Cocktail Hour: Bump Up Your Beer

Assuming the rain doesn't cancel it, today is the annual Congressional Baseball game here in Washington, D.C. If you've never heard of this event, Members of Congress get together and put any partisan sqwable aside to fight over what really counts, a win on the baseball diamond. For those of you in DC or if your even remotely political you need to get your butt down to Nationals Park tonight. Tickets are $10 and it's general seating, get them here!

Anyways, since this is a night where the Washington elite kick their feet up and relax, I figured a little cocktail hour is in order? Tell me what goes better with baseball than a cold beer? Besides a hot dog or a little shake shack? Well this cocktail is perfection for summer and the ingredients are pretty darn inexpensive, so you've got to love that!

I actually discovered this drink at PS 7 when it was still open, but alas, the drink lives on with us! 

Ingredients

• 5 oz light lager beer (i.e. Bud Light, Miller Light, PBR, etc.)
• 1 oz Ginger Liqueur
• 1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 Tbsp fresh ginger thinly sliced (for garnish)
• Ice

Directions
Simply combine the ginger liqueur, beer and lemon juice in a tall glass. Add the ice and garnish with ginger. Enjoy.


It seriously couldn't be much simpler than that folks? Let me know if you try it! Happy Thursday!

Cocktail Hour: Strawberry Lime-arita

To celebrate Cinco de Mayo and the perfect weather in DC this weekend I decided to whip up a fun frozen cocktail to enjoy. I'm not a huge fan of super syrupy frozen drinks, so I made my own frozen margarita of sorts. Really, it's more of a daiquiri, but I used tequila (you have to celebrate 5/5 right?). This was pretty easy to whip up, and I just threw everything in the old magic bullet. Hope y'all enjoy

Strawberry Lime-arita 

Ingredients

• 1 cup frozen strawberries (I threw in some very ripe fresh ones too)
• 3 oz Tequila
• Juice of 1/2 a lime
• 1 1/5 TBSP simple syrup

Directions

Put all the ingredients into a blender and blend. Add ice or additional syrup until you reach your desired consistency/sweetness.  Enjoy.

Now I will tell you this is tangy and delicious, and it creates a pretty big margarita so you could easily share it with a friend.  I garnished with a slice of kiwi because it was pretty. Hope y'all enjoy!

All images are original to Blue Dog Belle unless otherwise noted. 

Cocktail Hour: Birthday Cake Martini

Before we get to the main event, I wanted to let y'all know I'm filling in for Christa over at Significance or Nothing today. As a fellow Southern gal trying to make her way through the political craziness that is Capital Hill I kind of love her.  Come visit me!


Now, we all know I love cocktail hour, so when I saw Nicole's is hosting a week long linkup aptly named Cocktail Week (it's a #hashtag so start using it like crazy, go) I knew I'd use it as an excuse to have some playtime at the bar. The one in my house that is.

Someone around these parts has a birthday coming up (like tomorrow, eek!) So I wanted to treat myself to something sinfully delicious that I'd normally never touch. My personal drinking rule is I don't drink cocktails if I can't sorta see through it (with a few notable exceptions i.e. red wine and frozen margaritas) Generally all those milky syrupy sinfully sweet cocktails just leave me with a killer headache the next day.

But one every now and again is okay, right? And let me tell you, this is just about the best possible exception to the rule 

Birthday Cake Martini

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Adapted from A Beautiful Mess

Ingredients

• 1 oz Amaretto
• 1.5 oz Pinnacle Whipped Cream Vodka
• .5 oz Godiva White Chocolate Liqour
• 1 oz Heavy Cream
• Sprinkles
• Frosting

Directions

First rim your fanciest martini glass in frosting. Then dip that deliciousness in a plate full of sprinkles to make the cutest glass you've ever seen. Next up combine all the remaining ingredients. Shake to combine and carefully pour into your fancy glass. 

Seriously, I'm re-evaluating my life for not drinking with this whipped cream vodka sooner. It is SO good. Go get you some right now. Vodka Diet Cokes will never be the same. 

Please go link up your favorite Cocktail with Nicole on Probably Polka Dots. She's one of my blog bff's and just generally awesome so you need to stalk her like I do. 

