Wow! No wonder people are so happy on Fat Tuesday.  They eat a lot of good food and drink a lot of wickedly tasty cocktails.   We started our dinner with this really lovely  Chile-Lime Crab Salad with Tomato and Avocado. The title  is a mouthful.  It was seriously good.  This would make the perfect outdoor summer appetizer.  It’s light and fresh.  I can’t wait until heirloom tomatoes are more readily available later in the year so I can make this again; next time with black crimson tomatoes…my favorite.

I am a pretty heavy-handed cocktail maker.  Not sure why because I measure.  Well, I also spill a lot.  That jigger is not my friend.  I swear it leaks.  I always spill.  So I wind up adding back what I think is the correct ‘spilled amount’ to the shaker – I’ve never been good at eye-balling so I must over pour.  Anywhoo, long story short: it’s a school night. So the grand idea to have three festive cocktails didn’t pan out.  We stopped after two.  But they were super good.

French 75 w/a Twist

So Food & Wine says that bartenders in New Orleans like to make their French 75s with cognac instead of gin. Now, I’ve never been to New Orleans so I have no idea if this is true or if they are just making this up.  But I like cognac. So, why not?   Fill a cocktail shaker with ice.  Add  1 ½ oz. cognac {I used Hennessy}, ½ oz. simple syrup and ½ oz. of citrus.  Most recipes call for lemon juice.  I used fresh squeezed blood oranges.  Shake well and strain into a martini or champagne glass.  Top with sparkling wine. Sit back, sip, go ‘ah!’

French Sazerac

Well, here it is.  The drink that did us in and made us say ‘no mas!’  A twist on the Sazerac.  This drink uses Calvados instead of the traditional whiskey.  That sounded perfectly harmless to me but what did us in was my interpretation of the ‘infused apples.’  I didn’t really read the recipe which said that you had to slice a bunch of apples, ‘sprinkle them with absinthe’ and let them sit for two hours before muddling.  So what I did instead was chopped half a small apple into 1″ dices and muddled them with ¼ oz. of absinthe.  Then it didn’t look right so I added more.  Whoopsie.  Here is the real recipe…which you should follow. Wink, wink.   Cut six slices of a sweet apple and sprinkle with ¼ oz. of absinthe.  Refrigerate for two hours.  Put the apples in a shaker and muddle.  Add ice cubes, 1 2/3 oz. Calvados, 1/3 oz. simple syrup and a dash of Peychaud’s bitters.  Shake well and strain into a rocks glass.  If you haven’t had one of these before, it is a must try.  But the just a warning – the absinthe is expensive, so you might want to just order it at your favorite bar or French restaurant to make sure you love it first before making the investment.  I am intrigued to serve it in the traditional way next…just for the pure enjoyment of watching the chemistry take over.  Well, and to sip it, too, of course.