Planning a romantic dinner this Valentine's Day? Great drinks can complement your meal and give you a chance to impress, showing off your cocktail mixing skills. A number of these recipes are very easy to follow and each contains some sort of aphrodisiac like chocolate and strawberry.
Have fun with the cocktails you create by embellishing them with garnishes and side dishes that fit the mood. Carve fruit into the heart shapes or dip some strawberries in melted chocolate, even a heart-shaped candy with a cute message is a fun addition.
Valentine's Day Cocktail
Love flavors: blood orange, hot pepper
Sweet, sultry, and spicy, this cocktail is a fun one and different from many of the rest. It includes tequila, Chartreuse, blood orange, and serrano pepper.
This Valentine's Day Cocktail comes to us from Machete, an innovative Japanese restaurant in Bal Harbour, Florida.
What I really like about this cocktail is that it is a unique mix of flavors that begins with a very fine tequila. Personally, I would go with Cazadores Reposado, though their blanco would be a very good fit as well. To go with the tequila, this mix includes the herbal flavors of Chartreuse and the juice of a single slice of blood orange. What makes this drink go over to the truly impressive side is the hint of spice from the muddled pepper that gently infuses the agave nectar. It is one spectacular cocktail when all is said and done.
Berry Sweetheart
Love flavors: cranberry, honey
Non-alcoholic but full of sweetness, it's a mix of cranberry and apple juices with a little honey for sweetness.
Mocktails with cranberry juice are a good choice to offer non-drinking guests at a cocktail party. The cranberry adds a great snap to mocktails that takes the place of the snap of alcohol in cocktails. Find more Cranberry-Based Mocktails in the Maran Illustrated Bartending book.
Happily Ever After
Love flavors: cherry, rhubarb
This cocktail doesn't have the obvious aphrodisiacs but it is an amazing array of flavors. You will find a very nice rhum agricole, Cynar, Cherry Herring, and Averna, all topped off with two very special dashes of bitters.
For Valentine's Day, a wedding, romantic dinner, or any old time you feel like celebrating love and a lifetime of happiness, the Happily Ever After is a great cocktail.
There is so much going on in this drink that at first you may think your taste buds will be overwhelmed, but all of the flavors come together rather nicely. The Rhum J.M. Blanc is a rhum agricole, which is made directly from sugar cane. Cynar is an artichoke liqueur that is paired with Cherry Heering and Averna for a bitterly sweet combination. For the bitters, both can be found from Fee Brothers.
Love Potion #9
Love flavors: strawberry, chocolate
Another frozen cocktail with vanilla ice cream, strawberry vodka and fresh strawberries and cream de cacao.
There's no gaurantee that this cocktail is a love potion of any kind and it's probably not Madame Rue's magic shot. However, I can gaurantee that it looks nothing like Indian ink nor does it smell like turpentine. This Love Potion #9 is actually a really good frozen cocktail (especially with strawberry vodka and a chocolate-rimmed glass) and... who knows.
Bésame (Kiss Me)
Love flavors: raspberry, Damiana herb (Agavero), passion fruit
Fruity and refreshing, a drink with muddled raspberries and lime topped with passion fruit juice and Agavero and Chambord liqueurs.
Bésame, which translates to Kiss Me, is one of the best cocktails for romantic occasions. The ultra-smooth tequila liqueur called Agavero is the key to getting your date to pucker up. Known in Mexico for centuries as a potent aphrodisiac, the essence of the Damiana flower is infused into the tequila which itself is made from 100% blue agave.
Article by http://cocktails.about.com
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