(jazzy Christmas music)
- Hi, I'm Christopher St. Onge a food stylist
for LCBO Food and Drink.
Today, I'm going to show you step-by-step
how to make four showstopping cocktails
featured in "the holiday issue" of the magazine.
They're going to be the talk of your get together.
So let's get to work and remember to enjoy responsibly.
(jazzy Christmas music)
We're going to get started
with our Whiskey and Saffron Sour.
The first thing you're going to want to do
is make the syrup used to sweeten the drink.
It's a simple combination of water, saffron and honey.
You're going to add half a cup
of boiling water to a bowl and a good pinch of saffron.
You're going to let it steep for 15 minutes,
and then you're going to stir in half a cup of honey
until dissolved.
Put your syrup in the fridge
and chill it until you're ready to go.
When you're ready to make the drink,
you're going to make your garnish first.
So our garnish is simply freezed dried fruit,
which we are going to put in a spice grinder
and turn into a powder.
So a combination here is really nice.
You can use raspberry and mango or raspberry and pineapple.
Today we have raspberry and pineapple.
If you're using two fruits,
you're going to want to keep them separate.
You're going to put each ground fruit
into a small sieve and set them aside.
If you can only find one,
raspberry, let's say, that's fine too.
(jazzy Christmas music)
Now to the drink itself,
we're going to add to a dry cocktail shaker,
which simply means no ice.
1/2 an ounce of egg whites from a carton,
3/4 of an ounce of lemon juice,
3/4 of an ounce of our saffron honey syrup,
and 1 1/2 ounces of Canadian Rye whiskey.
Today we're using CC.
And we're going to dry shake this.
Again, that means no ice,
to create some foam, which the egg white is to do for us.
And then we're going to add some ice.
(ice clinking)
And shake this pretty vigorously again.
(ice clinking)
This time, really just to chill it,
because we already have a nice foam on it.
And then we're going to pour it into a cup.
Here's where the fun part comes in,
garnishing it with our fruit powders.
So I have a little piece of cardboard here,
and I'm going to use it to block off
the top of the drink partially.
And we're going to dust the part that's not covered
with some of the fruit.
And then we have a second fruit.
We're going to offset it in a slightly different way,
creating a different line here
and dust with the second fruit.
And there you have it, a little work of art.
Next up, we've got a DIY hot chocolate bar.
I like the idea of doing a little bit of work
and letting your guests do the rest
it's interactive and it's fun too.
So the first thing we're going to do
is we're going to make a hot chocolate,
but it's not just any old hot chocolate.
We're making a bittersweet hot chocolate
because we're going to be adding
a sweet liqueur to it later.
So you're going to begin with a cup of cream
and you're going to get that nice and hot on the stove top.
You're going to add a 100 gramme bar
of dark bittersweet chocolate,
a 70% chocolate bar, cocoa chocolate bar is perfect.
So we've got that here.
I've got one prepped already.
We whisk in the chocolate until it's melted,
and then you top it up with two cups of whole milk.
Put that back on the heat, get it nice and steaming,
put a lid on it to keep it from getting a skin.
We don't want to get a skin on our hot chocolate
or put it in a coffee carafe.
The next thing you're going to do (chuckles)
is you're going to make some marshmallow meringue.
So this is simply egg whites, sugar, and vanilla.
We take a slightly different approach with this meringue
than you normally would.
You're going to put your egg whites and the sugar in a bowl
and set it over a pot of simmering water.
We're going to whisk it a little bit
until the sugar is dissolved.
This makes for a very heavy mixture,
and it's going to take a little longer to whip,
but once it's whipped,
it's going to be able to hold at room temperature
without deflating, longer than it would otherwise
if you add the sugar bit by bit.
So we've got our two components prepped.
We've got our hot chocolate in a lidded carafe or pot,
and we've got our meringue.
So set these out for your guests.
Get them lined up with a few bottles
of your favourite liqueur,
we're using Baileys Salted Caramel today,
and you're going to add two ounces of liqueur
to a nice little mug here.
You're going to top that up with hot chocolate,
And you're going to let your guests assemble these themselves.
The fun part is coming.
Oh, boy it smells good.
