Also delicious and refreshing, the El Diablo was a sleeper hit. Another perfect concoction for the warm weather.

The drink I was most curious about was called the Armillito Chico. With its exotic ingredients of pomegranate and orange blossom water, I thought it sounded delicious. I first found the recipe cached on a GQ site, referencing the original printed recipe. I happened to copy it down and it’s a good thing I did, because when I went back to find it right before the meeting, it had vanished! The only references I can even find on the web are to a couple bars that still make the drink. This might be one we really did save from extinction. The orange blossom has a perfumey taste that takes a little getting used to, but overall this was a lovely drink as well.

Skittles Vodka from mixthatdrink.com

So, I was checking out one of my favorite blogs, LifeHacker, and they came across a fascinating post from MixThatDrink.com.

Skittle-infused Vodka?! Crazy? Yes. Awesome? Maybe. Crazy Awesome? Potentially.

Check out the Skittles Vodka Tutorial and let us know what you think!

Now, we here at LUPEC routinely risk our taste buds in the pursuit of those delicious, forgotten cocktails of bygone days.  As a hostess, I need to balance the potential tastiness of a cocktail with it’s adherence to my chosen theme (although it occurs to me that maybe the other ladies have a better system for their meetings….).  It’s a delicate balance to strike and my approach has, historically, resulted in some serious taste bud damage.  Someday, I’ll host a meeting and actually try the cocktails beforehand.  Maybe.  The Snowplow, however, is that rare exception where a cocktail chosen for it’s name is dangerously tasty as well as thematic.  In other words, I got damn lucky.

Granted, with a hot chocolate base, I wasn’t exactly shocked by requests for seconds!

Snowplow:

8 oz Hot chocolate

1 oz Irish Creme

1 oz Malibu rum

1/2 oz Creme de Cacao

Whipped cream

Cinnamon

Add the booze to the hot chocolate, stir, and top with whipped cream and cinnamon.  Enjoy! We certainly did!

We bought a bottle of limoncello, around a .375, for like 6.50 euros while in Amalfi.  Again, with the exchange rate, that works out to a fair amount more, but still very reasonable.  And we drank it quickly.  And good limoncello is definitely more expensive here.

Now, I’ve always wanted to try making my own liqueurs – it just seems like fun.  Limoncello seemed like the perfect place to start.  After perusing several limoncello recipes online, I chose this one from Vino e Vittles.  It was very detailed, and it didn’t seem that hard, so to work I went.

Basically here’s what you do.  Buy 20 organic lemons and wash them thoroughly using a fruit/vegetable wash to get off any unpleasant residue.  Zest the lemons, being careful to not get any of the white pith as that will make your limoncello bitter rather than lemony.  The recipe said to peel the zest in strips, but I actually found using a Microplane zester allowed more precision, though I did spend at least half an hour, maybe 45 minutes, zesting lemons.  Put the zest in a jar with one bottle of Everclear and one bottle of vodka – the mix of liquors is so that it’s not as strong as just Everclear, but has enough alcohol to lower the freezing point after mixing in the simple syrup that your limoncello doesn’t freeze in the freezer.  Let it all sit in a dark, cool place for a month, swirling the mixture daily.

Zest and alcohols after a month

After a month, strain the lemon alcohol to get out the zest, then restrain through a coffee filter to get out any other impurities.  This part takes FOREVER.  Like three hours to get through the filters, even though I kept changing them.   As it filters, make a simple syrup of four cups of sugar and four cups of water – boil them together for at least 7 minutes, then let cool.  I did find that I had to skim the syrup to get sugar scum off the top, but I was also using organic sugar which may be less pure; regular may not have the same issues.

Mix your syrup into the alcohol and pour it into whatever bottles you plan to use.  You could certainly just reuse your vodka and Everclear bottles, or you could go for something prettier.  I bought bottles of french lemonade from Sunflower Market (similar to these) and removed the labels (after drinking the lemonade first).

So much limoncello!

And look!  You’ve got yourself some delightful (and strong!) limoncello!

All told, I ended up with just over 2.25 liters.  It may take us a while to drink all of it, but I’m sure we’ll enjoy the process.

Here’s what I learned about bellinis from Wikipedia:  they were invented by Giuseppe Cipriani, the founder of Harry’s Bar in Venice.  Apparently the color of the drink reminded Cipriani of the color of a toga in a painting by Giovanni Bellini, so he named the drink after it.  He used white peach puree rather than the standard yellow peaches, so the color is a lovely and unusual pink.

Here’s what I learned about bellinis from tasting one at Harry’s:  they are freaking delicious.  Seriously, so good.  One ounce of white peach puree, five ounces of prosecco, and you’re in business.

Here’s what I learned about bellinis from making them for my LUPEC meeting:  pour the prosecco first, THEN add the peach puree, or it gets all excited and overflows all over the place.  They are still delicious with homemade organic peach puree (pureed this summer from Ela Farms peaches), but not a pretty pink color.

If you go to Venice, take the time to go to Harry’s and try one for yourself.  Yes, they’re expensive (9 euro for one, which at the time was like $14), but you drink one, feel all swanky and fancy in the bar, realize that you totally would have bonded with Ernest Hemingway and Orson Welles had you but been there in the right decade, and head on out.  One note that was not in my guidebook:  women can apparently wear whatever they want in Harry’s, but men must be in long pants – no shorts.  We were turned away on our first attempt but went back that night in appropriate attire and triumphed.  While there for the one cocktail, so maybe 20 minutes (we drink fast), we saw at least five other groups get stopped at the door and gently informed of the policy, but it would have been easier to know before we tried.

It would have been prettier with the white peach puree, but it still tasted damn good.

The Aperol Spritz in action (photographed by the lovely Liz) - as pretty as it is delicious!

The first drink I served at La Bella Italia was an Aperol Spritz.  It’s a simple recipe that I first tasted at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.

Peggy Guggenheim lived in an unfinished villa on the Grand Canal and was known for her love of 20th century art.  She collected voraciously and essentially considered her support of modern artists to be her raison d’etre.  After her death, her home was converted to a museum to showcase her treasures.  The space and the art are both stunning – they are absolutely worth a visit if you are ever in Venice.  And if you do go, try to be there at noon.  At noon, the museum serves complimentary Aperol Spritzes on the terrace overlooking the canal for all who care to partake.  Definitely partake.

We were in Venice at the beginning of August.  Temperatures were in the 90s, the humidity smacks you in the face every time you step outside, and air conditioned places are few and far between.  Anytime we could drink something cold and refreshing, we did, and the Aperol Spritz certainly fit the bill.

Start with a glass filled with ice – rocks, highball, anything you want as long as it holds ice.  The ice is the important part.  Add two parts prosecco, one part Aperol** and a splash of club soda.  Finish with an orange slice.  Drink.

The Guggenheim had a sign up at their Aperol Spritz table (which they made by the punchbowl – no reason why you couldn’t do the same for a party) that said, “Aperol Spritz – the best in Venice!”  After imbibing, we agreed.

Me in Venice in front of the Grand Canal

*As long as you are over 18 – the gentleman serving the drinks refused one girl, explaining to her that la polizia had a station nearby, and so for her, no, so sorry, but no.

**Aperol is an aperitif that is similar to Campari but less bitter and more floral.  I personally like both, but if you don’t like Campari, try Aperol as many consider it more palatable.  Locally, Aperol can be purchased at Divino and Argonaut – probably other places, too, but those are the ones I know.