Strawberry Champagne: 3 cocktails and a giveaway!

Written by

I love baking. But this heat wave we’ve been having in Vancouver has been a little less than inspiring. That, plus Bon Appetit’s collection of summer bubbly cocktails got me thinking – what if we could replace the champagne with Strawberry Champagne cold-brewed tea?
The answer: YES.

Some notes:
We cold-brewed the tea in our fridge for about 5 hours by putting 2 tbs of loose tea in a mason jar, filling it with water, screwing the lid on and leaving it in the fridge to cold brew. That’s it! 1 litre was enough to make 1 of each drink.

I would suggest strongly against putting the cold tea through your soda machine (if you have one) to add bubbles. It was a nice idea but…the tea exploded everywhere and the extensive clean-up process woke the baby up for several hours. #neveragain

If you do like (real) bubbly, we think you could play with the recipe a bit and add it!

Ginger fizz (the mocktail) was my favourite, but I’m a little ginger-obsessed, so…

Michael loved the Pomegranate Punch. It’s sweet and fresh and goes down a little too easily.

The French 75 was great – dry and packed a good punch.

Whatever you decide to do, let us know! Post a picture and your comments on Instagram and tag @tea.sparrow, using the hashtag #bringonthebubbles. Our favourite entry will win a free month of tea!

Happy sipping!

image

For the Ginger Fizz:

½ oz ginger syrup

5 oz Strawberry Champagne tea

orange slice

Blend the syrup and the cold tea, add a slice of orange and enjoy!

For the Pomegranate Champagne Punch:

8 oz Strawberry Champagne tea

1 oz rum

2 oz pomegranate juice

1 oz simple syrup

lemon slice

fresh mint

Blend the tea, rum and juice, add a lemon slice and a few sprigs of fresh mint. Enjoy!

For the French 75:

1 oz gin

¾ ounce fresh lemon juice

¾ ounce simple syrup

2 ounces Champagne

Add everything to a glass and enjoy!

Bourbon black magic

Written by

image

Well folks, it’s officially spring…oh wait, unless you live on the east coast and just got a dump of snow! On behalf of West Coast Canada, we’re sorry.

We made this on a Monday night, after a Sunday all-day birthday celebration (for moi) and before leaving our baby with a babysitter (!) – ok, actually 2, we’re nuts – and riding our bikes to Italian birthday dinner date night. It was a delicious weeknight celebratory drink. A way to keep the birthday going…maybe for a few more days.

Here are the basic proportions:

1 part bourbon

3 parts tea

1 tsp sugar
Splash of milk

+ a sprig of mint (mostly for fun, and to pretend/celebrate the coming of spring)

It was lovely sans milk but honestly so deliciously creamy with just a splash. Feel free to play with the ingredients and let us know how it turns out!

Moringa Apple Granola

Written by

This was super easy to make and really tasty!

Preheat your oven to 350. Put a cup of so of oats, 1 tbs of butter, 2 tbs of maple syrup (ish) into a small saucepan over medium heat and stir until the butter has melted. Sprinkle some salt into the mixture and pour onto a baking pan. Bake for about 10 minutes, checking every 5 minutes. (Our first batch burned.) You can play with the proportions based on how fruity, buttery, sweet, salty you like your granola, and even add things like nuts or coconut flakes or whatever! It’s your breakfast.

Enjoy!

image

Written by

Drink of the week: Buddha Bamboo-tini

1 oz vodka
4 oz Buddha Bamboo tea (brewed strong – we used 1 heaping tbs/8 oz)
1 tbs cherry purée (3 cherries + 1 tbs sugar mashed into a pulp makes enough for 2)

Brew the Buddha Bamboo and let it cool completely. Fill martini shaker
with ice. Pour in 1 oz vodka and add 3 oz of the tea. Then add 1 tbs of
cherry purée and the final oz of tea. Shake, pour and enjoy!
                       

(Source: https://teasparrow.com/)

Written by

Put-your-socks-on Cali Persian White Russian

2 oz Samovar Lounge Cali Persian Organic
1 oz white rum
1 oz milk (or half-and-half)
2 drops vanilla extract (we are very technical with our measurements)
1 tsp sugar

Pour over ice and enjoy!

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Written by

Bourbon iced tea!
We used smittenkitchen’s recipe and our own cold-brewed Kenyan Estate black tea from justea. Here’s the recipe, in slower motion:

3 oz cold-brewed Mount Kenyan Estate, 2 oz grapefruit juice (Trader-Joe’s), 1 oz bourbon (we tried a few and went with our family favourite, Four Roses), juice of ½ lime, ½ tbs. sugar.
Fill a shaker with ice and shake well. Fill 2 glasses with ice, pour and enjoy! Add sprig of mint if you’d like…we forgot but it was still delish.

(Source: http://tmblr.co/)