So the next thing they're going to do
is they're going to top their hot chocolate with meringue,
as much as they like, I like a lot.
And then with a crème brûlée torch,
they're going to toast their marshmallow.
(gas hissing)
I don't know about you,
but I like a little burnt bit on my marshmallow.
And there you go.
Next up is our Pistachio Alexander.
This one has a riff on a classic Brandy Alexander.
If you make one cocktail from this story this year,
make it this one, it tastes just like the holidays.
(jazzy Christmas music)
So you're going to begin with your garnish.
So you're going to start with a small wine glass
or really any other footed cocktail glass
that resembles a wine glass.
It doesn't have to be the exact right glass,
just as long as you have a little bit of length
on the body of the glass.
So you're going to melt a little bit of white chocolate,
two ounces, that's it.
And you're going to get that spice grinder to work again.
And you're going to grind
two ounces of pistachios quite finely.
You're going to be careful though,
because if you go too far,
you'll turn it into pistachio butter.
What you're looking for is a fine powdery dust.
So you're going to paint a little bit
of your white chocolate onto your glass.
You can do this in any pattern you want.
You can do a stripe up the side,
which I quite like,
you can do the rim, whatever you like.
And then you're going to press the side of the glass
into the pistachio
and fill in any little blanks if you have to.
And then you're going to transfer this to the fridge
for 15 minutes, just to set it and keep everything in place.
Once it's set in the fridge,
you're going to take a clean pastry brush
and just brush off the excess nuts
that have clung to the side.
You just don't want it to be messy when you serve the drink.
So that's it.
We have a prepared glass here, when that's all ready to go.
So next we're onto the cocktail itself.
We're going to add to a cocktail shaker filled with ice.
One ounce of 18% cream, otherwise known as table cream,
1 1/2 ounces of Flor de Cana rum,
any amber rum will do,
it's what we're using today though,
1/2 ounce of white creme de cacao
and then one ounce of pistachio syrup.
So this is the sort of syrup used to flavour coffees.
You're probably more familiar with the hazelnut version.
They sell pistachio versions as well.
And both companies that are widely available
have a pistachio version.
It's really something else.
So you're going to add one ounce of the pistachio syrup,
And then you're going to give this a good shake.
(ice clinking)
Pour this into your prepared glass
and top it with a pinch of crushed pistachios.
And there you have it.
So onto our Gift-Wrapped Boulevardier.
So this is a classic cocktail, much like the Alexander,
but this one relies on a twist
with the ice rather than the flavour.
So we're freezing our ice sideways
in the glass to get it at a 45 degree angle.
It's really very simple to do.
You get your glasses in the freezer
and you find something in the freezer,
you probably already have something in there
to prop it up at a 45 degree angle,
and then you fill it with water,
right to the rim, and then you freeze it overnight.
It's that simple.
The first thing you're going to want to do
is pull a nice long strip of orange peel.
Much like peeling an apple,
you're going to want to follow the contours of the orange
to get as long a piece of a peel as possible.
Then you're going to set that piece of peel
down on your board and cut one long strip of orange peel
to resemble a ribbon.
So to the cocktail itself,
we're going to take our prepared glass
and we are going to a cocktail shaker filled with ice,
and we're going to add 1 1/2 ounces
of Buffalo Trace bourbon, one ounce of campari,
and one ounce of sweet vermouth,
and we're going to stir,
but if you don't have
one of these fancy cocktail spoons to stir,
you can simply roll the cocktail shaker around like this.
And then you're going to make sure it's well-chilled,
pour it into your prepared glass,
and then you're going to garnish it
with a big, beautiful orange ribbon
that has been wrapped around itself.
And that's it.
So, thanks for joining me today.
I had a great time.
I hope you did too.
And I hope you'll take this opportunity
to try these great drinks.
As always with the LCBO, there are a number of ways to shop.
Of course you can shop in person or you can shop online.
If you choose to shop online,
you can have the products delivered
to a store closest to you or delivered to your home.
For a limited time period until December 15th,
if you order over $250 worth of products,
they'll deliver it for free.
Again, thanks very much for joining me.
If you're interested in taking a look
at Food & Drink's "holiday issue,"
you can find the link below on the YouTube page.
Thanks very much.
(jazzy Christmas music)