Celebrating Valentine’s Day with your loved one, you cannot go wrong with a nice bottle of champagne (a pink one, preferably). But why not go a step further and impress your Valentine with one or two of this super-easy pink cocktails.
They only require few ingredients and are mixed up in few minutes.
Pink Lemonade Mimosa
Named after the yellow-flowered mimosa plant, the famous Mimosa cocktail is perhaps one of the most straightforward champagne cocktails you can find. All you need is champagne and orange juice.
For Valentine’s Day, make it just a little bit more pinkish by substituting the orange juice with a refreshing pink lemonade.
Serves 2:
120 ml pink lemonade
240 ml champagne or sparkling wine
Fresh raspberries and 2 lemon slices to garnish
Pour half of the lemonade in two champagne glasses and top up with the champagne or sparkling wine.
Garnish with few fresh raspberries and lemon slices.
Coconut Blood Orange Margarita
If you are living in Europe, take advantage that it is still blood orange season. The dark reddish-black colour makes for a dramatic set-up, whilst a shot of sweet coconut cream always works fabulously.
Serves 2:
120 ml silver tequila
120 ml freshly squeezed blood orange juice
90 ml coconut cream
60 ml freshly squeezed lime juice
2 slices of blood oranges and lime for garnishing
Add all ingredients into a shaker over ice. Shake vigorously for about 20 seconds. Strain into tow tumblers or lowball glasses.
Garnish each glass with a slice of blood orange and lime.
Pink Lady
Another classy pink cocktail perfect for Valentine’s Day. Though adding the Grenadine sirup, it’s coming out more red than pink.
Serves 2:
100 ml gin
4 tablespoons Grenadine syrup
1 egg white
lemon zest and maraschino cherries for garnishing
Chill two cocktail glasses in the fridge.
Add gin and Grenadine syrup in a shaker over ice. Shake vigorously for around 30 seconds. Strain into a large glass without the ice.
Add the egg white to the shaker, then pour in the gin mixture. Shake well for another 20-30 seconds. The egg white must turn frothy.
Pour into the two chilled cocktail glasses and garnish with lemon zest and maraschino cherries.
French Kiss (Pink French 75)
If you follow my blog, you will know I love the classic French 75. In whatever variation it might come. It is one of the easiest cocktails to put together and includes two of my favourite base drinks: champagne and gin.
This version adding raspberry sirup is absolutely perfect for a Valentine’s Day celebration.
Serves 2:
60 ml gin
40 ml raspberry syrup
champagne
Raspberries for garnishing
In a cocktail shaker over ice, add gin and raspberry syrup. Shake well for about 20 seconds. Strain into two champagne glasses and top up with champagne. Garnish with some fresh raspberries.
Pink Vodka Lemonade
Vodka, lime and lemonade. Just three ingredients needed and you will have a great starter to ring off your Valentine’s Day at home.
Serves 2:
80 ml vodka
35 ml lime juice
pink lemonade
lemon wheel for garnishing
In a glass over ice, pour vodka and lime juice and slightly stir. Top up with pink lemonade.
Garnish with a lemon wheel.
If you want something a little bit less sweet, you can also substitute the lemonade with a pink soda water.
Rosé Aperol Spritz
I don’t know really how many times the classic Aperol Spritz has been declared dead. Yet every time that happens, it’s coming back full cycle.
Unsurprisingly so in my view, as it is a lovely refreshing sparkling starter for any occasion.
The classic recipe calls for equal parts of Aperol and prosecco, plus a splash of club soda.
To make it Valentine’s Day perfect, simply use a sparkling rosé. And if you want to stick with the original recipe as much as possible, you can now even use a rosé prosecco. Yep, last year the Prosecco DOC consortium has finally green-lighted the production of Prosecco DOC rosé.
Serves 2:
180 ml sparkling rosé
120 ml Aperol
60 ml club soda
2 grapefruit slices for garnishing
Fill a wineglass with ice. Add rosé, Aperol and soda and gently stir.
Garnish with a lemon wedge.
Spiked Agua de Jamaica
OK, I actually had to add one cocktail on this list a little bit more demanding preparation wise. But it is really lovely, a quite unique too. So it might be the perfect choice to surprise your Valentine.
Agua de Jamaica is a herbal hibiscus tea made from crimson or magenta-coloured calyces of roselle flowers. It is a popular drink in Mexico and other parts of South America and the Caribbean and consumed both hot and cold. It has a tart, cranberry-like taste.
The spiked Agua de Jamaica cocktail requires the hibiscus tea made in advance. If you want to cut down on time or could not get hold of hibiscus flowers where you live, you could also substitute the hibiscus tea for a cranberry tea which you can prepare from retail-ready tea bags. This will change the taste, but it still works very well.
Serves 2
120 ml hibiscus tea, chilled
60 ml rosé wine, chilled
40 ml tequila
15 ml fresh lime juice
lime wedge for garnishing
Prepare the hibiscus tea and let cool. Chill for at least 2 hours (or make the tea a day ahead and chill overnight).
In a mixing glass add hibiscus tea, rosé wine, tequila, and lime juice. Stir gently and strain into a cocktail glass over ice.
Garnish with a lime juice, and a hibiscus flower.
Hibiscus tea (Agua de Jamaica)
Serves about 4 glasses:
350 ml water
180 g dried hibiscus petals
¼ cinnamon stick
a small pinch ground cloves
a small pinch ground nutmeg
a small pinch ground allspice
50 g brown sugar
30 g white sugar
Bring the water to boil. Add the hibiscus petals, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and allspice, and reduce the heat to medium-low. Let simmer until the water takes on a deep red colour, about 30 to 45 minutes.
Add in the brown sugar, stir until fully dissolved and set aside to let cool for about 15 minutes.
Strain the liquid through a fine sieve. Squeeze as much liquid from the petals as possible, then discard the petals. Add the white sugar and stir until dissolved.
Chill for a couple of hours.
Enjoy
Carrots and Tigers 