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Saturday, March 30, 2013

Lillet Rose and Rhubarb Bellini

Refreshing Beverage of the Week
Here are two lovely Easter cocktails to try. And a crazy idea if you have any extra jelly beans around.

Lillet Rose from Martha Stewart

Ingredients
12 ounces Lillet Rose
12 ounces Ruby Red grapefruit juice
6 ounces gin
6 edible flower blossoms

Procedure
Combine 6 ounces Lillet, 6 ounces grapefruit juice, 3 ounces gin, and ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake until well chilled. Strain and divide cocktail among 3 stemmed cocktail glasses,Garnish with flowers. Serve immediately.

Rhubarb Bellini

Now, for something pink and different! An improved Bellini — sort of. How about champagne or Prosecco and Rhubarb syrup? First, you need to make the syrup.

Ingredients for syrup
4 C chopped rhubarb
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

Procedure
Combine everything in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer and cook gently until the fruit is soft and the liquid has thickened slightly, about 20 minutes. Ladle into a fine strainer (or a coarse strainer lined with cheesecloth) that has been placed over a large bowl. Strain until most of the liquid is in the bowl. Give a little press on the solids with a spoon to extract more syrup.

Carefully pour the syrup into a clean bottle, cover or cork the bottle and refrigerate. It should keep for quite some time in the fridge. The solids make a nice rough jam, so if you want you can put them in a clean jar and keep them in your refrigerator for a week or so. It's great on toast!

To make the Bellinis, mix one part syrup to four parts sparkling wine, Champagne, or Prosecco.

The rhubarb syrup is also excellent on vanilla ice cream.

Flavor-your-own festive vodka

Looking for something to do with those leftover Easter jellybeans? Choose 10-15 jellybeans of the same flavor (or mix and match flavors for a fun quirky combination like piña colada, cherry coke, or banana split!) and drop them in a bottle of vodka. Let the vodka sit for about a week to allow the jelly beans to dissolve, flavoring your vodka to perfection!