Cocktail Hour: Cherry Bloom

Guess what? The Cherry Blossoms have finally decided to start blooming! Yay! They should start peaking in a few days, and since I'll have quite a few visitors in town this weekend I'm sure we'll do our best to get out and explore! To celebrate, I'm going to make a few of these concoctions this weekend to celebrate all the pink prettiness around town! 

The Cherry Bloom

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This couldn't be simpler, and if you like sweet cocktails, this one is right up your alley! Get excited!

Ingredients

• 2 oz vodka
• 1 TBSP grenadine (or cherry juice)
• Club Soda (or try sprite/ginger ale)
• Mint and Cherry for garnish

Directions
In a tall glass full of ice combine vodka and grenadine syrup. Top with soda, then garnish.

And you're done. It's perfectly pink, and can easily be adjusted to your preferred level of sweetness.

Cocktail Hour: Spiked Peach Tea

Well, In my part of town the #Snowquester was not so much. I'm talking a gross drizzle all day long, but snow... nope. More than anything the dreary weather and slow day at work left me dreaming of summer time. I know that peaches are few and far between this time of year, but good news! All you need is peach tea for this one!

Spiked Peach Tea

Ingredients

• Two bags (or two TBSP of loose) peach tea
• 1 cup of water
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 jigger of your favorite bourbon
• Ice

Directions

Basically you're going to heat the water then steep the tea bags until it becomes a deep brown color. Remove bags and return to heat, adding the sugar to create a syrup. You will need to heat the liquid until the sugar fully dissolves and begins to thicken slightly (5 minutes or so). Let the mixture cool. It will create more than enough syrup for your cocktail--- so store the leftovers for a rainy snow day. Once the syrup is cool, combine with ice and bourbon (add water if you need a little less bite), and enjoy your peachy drink in the middle of a "snow storm."

This yummy cocktail was also inspired by my lovely roommate BW who had been enjoying lots of peach tea lately, and the wonderful Mr. and Mrs. LWW who are returning to DC this weekend!  #DCCallie needs to join us! 

Cocktail Hour: Honeyed Ginger

Happy Tuesday y'all! I'm a bit overwhelmed with everyone's responses to my post yesterday. I didn't actually make any decisions about following/unfollowing blogs, but I really appreciated your feedback and support! Sometimes I feel very alone in how overwhelming and time consuming blogging can be. Good to know I'm not.

Do y'all read Kate's blog? She designed my beautiful new blog, but she's also a blogger herself and announced  she's doing a Creative Cleanse this week and I loved the idea! I've decided to get back to basics a bit in attempts to get my blog juices flowing again. I realized it's been far too long since I've done a Friday Cocktail post... in fact I'm willing to bet the majority of you didn't even read this little blog back when I used to do them. I love my Friday Fancies link up too much, so I've decided to bring the Friday Cocktail series back under a new name: "Cocktail Hour." Today's the first installment! Yay! Who doesn't need a mid-week cocktail pick up? I know I sure could (don't worry, I'll at least wait until 6:00).

Last night I was thinking about what to make for this inaugural cocktail post I was flipping through an article about cooking with honey, and thus this delicious baby was born!

via

So, pretty right? I totally stayed up all night making this look pretty. Ha. Fail no... I threw this together in a plastic cup... not worthy of photography so I borrowed this picture from one of my favorite blogs. Calling a fail on myself here. Sorry. Never the less... you can make it pretty! Here's what you need...

Ingredients

• 1 TBSP fresh grated ginger
• 1 TBSP honey
• 1 jigger of gin
• 3 oz of gingerale
• lemon peel and 1 wedge for garnish

Directions

Warm the honey for about 30 seconds in the microwave for a thinner consistency. Muddle with the ginger and a lemon peel. Add gin. Strain over ice. Top with ginger-ale. Garnish with lemon. Enjoy

So easy right? So delicious. The spiciness of the ginger is absolutely perfect with the subtle sweetness of the honey. I'm thinking this could also be good with bourbon... If you try this let me know what you think! I promise to get my act together and actually take pictures next time.