Okay, so I'm not sitting at a bar but,
I'M REGISTERED! for two mixology classes...one online and another "in Austin" course.
For the online, I am awaiting a February first due date for the Pernod sponsored Bar Smarts Wired program. I hear it's difficult and I am super excited... This is gonna be great!
And the "in Austin" is going to be a 12 week course offered by the Tipsy Texan, sponsored by Twin Liquors. This will have us focusing on a different spirit each week-going thru the history of the distillation to creation of classic and new cocktails. It will be a fun communal experience to compliment my solo "online" studies.

To celebrate "going back to school" I had to throw a ladies night. Well, I also have this KXAN spot on 2/13 for which I need to prepare 3 Valentines Day Cocktails. This time there were 5 of us ladies and let's just say by the end of the night I had to "sleep it off"...ouch!

I experimented with 5-6 different drinks, only pouring a little shot of each for each of us. The first was a Ginger Pear Martini I pulled off Absolut's website, but of course it needed tweaking. The next was some Segura Viudas Rose Cava & St Germain which was not an experiment, but several of the ladies there had never had it so of course i had to serve some up, ala Valentines Day theme. Then we went for the sweet and creamy...we tried the famed idea "the chocolate blueberry martini"...ugh...i just could not get it right...we tried many different versions...and well...um...nope...it's not gonna work. Hey, but if you are a mixologist out there with a great recipe for this, please email me your recipe or post it to our facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/twinliquorsfan. There were some other cocktail ideas in there that are not going to make it to this page. And, lastly we made the Corazon, created by Cesar G. Aguilar from La Condessa, but I did not have any Irish Creme Liqueur so I used white chocolate liqueur instead and I loved it even more.
What we took away...?
Tonight we learned that you can do some really fun substitutions that work and some that don't. The ones that work are glorious and the ones that don't...well...at least you tried. Just make sure to take good notes on measurements and brands...because like baking, volume does matter and like cooking the quality ingredients (brands) will make a better drink!

Okay, so here are the recipes that you will catch or did catch on KXAN on February 13th in the morning news:
 
St. Germain & Cava Rose

Ingredients:
1 part St Germain Liqueur
3 parts Cava Rose
1 raspberry at bottom of flute
 

The Corazon Rosa

Ingredients:
1 part Chambord
1 part Stoli Raspberri
2 parts Godiva White Chocolate Liqueur
Orange zest & rose pedal

Mixing Instructions:
In a shaker filled with ice, add Chambord, stoli rasp, godiva.
Shake, Shake, Shake.
Strain into a martini glass.
Garnish with orange zest and float a rose pedal.
 

Absoult Ginger Pear Martini

Ingredients:
1 part simple syrup
2 parts lemon juice
4 parts Absolut Pears
1 Tablespoon Fresh Ginger, finely diced/mashed

Mixing Instructions:
In a shaker filled with ice, muddle ginger, add simple syrup, lemon juice and absolute.
Shake, Shake, Shake.
Strain into a martini glass.
Garnish with a lemon twist.