Keith and I love to drink. Okay that sounds really bad and I don't mean it that way... Oops! But we really do love good, quality drinks, and like to consume them responsibly from time to time for celebrations, holidays, nights out of the house, and with nice dinners. I figured many others probably share the same interests so today just before the Valentines Day holiday, I'm sharing us whipping up some drinks together. Check out the full video on Instagram @mariakemnitz. These are festive and fun drinks for the holiday and would be such a fun thing to make at home since so many of us will be staying in this year for Valentines Day.
I found 3 festive drink recipes that we tried and I will give our honest feedback on below. The first is a Bourbon Sweetheart, second is a Valentines Mule, and third a Lovebug Cocktail.
First things first the recipes. Since I can't stand when I go to look at a recipe and it has someone's whole life story in front of it 🙃. Scroll all the way to the bottom for commentary and our ratings on each drink!
The Bourbon Sweetheart:
Ingredients:
2 dashes Angostura bitters
3/4 oz Simple Syrup (we didn't have any so made some make shift at home)
2 strawberries, cleaned and cut into large pieces
.50 oz ginger liquor (we didn't have any so didn't use any)
3/4 oz lemon or lime juice
3-4 oz club soda
2 oz bourbon
tall boy glass
Directions:
Place the strawberries and simple syrup in a shaker. If you want the strawberry flavor to really shine through muddle them.
Add ice, bitters, ginger liquor, lemon/lime juice, and bourbon to the shaker bottle and shake.
Pour into a tall boy glass and top with the club soda
Add a strawberry garnish to the rim of your glass for an extra flair.
Valentines Mule:
Ingredients:
2 oz Vodka
3 oz ginger beer
1 tablespoon lime juice
2-3 ripe strawberries halved
1/2 tablespoon sugar
Valentines day candy hearts
crushed ice
copper mug
Directions:
Place the vodka, ginger beer, lime juice, ice and sugar in the shaker bottle.
Gently shake the shaker (ginger beer is carbonated so it will fizz up on you!)
Pour into the copper mug.
Top with strawberry halves and candy hearts.
Lovebug Cocktail:
Ingredients:
3 oz (white) cranberry juice- white cranberry juice will make your drink appear more pink regular cranberry juice more red in appearance- we used regular red cranberry juice
2 oz lemon lime soda
1 oz vodka
1 oz grenadine
rocks glass
Directions:
Add ice to a rocks glass.
Add all of the ingredients on top and stir!
I found all of these recipes online however we made them all our own by changing a couple things (mostly based on what we had)! Substitute things as you see fit or based on what you have already at home and/or like.
Next up our rankings:
Keith's choices in order (best to worst)- Bourbon Sweetheart, Love bug Cocktail, Valentines Mule
My choices in order- Valentines Mule, Lovebug Cocktail, Bourbon Sweetheart.
These rankings were after our initial sips only. The Lovebug cocktail really grew on me. My first sip was so tart I think I had mostly cranberry juice though. I think for me after a few more sips of each (can't let anything go to waste HA) it would have been a tie between the Valentines Mule and Lovebug Cocktail. We both said we would make the Lovebug again without hesitation. I would also make the mule again too- especially since as I got further down to the bottom of the drink the Valentines hearts started to disintegrate and added a nice sweetness to the drink as well! I liked the Bourbon, but wasn't in love with it. Keith really liked that one and said he would make it again.
Next time, we will make sure we have all the ingredients- **full disclosure** we learned after we started this event that we didn't have any lime juice at home like I had thought. Oops! Maybe that would have made all the difference. Either way its fun to experiment and do new things together.
We had so much fun making these. We laughed and laughed. This in itself would be such a fun date night idea for the holiday. It's also so fun to me to see how different our tastes are in things. I hope between the three drinks theres one for everyone!
Happy early Valentines day weekend all! As always I would love to see your creations if you make these or similar items!
xoxo
Maria Elizabeth
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