for club soda into a shaker (unless you want to recreate some 6th grade science experiments) without ice. Shake for 1 minute. Add ice and shake, shake, shake! Shake a good 2-3 minutes — the longer the better to achieve the frothy creamy texture associated with the Ramos Fizz. Strain into a glass and top with club soda slowly to raise the frothy part to the top. Grate lime zest over the top.
‘Mine’ Cocktail
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 oz Homemade Gin (or other gin)
- 1/2 oz Morris Kitchen Preserved Lemon Syrup
- 1/2 oz lemon juice
- 1/2 oz grenadine (the real stuff — Small Hands Foods makes a great pomegranate grenadine!)
- 1/4 oz Campari
- 1 egg white
Directions:
Add all ingredients into a shaker without ice (if youlike bitter drinks, add 1/4- 1/2 oz more of the Campari). Shake for 1 minute. Add ice and shake for an additional 45 seconds. Strain into a glass. Garnish with lemon peel.
Another great bonding activity is making your own gin together. We used this easy DIY Gin Kit from Huckberry that starts off with storebought vodka. Add in juniper berries, allow to sit for a day, then toss in a blend of botanicals for another day, strain, and et voila: you have gin! So cool, right? Once you have this down, you can play around with different botanicals and flavors. Hendricks Gin is one of my favorites made with rose petals and cucumbers, so I plan to add these to my next batch of homemade gin.
So, tell us… how will you be spending your Valentines Day?
Recipe by Ashley Rose. Photography by Jojotastic.
p.s. get more cocktail recipes here!
This post is a partnership with Huckberry. All opinions are my own and always will be! Thanks for supporting content that keeps Jojotastic going.