Adding a Little Spice

Anyone can serve a plain old drink. "Heres your rum and coke."

Now lets get a slice of lime, squeeze that over that rum and coke.Now its a better drink with a slightly better taste. Your guest will notice the difference. Why not put one of those little umbrelas in the drink with a piece of lime on the end. You just dressed up that drink. You could go a step beyond that with a spiral or know created from a strip of the lime peel.

Now the margarita is a party type of drink. You can serve it neat, in the rocks or as a slush from a blender with ice. Pretty nice right. Lets put some tropical fruit on a long pick either with or without the umbrella. Before you pour the drink into the glass rim the glass with salt.

Hey I know thats all been done. Your right, but what if you were to get some coarse salt, or rock salt. There are different colored salts and believe it or not they do have different flavors. You may have to special order some of these salts, but check gourmet stores. You can take your everyday table salt and add things to it. Try different seasoned salt. Margaritas are from south of the border, would a touch of taco season be good mixed with the salt. Mexican food and maragritas good well with each other.

Then again if your making a peach margarita maybe some brown sugar with the salt. Salt and a little pepper for watermelon. Try different combinations. Just sample them first, you don't want to serve an experiment to someone and have them not like the combinations.

Thats alot just for salt. Just wait.

Now we are going to get into sugars. there are many drinks that benefit from a sugar rimmed glass. everyone has plain sugar, and thats a great place to start. You can powdered sugar, bar,extra fine, cane, brown, sugar substitutes, and I am sure I am forgeting some others. The powdered and sugfar substitutes can be sweeter than normal sugar so be careful.

Another warning sugar doesnt mix well with alcohol. You dont want to serve a drink and have that person find the bottom grainy from the sugar. The effect is like drinking sand, albeit sweet sand.

There are colored sugars readily available in gourmet stores and liqurs stores. Why use these stores and not the sprinkles that are used in baking? The rimming sugars are finer crystals, but yes you can use the colored sprinkles. They can be used by them selves or mixed. The best way to mix is to pour some of each on a plate, then use a utensile to swirl them. If you can find flavored sugars pick them up, they will add a quick flavor before the drink.

Syrups don't usually go on the outside of the glass, because of the mess. But you can rim the glass lightly with syrup, you can leave it as is or dip the rim in some sugars. Syrups include simple, chocolate, strawberry, etc... These are typical  added to the bottom and or insides of the glass, for taste and effect. simple syrup is a clear sugar suryp added to drinks to sweeten them.

Here is a recipy for simple syrup:
Equal parts water and sugar, heated in a pan until all the sugar has dissolved. Let boil and then let cool. After it has cooled you can put it in a jar to store in the refridgerator.

If you want the syrup thicker, or darker leave it to boil longer. The longer you let the mixture cook the darker it will get. It will also get a more carmel taste to it.

This is what you need to add sugar to an alcoholic drink. You can add coloring and flavoring to the mix as it is cooking. Even different chocolates can be added, they will stay in a syrup state instead of hardening. People will be very impressed to find out that you are the evil genius that made that flavored syrup. imagine what a lady might say if you had a pomegranite swill inside the glass of the Cosmo that you hand her.

Out of the box. Think of your favorite hard candy. Cinnamon, atomic fire balls, lemon heads, peppermint swirls, rootbeer barrles, etc... Got one? Good go get at least a handful, put them in a heavy zip-lock bag, remove all the air, lay the bag on the counter, get a board and put it on top of the bag, find a hammer and get your frustrations out. Make sure to pound it to a fine powder, you have now made your own flavored sugars for rimming.

Got the idea.
Good, have fun dressing up those cocktails.
Cheers:
Steve Aniolowski / Spicy