Category: vodka

Homemade Kahlua
liqueur

Homemade Coffee Liqueur

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This homemade Kahlua, or coffee liqueur, is simple to make it at home. All you need is vodka, coffee, sugar, and vanilla.

If you love coffee and cocktails, you’re sure to enjoy a homemade coffee liqueur. And while you can certainly purchase yourself a bottle of Kahlua to enjoy at the ready, making your own DIY Kahlua tastes better and may even turn out cheaper, depending on the brand of vodka you use for the base.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you buy a product via my affiliate link, I will receive a commission. This is at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I actually like! 

Don’t go using Grey Goose for this stuff. Stick to a cheaper brand or go for my personal favorite, Tito’s. I always buy the jumbo jug when I run out– it’s more cost-effective to get the 1.75L bottle, trust me. Vodka is my go-to liquor for jam cocktails and for making my own infusions, like vanilla bean vodka and cinnamon vodka. If you have more on hand, you’ll be more likely to experiment with it. Or drink it. Or both.

Coffee liqueur historically is made with rum but I prefer using vodka. Rum, in my opinion, makes it a touch too sweet. And you’ll see from the recipe that there’s already plenty of sugar. I don’t want the sweetness totally masking the taste of the coffee. Many homemade coffee liqueur recipes also call for instant coffee. Sorry. Can’t abide coffee granules. I’ve gotta use the real deal.

As with all recipes, using fresh vanilla beans is always best. But, they’re a bit expensive. And, using fresh vanilla bean means you’ll have to wait at least 2 weeks before you can enjoy your homemade coffee liqueur. I opted to use vanilla extract that a friend brought me back from Haiti. It’s pretty dang good.

DIY coffee liqueur is simple to make it at home. All you need is vodka, coffee, sugar, and vanilla.

Coffee liqueur can be enjoyed by itself over ice, in a White Russian, a Colorado Bulldog, in your coffee, etc. There are even some amazing banana bread recipes out there that call for Kahlua, although I’ve never made any myself. I doubled the recipe when I made it yesterday so my home is overflowing with this intoxicating coffee nectar. Looks like I’ll be trying all these recipes. OH. Brilliant idea. Bananas foster with coffee liqueur! Oh my gosh. Yes. Gonna be making that.

Homemade Kahlua, or coffee liqueur, is simple to make it at home. My favorite way to enjoy coffee liqueur is in a White Russian.
The White Russian- my favorite way to enjoy coffee liqueur.

The Ingredients for Homemade Coffee Liqueur

  • 1 cup of STRONG freshly-brewed coffee — I should’ve added an extra scoop or two of grounds when I made the coffee but alas, I was using what I had leftover in the pot from my afternoon pick-me-up
  • 1 cup of vodka
  • 2 cups of sugar
  • 1 Tablespoon of vanilla extract OR a 1-inch section of fresh vanilla bean (must age for 2-4 weeks)

The How-To

Add all ingredients to a saucepan and heat until all the sugar is dissolved. Let it cool slightly before pouring it into a container. If you don’t have a funnel, invest it one. It will make your life so much easier & cleaner. I used an old glass juice bottle. You could also use mason jars. Just make sure it’s something that can seal tightly. You don’t need to refrigerate it. Your coffee liqueur will last a looong time (thanks to the alcohol and all that sugar). But really, don’t drink it after like, 2 years. Just to be safe.

Royal Rose - Organic Simple Syrup
Rose Darling cocktail
gin

Rose Darling

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The Rose Darling is a perfect cocktail for Valentine's Day. Vodka, orange liqueur, rose simple syrup, apricot preserves, and cranberry juice come together to create a refreshingly floral sip.

If the Rose Darling caught your eye, you’re either a Steely Dan fan or a floral fan. I’ve been trying to veer away from typical Valentines-y cocktails in my V-Day drink series, but I can’t end it without utilizing such an iconic symbol of love. The Rose Darling is definitely floral and is definitely on the sweeter side. I’m not usually one for sweet drinks but certain occasions open me up to the idea.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you buy a product via my affiliate link, I will receive a commission. This is at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I actually like! 

To garnish the glass, trace a line with rose simple syrup & sprinkle rose petals over it.

If you’re not a fan of florals, don’t shy away from the Rose Darling just yet. There’s a way to modify this rose cocktail by making a lightly-flavored rose simple syrup. Check out the recipe to see how you can tone it down. In that blog post, I also come clean about an infamous rose-scented candle, a burden that weighed on my family’s conscience for years. Okay, that might be a bit dramatic. But it is something that my mom and I have talked about several times since my childhood and felt an ounce or two of remorse over.

