Easy cocktail recipes for home? And we have the perfect glassware gifts to suit them!
I totally know the feeling. It’s Friday night (or any other night, who’s judging?) and you’re unwinding after a long day. You’re settling down to binge your newest TV obsession, and you get a sudden hankering for something fancy to drink. You scour the cupboards: plenty of ingredients but no ideas! What do you do?
You google Ooh Box for some easy cocktail recipes, that’s what you do!
Where does the name ‘cocktail’ come from? It’s certainly a strange word to describe mixing different drinks together. Truth is, no one seems 100% sure of the derivation of the name, but a pretty good guess comes from a guy called David Wondrich, an alcohol expert (cool title). Wondrich believes that the name ‘cocktail’ refers to the use of pepper and ginger to ‘cock’ the ‘tail’ of horses to make them appear more “sprightly”. I’ll leave your imagination to fill in how they were used to do this…
As bartenders used a lot of ginger and pepper as additional flavours in alcoholic drinks, the word cocktail was used to describe these concoctions. As mixologists got more experimental with the drinks and used different ingredients, the name stuck.
Wherever the name comes from, cocktails are a great way to liven up an evening at home, or impress your dinner friends. You don’t have to have a load of fancy equipment or ingredients either; a good tasting drink can be made with things that you might have in your store cupboard!
As with any cocktail, you’re going to need a couple of staples in the house, namely…booze. We’ve based the recipes below on alcohol we serve in some of our fabulous gift boxes, so you know you have the right stuff to hand when you’re thinking of getting fancy with your tipples, and the perfect glassware in hand too!
French 75
This gorgeously refreshing drink is super easy to make. All you need is gin, icing sugar (or any powdered sugar), ice and lemon juice! Simply shake ¾ of an ounce of gin with a tablespoon of sugar and two teaspoons of lemon juice in a tumbler of ice for 15 seconds, and pour into a glass. Super quick and lovely to enjoy of an evening.
White Haute Chocolate
This creamy, dreamy drink is so decadent, you’ll be in chocolate heaven! Eight parts milk, eight parts white chocolate melted in a pan. Take a pinch of sea salt and one part whisky, garnish the drink with star anise et voila! A White Haute Chocolate (caution: hot and delicious)!
Bellini
I mean, we all know what this one is, right? Sometimes the simple ones are just the best! Just mix prosecco with some orange juice and tada! You’ve got yourself a fancy, zesty cocktail that will liven up any night!
Botanical Gin
Gin has seen a real resurrection over the last few years, and we at Ooh Box are living for it! You can find yourself paying more for flavoured gins, but that doesn’t need to be the case for your home alcohol cupboard. Botanical sets are a lovely, cost effective way to spice (pun intended) up your gin game, just pop whatever botanicals you want in a glass with ice, gin and a mixer of your choice (I prefer a plain tonic so that the flavours you added can really pop) and away you go! An amazing looking, amazing tasting drink!
So there we go, a few easy peasy cocktails that you can whip up in a minute with stuff around the house! It’s ok, you can thank us later!
