Tea Cocktail Help?
So my dad told me this year not to get him or his girlfriend ANY presents, because I should save my money for school. This is ridiculous, because I refuse not to get my father a Christmas gift. But getting him a gift is always hard – I see him a few times a year, so I never know what he’s been into lately, and the few interests I know he’s really into he’s very snobby about (so I don’t dare get him anything related, it probably would be the “wrong” thing!). That usually leaves getting him a Chapters gift card every year. Ugh.
Well, THIS year I had already picked out an actual book for his birthday, but missed said birthday, so he’s already getting a book. So I decided to save some money and give him and his GF something I can do easily on a budget, e.g. tea. I have TONS of spare infusers, spoons, tins, tea, and can put together a nice set. Now, I wasn’t originally going to do this because they both told me they never drink (cheap, bagged) tea. But they DO like wine and cocktails (dad’s GF especially), so I got the bright idea the other day to make them a little iced tea set with booze-themed teas. Cute and personal, right?
Then, AFTER I had pretty much put it all together, I got second thoughts that they will hate it and be sort of disgusted I gave them a whole box of something they explicitly said they don’t like. Dumb idea…? I am worried they will think I’m just trying to push my own interests on them – which I guess I am.
I thought I might sweeten the gift a bit by actually including little index cards with drink recipes in the box that they can easily make with the tea. Problem is, I don’t drink booze, and have no sense of what makes a good cocktail. So I’ve been scrambling around online and in cocktail books to come up with something I can adapt. Even narrowing the search to “tea-based cocktails,” there’s an overwhelming amount of info out there to sort through!
Then it occurred to me to ask the community, since maybe someone has more experience making tea cocktails here. Teas I’m using are Teavana’s: Blackberry Mojito, Golden Mojito, Sevenberry Sangria (I actually have a drink for this one already), and Cranberry Singapore Sling.
Anybody have ideas for cocktail recipes using the other three?
Thanks so much for any help!
My favourite drink is a cranberry vodka, so you could definitely do something along those lines with the cranberry singapore sling. What might be easiest for you is to google the actual cocktails that the Teavanas are inspired by — for example a mojito is basically seltzer water, lemon, lime, and vodka. So for the mojito recipes you could probably adapt the recipe by replacing the seltzer water with iced tea.
Mind you, if you’re going to be creating the recipes yourself, I would want to be tasting them beforehand, and since you don’t drink yourself this might be a bit of a challenge. There are tea cocktails I found googling but they require specific teas, and you want to work with that you already have.
Ha, yeah, I am thinking I will either adapt very basic tea cocktail recipes I find, or scrap it entirely. There’s no way for me to do any taste-testing, really, although the few mixed tea-based drinks that I have randomly thrown together in the past have all tasted pretty good, since I just put together things that should logically work together. I think if I don’t do anything too adventurous it should be safe.
my favourite tea-based boozey drinks are when I actually infuse tea into vodka. A cheap bottle of Red Tassel with some Goji Pop from David’s Tea in it plus lemonade and club soda = THE BEST COCKTAIL EVER. I have done it with many different herbals and never had a less than awesome result!
sorry this is a late reply I must have just missed it. Yes, but you only have to steep it for like 30-45 minutes and you get SO much flavour. I have also poured it through an infuser over and over again. I used probably 50g of tea to a 26 oz bottle of vodka.
Last night I made one up! Black Ceylon tea from mlesna, coffee liquer, triple sec, milk and sugar. It was amazing, but the orange dominated so it helps if you like citrus :)
Great gift idea!
I dunno, I’m thinking this is a crazy idea and I should just go get a gift card while I still can. Why give tea to people who said they don’t drink it? He’s picking me up in 7 hours. :/
I mix gin, tea, and tonic A LOT! I usually use herbal tea or green from Davids. My favs are pink flamingo, bubbly, kanpe, and goji pop. Anything fruity works.
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