Rose petal ice cubes

Although they aren’t necessary to the drink, the rose ice cubes do up the fancy factor. They require next to no effort, so why not? Especially if you are already going to be making your own rose simple syrup. I found the rose-shaped ice cube tray at Dollar Tree for a whole dollar, but I also put some petals in my large ice cube mold. I will note that since these rose-shaped ice cubes are quite small, I accounted for them melting quickly when creating the drink recipe. If you are going to use bigger ice cubes (or skip them altogether & pour the drink into a coupe glass), consider doing less vodka or a little more cran juice.

If you’re looking for a simple & delicious meal to go along with any of my Valentine’s Day cocktails, check out Cuisine & Cocktail’s DIY Bagel Bites. My husband and I have a yearly Valentine’s day tradition of making our own pizzas. We avoid the crowds & spend time together cooking (not common around our house!) food we know we are going to love. This year, however, Valentine’s weekend is packed for us and we won’t have time to celebrate until Sunday. We’ll be using Cuisine & Cocktail’s recipe (gluten-free English Muffins for me) to save us some time.

The Ingredients for a Rose Darling

  • 1 1/2 oz vodka (Tito’s has always been my go-to)
  • 1/2 oz orange liqueur
  • 1/2 oz cranberry juice
  • 1/4 oz or a couple squeezes of lemon juice
  • 1/4 oz rose simple syrup
  • Spoonful of apricot preserves

How to Make a Rose Darling

Add the vodka, orange liqueur, juices, rose simple syrup, and apricot preserves to a shaker filled with ice. [The more ice you add when shaking, the less it will dilute when shaking, which means the less your drink will be diluted when you pour it over the ice in your glass.] Shake & pour into a lowball glass filled with ice or into a coupe glass without ice.

The Rose Darling is a perfect cocktail for Valentine's Day. Vodka, orange liqueur, rose simple syrup, apricot preserves, and cranberry juice come together to create a refreshingly floral sip.
vodka

Orange Cassidy | A Freshly-Squeezed Take on a Moscow Mule

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I have quite the schpeel to go with this Moscow mule modification. There’s a slim chance you know the name Orange Cassidy already. If you do, I love you for it. If not, well…. hopefully you’ll still love me after this is all over with.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you buy a product via my affiliate link, I will receive a commission. This is at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I actually like! 

My schpeel starts with a confession and ends with exciting news. Okay. Are you ready? I… am a huge wrestling fan. But it hasn’t always been this way, or at least not for a while. I grew up begging my parents to let me watch WWF and WCW with my brother, probably like most kids in the 90s. I loved me some DDP and Sting. And then I remember learning that it was “fake” and feeling crushed. Deceived. Betrayed. How could this be true????

Orange Cassidy, a cocktail inspired by AEW's too-cool-to-care Orange Cassidy

My husband was a fan, too, and he even had his own persona in his neighborhood wrestling league as a kid. When he told me that a new wrestling league, All Elite Wrestling, was premiering several months ago, I didn’t really care. The night it premiered, he was hooping and hollering from the other room and truthfully I gave him a hard time about it. This is fake, you know, I told him, how are you into this again? Well, joke’s on me because the next week I was watching with him and couldn’t get enough. I have a confession, I muttered the next morning, I can’t stop thinking about AEW.

Now here we are, 5 months later, heading to our first-ever live wrestling event. (I’ll keep the price of the tickets to myself to hold on to what remaining pride I have left.) To say I’m stoked would an understatement. I’M FLIPPING OUT. Make fun of me all you want, but the skill that these people have is insane. The extra drama just makes it even more entertaining. Is it cheesy? Oh totally. But I am HERE FOR IT. Every Wednesday (and Tuesday). It’s a thrilling blend of pure athleticism and theatre. Pure entertainment, I tell ya.

Confession: dropped. News: shared. Now I can tell you about the drink. Orange Cassidy is the name of one of these wrestlers. His shtick is that he’s too cool to take himself seriously. Check out the vid to get an understanding of this joker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lGdYtaclkk

I wanted to think of a drink that embodied his “can’t be bothered to care” attitude. It’s simple, down-to-earth, and has a slight zing to it. Just like Orange Cassidy.

Orange Cassidy | All Elite Wrestling Cocktail Series A Moscow mule variation that captures Orange Cassidy's "can't be bothered to care" attitude. It's simple, down-to-earth, and has a zing to it. Just like Orange Cassidy.

The Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 oz vodka
  • 1/2 oz orange liqueur
  • 1/2 oz freshly-squeezed orange juice
  • 1/2 oz freshly-squeezed lemon juice
  • 1/2 oz freshly-squeezed lime juice
  • zest from orange & lemon
  • 1 fresh sage leaf
  • dash of bitters (optional)
  • ginger beer

The How-To

Pour the vodka into a cocktail shaker. Muddle the sage in the shaker with a muddler or the back of a spoon to release that earthy goodness. Add ice some ice and zest the orange and lemon into the shaker. Add the freshly-squeezed Orange Cassidy orange juice, lemon juice, and lime juice. Dash that bitters. Shake. Pour into a copper mug or lowball glass filled with ice. Top off with your ginger beer. Garnish with an orange slice and Orange Cassidy’s signature aviators.

**This cocktail will be the first of many in my AEW cocktail series. Brace yourself. I’ve got a notepad filled with inspiration.**

Wedding Gifts Copper Mugs Moscow Mules
Orange Cassidy, a Moscow mule cocktail inspired by AEW's too-cool-to-care Orange Cassidy

Intrigued by AEW? Check it out on Wednesday 7pm CST on TNT and on Tuesdays 6pm CST on YouTube. If you have Hulu, you can get yourself caught up on all the previous eps. Just in time for the upcoming pay-per-view on February 29th. (Do I sound like a paid representative yet? …One can wish.)

Orange Cassidy

A freshly-squeezed take on a Moscow Mule.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 3 mins
Course Drinks
Servings 1

Ingredients
  

  • 1½ oz vodka
  • ½ oz orange liqueur
  • ½ oz freshly-squeezed orange juice
  • ½ oz freshly-squeezed lemon juice
  • ½ oz freshly-squeezed lime juice
  • zest from orange or lemon
  • 1 sage leaf
  • 2+ oz ginger beer

Instructions
 

  • Add the vodka & sage leaf into a cocktail shaker.
  • Muddle the sage with a muddler or the back of a spoon to release that earthy goodness.
  • Add ice some ice, the juices, and zest the orange and/or lemon into the shaker.
  • Shake well.
  • Pour into a copper mug or lowball glass filled with ice.
  • Top off with your ginger beer.
  • Garnish with an orange slice and drink while wearing Orange Cassidy's signature aviators.
Keyword ginger beer, lemon, lime, orange blossom water, orange liqueur, sage, vodka
Copper Mugs Moscow Mules
vodka

Effortless Jam Cocktail & Mocktail | An Easy 3 Minute Drink Using Ingredients You Already Have on Hand

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Knowing how to make a jam cocktail or mocktail is a game-changer. It's easy to whip up in a moment's notice and feels very fancy.

Knowing how to make a jam cocktail is a game-changer. It’s easy to whip up in a moment’s notice and feels very fancy. The best part is, you’ll probably always have the ingredients on hand– who doesn’t have a jar or three of random jelly, jam, or preserves hiding in the back of the fridge? And if you actually do go out to grab a new jar, you’ll find soo many inspiring possibilities.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you buy a product via my affiliate link, I will receive a commission. This is at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I actually like! 

Blueberry preserves, raspberry jalapeno jam, ORANGE MARMALADE, mango habanero, and of course the classic strawberry and grape. Did you know that there’s such a thing as mint jelly? Yeah. That rocked my world, too. Add a spoonful of jam into any mixed drink and you’ve upped the flavor complexity.

Knowing how to make a jam cocktail or mocktail is a game-changer. It's easy to whip up in a moment's notice and feels very fancy.

Jam cocktails are so customizable. Want something refreshing and light? Add sparkling water. Feeling like a strong drink? Skip it & pour everything into a coupe or martini glass. Don’t feel like imbibing? Forgo the alcohol and enjoy sipping on something besides water. Mocktails require no thought when you know the secret about jam + tonic. And all the pregnant ladies said BLESS.

Flavor Combinations to Try

Need some flavor inspo? Here are some ideas to get you started:

  • gin + blackberry jam + lemon juice + basil + tonic water
  • vodka + apricot preserves + lemon juice + mint + lemon sparkling water
  • tequila + orange marmalade + grapefruit juice + rosemary + club soda
  • white rum + blueberry jam + lime juice + mint + club soda
Knowing how to make a jam cocktail or mocktail is a game-changer. It's easy to whip up in a moment's notice and feels very fancy.

