5 Tasty Vodka Cocktails (Simple Recipes)

what's up guys welcome back to the educated barfly today we've got a special episode for you we're partnering up with Wheatley vodka to bring you five easy vodka cocktails Wheatley has a brand new show we're helping them promote called proof which is a cocktail competition series that pits three influential bartenders against one another to create the absolute best cocktail I can with a themed basket of ingredients the judge panel is made up of influencers and industry professionals headed up by Harland Wheatley who's the master distiller over at Buffalo Trace and basically what they do is they have to have a good knowledge of classics they're judged on their presentation and style their cleanliness and it is a really really fun show to watch before we get into the video let's talk a little bit about Wheatley Vodka Wheatley Vodka is made at the Buffalo Trace distillery it was created by master distiller Harlan Wheatley and it is made with the same red winter wheat that you'll find in the Pappy Van Winkle and Weller bourbon lines it is because it is made at a bourbon distillery it is limestone filtered water and they distill it ten times so basically what they do is they take a seven times distilled grain distillate and a seven times distilled wheat distillate they add those together and then they distill a further three times they thought that ten times was like just the right amount to get that nice kind of smooth finish where you're not getting over powered by ethanol its bottle at 82 proof because you know just plainly bartender's like and including myself like to have a higher heftier proof alcohol it helps you to showcase the alcohol a little bit more and it doesn't kind of disappear in kind of more robust flavors all right guys let's get into it five easy vodka cocktails let's go first cocktail up is called a lemon drop the lemon drop was purportedly created in the 1970s by a guy named Norman J Hobson who was the son of dairy farmers he grew up in upstate New York and after his military service he landed in San Francisco while in San Francisco he opened a bar called Henry Africa which was open in 1969 and it was decorated with hanging plants and ferns and it became known as the definitive and the very first fern bar no sure what that means I don't know what a fern bar is I guess it's just a bar decorated with ferns kind of like it kind of reminds me when I looked at a picture of it kind of reminds me of a command Tiki style thing anyway it was a very very popular bar and it closed in 1986 due to a dispute over their lease which happens to a lot of bars it's really sad all right let's get into making the drink first thing we're gonna do is three quarters of an ounce of lemon juice 3/4 of an ounce of simple syrup quarter of an ounce of Cointreau two ounces of wheatley vodka we're gonna add our ice into our big tin add our cocktail give it a nice shake now before we pour our cocktail we need to Rim the glass with sugar which is the traditional garnish so we're just gonna take a little lemon wedge and just sort of work it around the rim of the glass I like to do it half way not all the way around and the trick is not to get any sugar inside the glass so I like to do on the outside and then just like to have a nice evening it nice and even now I'm gonna do this with my finger if you're at work or something are you doing this for people to uh put the napkin but basically I like to just like run my finger along and just make it a nice clean line it's nice and presentable cuz you know 50 percent of cocktails is the way it's presented all right cool so let's Center give it a double string and then even though this isn't technically what you would normally do I like to do a little lemon oil on top and give it that nice and kind of three-dimensional lemon flavor so definitely optional but you know give it a little extra lemon and there you have it I am typically you would sip from the sugar side because you want that extra sugar I'm gonna sip it from the other side so I don't ruin my thumbnail now okay that is a very good cocktail it is not super complex I mean it's basically just a vodka sour you've got your simple syrup lemon vodka but I will save that the Cointreau right gives it a little bit of orange and it makes it a little drier which gives it a little bit more complexity and the lemon twist is one of my favorite things you get that lemon oil on top and what you get with that lemon oil is sort of the essential oil of the lemon it's not a lot of extra citric acid there's no acid in there so you just get that really deep and full lemon flavor and there you have it the lemon drop next cocktail up is called a bitter bead that the bitter tea was created sometime around 2010 I'm not exactly sure who the bartender is and I added it to this list because I it is a vodka cocktail it is very complex even though it doesn't have a complex spirit it is something that is visually striking it is amazing on the palate and it has continued to be on my list throughout all of the years that I've been working at Kohl's and people really really like it all right so the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna take about six to eight mint leaves and put it in the bottom of our chin then we're gonna add three quarters of an ounce of honey syrup three quarters of an ounce of lime juice one Demerara sugar cube two ounces of vodka we're gonna give it a light muddle you want to press the sugar but you want to lightly press the mint so that you're releasing the oils and not too much of the vegetable flavor that you can get if you press it too hard just releasing the oils in the mint and we're just going to take a very small little skosh of pebble ice put it in our tin and give it a nice whisk shape you can feel free to shake until most of the ice is gone or all of its the ice is gone and this is a shake and dump so we're just gonna dump the contents into our glass and then just add ice on top until you hit the top of the grass now I'm not going to tell you how many Angostura bitters dashes it depends on your Dasher but you want heavy Angostura on the top and this is what's gonna give it a lot of its kind of awesome look it's really Angus stir it to taste but make sure that you coat the top of the glass at the top of the ice for that knotted and then we're just going to add a little pebble ice on top and then give it a nice mint sprig garnish your little crushing pants and a slap ooh and then just add that into the top I'm gonna add our little straw I got this really awesome straw from Surfside sips - it's like bamboo looking I love this there's gonna add that in there give it a little taste now it's great about that is that you would think that having Demerara sugar in there and honey's gonna make it too sweet but it's really not so it's actually very lime forward and part the sugar which is not completely dissolved is actually a little bit granulated on the bottom so as this cocktail dilutes its gonna get a little bit sweeter and then