Cocktails of the Week - Pimm's Reef and Fruit Tingle

A couple of unusual drinks from my Step by Step : Fantastic Cocktails & Mixed Drinks magazine. It is a pretty, full color glossy magazine with lots of drinks and pictures of all of them. No attempt is made at being "classic", as there are plenty of drinks in here I've never heard of, including these two.

Pimm's Reef

• 1 oz Pimm's No. 1
• 1/2 oz Blue Curaçao (my Curaçao of Curaçao of course!)
• 1 oz cream

Put the ingredients all together in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice and shake vigorously. Strain into chilled cocktail glass.

I'm not sure I've ever seen any recipe for Pimm's No. 1 besides a Pimm's Cup, which is probably my favorite summertime drink (just Pimm's & ginger ale). It's a wonderful tasting gin-based "tonic", that really hits the spot. But in this drink, the cream (yes, I used real, light cream this time, not whole milk) overwhelmed pretty much everything, leaving just the barest hint of the Pimm's and the curaçao. Maybe it would work better for my spoiled palate if I used milk instead.

Fruit Tingle

• 1 oz Midori
• 1 oz Cointreau
• 1 oz blue curaçao
• 3 oz pineapple juice
• dash lemon juice
• dash grenadine

Put everything into a blender and blend well (I used my new hand blender, of course). Pour into a large goblet or highball glass. Serve with a straw.

This was a pretty good drink. In fact, it would make a perfect summertime drink - very fruity and refreshing. The problem I had with it was the Midori. I just can't take too much of that cloyingly sweet melon liqueur. However, both Michael and my wife enjoyed it very much, so take that as you want. Another interesting note about this drink is that the picture did not at all match the final product. In the magazine, the drink is a dark purple, while this drink comes out more of a sea-green. I'm not sure what they were taking a picture of, but it wasn't of a Fruit Tingle!

The different color in the picture prompted me to try a couple of variations on it, replacing the Midori, but neither of which were very successful. First I made one using crème de mûre, a blackberry crème. It has a nice purple color to it, but combined with the blue curaçao, it came out more of a purplish-gray. It tasted okay, but not fruity enough.

The second variation was using crème de cassis. The color was a little better, but still looked muddled. And, again, it wasn't really fruity enough, although the fact that I was using the last of the pineapple juice, which I failed to shake strongly enough at the start, meant it was very thick too. I think I may have to try this with Parfait Amour, which is a purple colored curaçao flavored with rose petals and the like.