An Outline of Ingredients for a Jam Cocktail or Mocktail

  • 1 1/2 – 2 oz vodka (or gin, whiskey, rum, or tequila… but vodka has the cleanest profile to work with, meaning it won’t compete with your other flavors)
  • 3/4 oz lemon juice or lime juice – fresh is always best
  • spoonful of jam
  • a sprig of a fresh herb – mint & basil pair well with all fruit flavs
  • tonic water, club soda, or unsweetened flavored sparkling water
  • [optional- if you like extra sweet drinks] 1/2 oz simple syrup or honey simple syrup

How to Make a Jam Cocktail or Mocktail

In a cocktail shaker, add vodka, lemon juice, and the herb. Muddle the herb leaves with a muddler or use the back of a spoon to release the flavor. Add the spoonful of jam and several ice cubes. Shake. Strain into a lowball glass that’s filled with ice. Top off the glass with your tonic or sparkling water. Garnish with any leftover herbs.

Jam Cocktail & Mocktail

The easiest way to make a cocktail using ingredients you already have on hand.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 3 mins
Course Drinks
Servings 1

Ingredients
  

  • 1½-2 oz liquor like vodka, gin, whiskey, rum, tequila (omit for a mocktail)
  • ¾ oz fresh citrus juice like lemon or lime
  • 1 spoonful jam (any jam will do!)
  • fresh herb like mint, basil, or thyme
  • 2+ oz sparkling water, club soda, or tonic
  • ½ oz simple syrup OPTIONAL

Instructions
 

  • In a cocktail shaker, add vodka, lemon juice, and the herb. Muddle the herb leaves with a muddler or use the back of a spoon to release the flavor.
  • Add the spoonful of jam and several ice cubes.
  • Shake well, about 30 seconds.
  • Strain into a lowball glass that's filled with ice.
  • Top off the glass with your tonic or sparkling water.
  • Garnish with a sprig of herb.½

Notes

If you want to forgo the liquor, this makes a nice and refreshing mocktail.
If you enjoy sweeter drinks, add the 1/2 oz of simple syrup.
Keyword club soda, jam, lemon, lime, sparkling water, tonic
Knowing how to make a jam cocktail or mocktail is a game-changer. It's easy to whip up in a moment's notice and feels very fancy.

Moscow Mule
vodka

Moscow Mule | The Easiest 3 Ingredient Cocktail to Make at Home

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Moscow Mule | The Gateway Cocktail for Cocktail Newbies.

*MOST* people have had a Moscow Mule these days. I feel like it’s the gateway-drink for craft cocktails. It’s a simple drink that’s refreshing and super versatile but I feel like the real reason it’s gained popularity over the past couple years is due to the copper mugs they’re traditionally served in. And while you can definitely have a Moscow Mule in a clear glass, there’s something about having it served ice cold in one of these babies.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. If you buy a product via my affiliate link, I will receive a commission. This is at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I actually like! 

Why are Moscow Mules served in copper mugs anyway? There’s a really fun story behind the tradition that you can read here, but when it boils down to it, it’s because the copper makes the drink extra cold. Really, this is true of any metal cup (like silver mint julep cups). For this reason, I sometimes enjoy other drinks, like Dark & Stormys and Jam Cocktails, in my copper mugs.

If you’re looking to invest in some of these trendy glasses, check out this site. They have a ton of different designs and all of them are affordable. Some of them can even be customized.

Once you’ve mastered this simple recipe, start experimenting! Sub the vodka for tequila and you’ve got yourself a Mexican Mule. Whiskey lover? Try an Irish Mule. Or use bourbon instead and you’ve got yourself a Kentucky Mule. The variations could go on forever.

Being able to whip these babies up at home will save you some dough and maybe even earn you some cool points with your friends. Let me know what variations you try!

Ingredients for a Moscow Mule

The How-To

Add ice to your copper mug. Pour the vodka over the ice and fill the rest of the glass with ginger beer. Squeeze all that lime juice. Stir. Serve with an additional lime wedge.

Wedding Gifts Copper Mugs Moscow Mules

Think this recipe was easy? Check out the Dark & Stormy. It only has 2 ingredients. Yep. Two. Or check out these other 3 ingredient cocktails:

Moscow Mule

An easy, refreshing cocktail with only 3 ingredients.
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 2 mins
Course Drinks
Servings 1

Ingredients
  

  • 1½-2 oz vodka
  • 3+ oz ginger beer (Bundaberg is my favorite brand)
  • ½ lime

Instructions
 

  • Add ice to a copper mug.
  • Pour in the vodka.
  • Squeeze the lime into the mug.
  • Pour in the ginger beer until it reaches the top.
  • Stir to mix.
  • Garnish with a slice of lime or plop the used lime half in.
Keyword ginger beer, lime, moscow mule, vodka
click to pin for later
Copper Mugs Moscow Mules