The Best Easy to Make Cocktails - Wisconsin Style!
Ever since the term “social distancing” became part of our collective vocabulary, we’ve been trying to introduce everyone to great-tasting cocktails that are easy to make at home. Northern Oasis Spirits rum, vodka and whiskeys are designed to make mixing easy and fun. These are great, simple cocktail recipes you can make using ingredients you probably already have lying around the house.
For those looking to try them all, we’ve got a shopping list for you.
Our list covers all the ingredients needed to make any of the cocktails in this blog, plus they’re just great ingredients to keep stocked in your home bar:
Riverbank Spiced Rum
Lakeview Vodka
Shorewood Whiskey
Lone Duck Cinnamon Whiskey
Peach Schnapps
Ginger Ale
London Dry Gin
Fresh Lime Juice (or several limes)
Lemons (3 of them)
Orange Juice
Sweet Tea (or make your own with tea bags and sugar)
Angostura Bitters
To make the recipes even easier, we’re including video versions so you can see what we’re talking about!
Riverbank Spiced Rum: The Riverbank Refresher
This delicious summer drink is sweet, bubbly, and refreshing—perfect for a hot summer day. If you keep in mind that a normal shot glass holds about 1.5 oz. of liquid, you already have a way to measure your ingredients, but once you get used to making cocktails, you can be bold and just eyeball it.
We realize not everyone is in the habit of keeping fresh limes around (they don’t exactly grow on trees—😆 well, not in Wisconsin anyway), so lemon juice will work in a pinch. Lime has a more aromatic flavor to it that works better with all the different spices in our citrusy Riverbank Spiced Rum.
1 1/2 oz. Riverbank Spiced Rum
3 oz. Ginger Ale
1/4 oz. Fresh Lime Juice
Build in a glass over ice
Lakeview Vodka: The Lakeview Sunrise
Since we designed Lakeview Vodka to be as versatile as possible, it mixes well with both sweet and spicy drinks. Sweet drinks are a lot more fun in the summer, so here’s a yummy, 3-ingredient drink you can throw together for yourself or your friends…or both!
1 1/2 oz. Lakeview Vodka
1/4 oz. Peach Schnapps
Top with Orange Juice
Shorewood Whiskey: The Snap Back
This drink recipe has been floating around under a few different names, not all of them family-friendly. Legend has it that this particular recipe was originally created as a hangover remedy by a suffering bartender dealing with a cranky (and, we assume, quite hung over) customer.
That steward was a genius, though, and created a refreshing drink that can easily be made with our smooth Shorewood Whiskey, or our Riverbank Spiced Rum if you’d like to mix it up!
1 oz. Shorewood Whiskey
1 oz. London Dry Gin
2 dashes of Bitters
½ oz. Fresh Lime Juice
Top with Ginger Ale
If you don’t have bitters, we highly recommend buying a bottle. It’s like the salt and pepper of cocktails—a drink that’s already tasty might be even better with a dash or two of bitters! They are surprisingly easy to make, though a little time consuming (25 days!)—we recommend if you’re starting out to just buy some.
Lone Duck Cinnamon Whiskey: Porch Punch
Our Lone Duck Cinnamon Whiskey has a kick that will definitely wake up your taste buds. While it’s super refreshing by itself as a chilled shot, we decided to harness all its energy with a healthy dose of sweet tea (that’s the next recipe)—and the Porch Punch was born!
1 ½ oz. Lone Duck Cinnamon Whiskey
2 oz. Orange Juice
4 oz. Sweet tea
Pour all ingredients over ice & serve with a smile!
Bonus recipe: Sweet Tea
This is a Southern staple, made in large batches so you can keep it in your fridge for when the craving hits.
12 tea bags (Lipton works great)
1 gallon water
1 cup granulated sugar
Bring water to a boil on your stovetop, then remove the pot from the heat. Dunk all 12 teabags a couple times to get them wet, then let them steep for about 5 minutes. If you like your tea stronger, you can steep them for up to 3 hours!
Remove the tea bags and add 1 cup of sugar, stirring until it’s completely dissolved. Transfer to a 1 gallon glass pitcher and refrigerate overnight (it’s better when it’s really cold).
Now you have a gallon of sweet tea to use for many Porch Punches, or to keep everyone happy and refreshed on hot summer days!
If you just want enough sweet tea for one Porch Punch, steep 1 tea bag in 1 ½ cups of boiling water for 5 minutes, then remove the bag and stir in 1 heaping teaspoon of granulated sugar until it’s dissolved. Refrigerate it for a few hours, and it’s ready to go!
Bonus video: Lemon Infused Lakeview Vodka
While making your own bitters is kind of time consuming and maybe not for everyone, it’s actually just a more complex infusion process. If you’d like to do a quick and easy trial run, we encourage you to make your own lemon-infused Lakeview Vodka! It’s way easier than the bitters, and you’ll have a deliciously lemony Lakeview you can use to add a splashy citrus to your favorite sweet cocktails!
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