Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Brown Rice Tea and Ginger Martinis

I had a small dinner gathering the other night that was to be all vegetarian. I don't usually have such dinners (vegetarian I mean), but I like to mix it up from time to time.

So, we needed a nice cocktail to start off the evening; a palette tantalizer for the selections to follow.
Here we have the Brown Rice Tea and Ginger Martini.

I happened to have some Brown Rice tea bags on hand, that I received as a gift from my brother some time ago.
So I steeped three bags in about a half a cup of water and added five small chunks of ginger to the hot water.
I let the bags and ginger steep for over an hour to get a concentrated flavor from them.

In a metal shaker:

Put ice, and pour in about 5 to 7 ounces of vodka. (Gin would work too, if you prefer)
Pour in the tea, reserving the ginger pieces.
Add about a 1/4 ounce of simple syrup.
Give it a good shake.
Strain into glasses that have a thin Lemon slice in the bottom of each.
This created four small servings.

(I served these cocktails with some Edamame for nibbling before the meal.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

sounds delicious - what a great idea/use for the brown tea.

i also really like the new look for the site. good times.

Simone said...

Thanks Paycheck! They turned out delicious. I was so inspired from the addition of the ginger that I made some ginger syrup for later use. Cheers!

Anonymous said...

mmm ginger syrup - that's a good call. great ingredient to have on hand.