you get that nice savory sweetness of the honey of course as you go the Angostura is going to combine into the cocktail and as that happens you're gonna get a lot of those like island kind of spice notes that the Angostura is so famous for it is a brilliant drink I love it a lot so much I got to take another sip and there it is the bitter B for a third cocktail we're gonna be doing the cosmopolitan which is arguably one of the most famous cocktails out there not just vodka cocktails one of the most famous cocktails this particular iteration of that cocktail was created by Toby Cecchini in 1988 at a bar called Odeon and basically what it was was there was another drink making the rounds in the club see in San Francisco called the cosmopolitan that used worse ingredients and Toby Cecchini was introduced this cocktail by a friend of his and he said these ingredients are really terrible I wonder if I can reconstruct this and make this better and then lo and behold the modern classic cosmopolitan was born it is said to have been the favorite cocktail of Sandra Bernhard and Madonna who used to hang out at Odeon in the late 80s and early 90s it was a big celebrity hangout and then of course as we all know it was immortalized by Carrie Bradshaw in Sex in the City and it became the signature cocktail of that show all right let's get it actually making the drink first thing we're gonna do three quarters of an ounce of cranberry juice now usually you would use Ocean Spray cranberry I like to use shishi cranberry juice from the health food store your choice if you want to make the original the news Ocean Spray next up three quarters announced the lime juice 3/4 an ounce of Cointreau and then last but not least ounce and a half of vodka there's matter I shorten at our cocktail to our tin give it a nice shake give it a nice double string look at that color I am and look at that wash line I love it when the glassware is perfect for the cocktail it just makes me so happy and we're just gonna have a nice little lemon twist I'm gonna do anything fancy with it I'm just gonna lay it on the glass but I'm gonna lay it this way so I have a nice sip what's great about that is that it's just not overly sweet there is almost no sugar in it at all you get oh I'm sure the cranberry juice has a little bit of sugar the Cointreau obviously has a little bit of sugar but it's very very very dry Cointreau is much more dry than like Grand Marnier or any other type of Curacao you get your proof from the vodka it's very good very lights not overly sweet and all of the great ingredients are in harmony I'm going to twist this whip this way so I can present it to you guys the Cosmo our next cocktail comes to us by way of Jim Meehan and P DT which is please don't tell in New York City he created it around 2014 and its name is cocktail culture it is based on the Indian drink lassi which is a traditional drink prepared with yogurt spices water and sometimes fruit so we are gonna be using this Nusa honey yogurt which is what me hen used in the original cocktail this particular brand but I would just say find some honey yogurt if you cannot find this brand alright let's get into it first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna do 3 quarters of an ounce of yogurt and that equates to about one and a half tablespoons of yogurt and we'll do quarter of an ounce of vanilla syrup half an ounce of passion fruit puree and then one and three-quarters of an ounce of vodka I add some ice into our tin and give it a nice vigorous shake which you are gonna have to do because the you got to make sure you're gonna break down all of that yogurt inside the ten I've been a nice double string I love the richness and texture of his cocktail let's give it a sip now the honey yogurt and the passion fruit is the dominant flavor in this cocktail although I gotta say that that little dab of vanilla is so nice on the end you can taste the proof of the vodka but it's actually so well balanced with the rest of the ingredients that you don't really feel it that much this is a really really pleasing drink be nice for a hot day they can also see this you know as like a holiday cocktail if you will does have those nice flavors honey passion fruit little vanilla it's really nice so there it is the cocktail culture and for a very last cocktail I thought that we would do that other very famous very cloud pleasing drink the Moscow Mule but instead of doing it with lime juice and ginger beer I thought that we would make a fresh kind of ingredient take on it so first thing we're gonna do is half an ounce of lime three quarters of an ounce of ginger syrup two ounces of vodka add our ice at our cocktail do the ice add some ice to our glass then my shake double strain into our glass [Music] and then just finish it off with some ginger beer and then we're just going to garnish with a little lime wheel all right let's take a sip that is perfect perfectly balanced a lot of you might be asking yourself why you're gonna put ginger beer on something that has ginger syrup and it kind of goes along the same lines as why you put lemon oil on something that has lemon juice it just bolsters up the ginger flavor I don't feel that it's too much ginger it is just the right amount of ginger citric acid and the citrus from the lime and the spirit the the vodka is present but it's not too hot it's just like perfectly balanced so there it is the Moscow Mule so there you have it five easy vodka cocktails I think that it's really important for you guys on your cocktail creation journey to really start thinking about using vodka in those in some drinks using vodka is really gonna help you to think critically about all of the other ingredients that you are that you use to make a cocktail since the point of making a cocktail is to make something that is flavorful but balanced and vodka is a neutral spirit it'll really get you thinking about what all of those other flavors are doing every single one of the drinks before you were created by people who really understood what their ingredients were and that's why they created something that really stood the test of time all right if you guys like our Channel please hit like and subscribe and definitely hit the bell icon to get notifications when we post videos definitely check out Wheatley's new show proof and links are below it is a great show and I know it you guys are gonna like it I will see you guys on another time

Channel: The Educated Barfly

Views: 285,307

Keywords: easy drinks, drink recipe, easy cocktails, easy cocktail recipes, best cocktail recipes, cocktail recipes, simple cocktails, homemade drinks, simple cocktail recipes, cocktails at home, homemade, how to drink, bonneville, collection, drinks, easy, quick, tasty, nice, binging with babish, cocktail chemistry, easy recipe, top 10, top 5, steve the bartender, vodka cocktail, fun cocktails, fun recipes, Easy Vodka Cocktails, Vodka, Cocktails

Id: UHqmXuF8wGk

Length: 15min 43sec (943 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 04 2019