Category Archives: Drinks

Just What is Mega Purple 13

The next time you pick up a glass of inexpensive red wine, you might look at its color. Is it a little too dark? When you swirl it, does some purple legs remain on the glass?

It could be the natural color of the wine. Or it could be something a little more artificial.

A widely used product in the American wine industry is called Mega Purple. It’s a product made by Constellation – the world’s second-largest wine producer – and it is made by concentrating the juice from a variety called Rubired, using grapes grown primarily in California’s Central Valley. READ MORE

How to Pair Wine with Favorite Foods

With Fried Foods: Prosecco or Riesling

Rieslings are extraordinarily versatile with food.

  • Fried chicken
  • Fried gator bites with raspberry jalapeno sauce
  • Calamari Christiano
  • Empanadas
  • Deep-fried loompyas
  • Egg rolls
  • Fried pickles

Spicy: Gamay, Zweigelt, Schiava, and some Pinot Noirs 

Why: Avoid red wines with high levels of tannin and oak, as those will make the spicy food seem all the spicier. 

  • Chicken jambalaya
  • Jerk chicken
  • Spicy basil chicken
  • Chicken wings

Tomato-y: Cabernet sauvignon/Zinfandel

Why: The richer the red sauce you have in your pasta or pizza dish, the more tangy and bold you want your red wine to be.

  • Pizza
  • Bread and sauce
  • Lasagna
  • Meatballs and sauce

Sushi, seafood, spring vegetables:  Dry, austere, and crisp, chenin blanc and pinot grigio are the wines to reach for when serving lean, white fish cooked simply. Flounder, halibut, walleye, snapper, raw clams, or oysters all do well with these wines.

  • Shrimp tempura
  • Lobster roll
  • Falafel
  • Shrimp wrap
  • Spring roll

Making a Negroni Cocktail with Stanley Tucci

From loading up the shaker with ice to pouring in the gin, sweet vermouth and Campari, The Devil Wears Prada star walked followers through the entire process. He even told his fans which glass and garnish they should use for the drink.

While Tucci made the concoction for his wife Felicity Blunt, he didn’t hand it over to her right away.

“You want it, Felicity?” he teased his spouse, who handled the camerawork for the cocktail class. “That will never happen.”

It wasn’t long before the video went viral.  READ MORE

Shirley Temple Drink Recipe

A Shirley Temple is a non-alcoholic mixed drink traditionally made with ginger ale and a splash of grenadine, garnished with a maraschino cherry. Modern Shirley Temple recipes may substitute lemon-lime soda or lemonade and sometimes orange juice in part, or in whole. Shirley Temples are often served to children dining with adults in lieu of real cocktails, as are the similar Roy Rogers and Arnold Palmer.

Shirley Temple

The cocktail may have been invented by a bartender at Chasen’s, a restaurant in West Hollywood, California, to serve then-child actress Shirley Temple. However, other claims to its origin have been made. Temple herself was not a fan of the drink, as she told Scott Simon in an NPR interview in 1986: “The saccharine sweet, icky drink? Yes, well… those were created in the probably middle 1930s by the Brown Derby Restaurant in Hollywood and I had nothing to do with it. But, all over the world, I am served that. People think it’s funny. I hate them. Too sweet!” In 1988 Temple brought a lawsuit to prevent a bottled soda version using her name from happening.

Check out our Fun Cooking/Food Apparel

About Vietnamese Iced Coffee

Vietnamese iced coffee, also known as cà phê đá or cafe da is a traditional Vietnamese coffee recipe. At its simplest, cà phê đá is made using medium to coarse ground dark roast Vietnamese-grown coffee with a small metal Vietnamese drip filter

When coffee was first introduced to the country, fresh milk was not easy to find; hence the use of sweetened condensed milk.

Caramel Apple Bottoms! Cocktail Recipe

This recipes not only turned my head but countless others when Demitri McDaniel posted his autumn concoction, he likes to call Caramel Apple Bottoms Up!. It screams of yesteryear, our childhood days of biting into a caramel covered apple yet this twist is clearly for the grown folks. September makes way for the cravings its signature flavors and colors of fall, the rustic reds and brown. This cocktail recipe is bound to be a scene stealer.

In McDaniel’s words:

This started from my love for the drink Washington Apple (Crown Royal Apple, cranberry juice and apple pucker)

As for this cocktail, I’m a little heavy handed because I like brown liquor (Whiskey/Bourbon).

-Crown Royal Caramel Apple a little sweet so only add 2 shots or 3 shots Crown Royal Caramel Apple.

– 1 shot simple syrup 3 parts Apple Juice/cider.

-Serve with crushed ice.

Salted glass Instructions

How do you Rim a glass with salt?

  1. If you remember ahead of time, chill your glass. … 
  2. Get yourself a quarter of a lime. … 
  3. Run that notch all around the rim of the glass until the glass rim is really wet.
  4. Put some salt in the dish. … 
  5. Tip the glass over into the salt.

Dress top of the glass with a red delicious apple slice and drizzle with caramel on the side glass and over crushed ice You’ll love it!

Sangria Recipes: Red, White & Blush

aerial Sangria

Photo by Rebekah Lewis

When sangria comes to mind often our first envisioning is a deep bugandy red wine contrasted with the color of oranges wedges.   I remember my first sip of a white sangria experience came after perusing the choice on the menu while dining in Toronto one summer.  There’s nothing quite like a chilled glass of sangria.   How fun I thought, white sangria’s is a change andCrystal drinking sangria
how delicious was the experience.   In later years I’d earn the reputation of the family sangria concocter at family gatherings.   People always ask me how to make it.  It’s fairly simple and doesn’t have to cost a lot money to make and serves quite a few.  In a conversation with  Chef Jay Bonilla, he once told me,  “…the bottle of wine does not need to be expensive.”   While making a glass of sangria for me, he used the famous inexpensive wine from Trader Joe’s Charles Shaw red wine, affectionately called Two Buck Chuck, Triple Sec and orange juice.  There’s no one way to prepare a pitcher of sangria .  Each color of wine deserves it’s own special treatment.

Intro by Crystal A. Johnson, MCCN Editor

See the full article

Red Sangria – In red sangria, citrus juices such as freshly squeezed orange, lemon or lime juice complement the sweetness of the wine and liqueur. However, cranberry juice cocktail can add a welcome tartness for those with less-sweet tastes. If you want a bit of fizz, choose a lemon-lime soda to finish or a soda water with a splash of lime and garnish with citrus wedges.

White Sangria

Photo by Crystal A. Johnson

White Sangria – Lemon juice always works in white sangria, but consider adding sweeter juices such as white grape juice or apple juice as well. Finishing white sangria with a sparkling cider instead of soda gives it additional sweetness and makes it the perfect complement to spicy sauces and appetizers.

Rose Sangria – Well Blush was cooler for our title. Use juice blends such as mango-peach or pineapple-orange to complement the sweetness of rose sangria without overpowering the delicate blush wine. Chop strawberries and fresh mangoes to soak in the cocktail, and finish with plain soda water if carbonation is desired.