Posts Categorized: Wine Cocktails

Mocktails and Cocktails with Seedlip

We get it, there comes a time when enough is enough and you just need to take a break from the nightly glass, or can, of wine. While we all enjoy the culture around drinking, it’s nice to give your body a little bit of a reset. For those of us who are participating in “Dry January,” you might still be craving a fun cocktail or the taste of Pinot or Gin. That’s why we are excited about Seedlip, a brand we discovered based out of England. They make distilled non-alcoholic spirits. We used 2 of their offerings: Garden with fresh herbal notes and Spice being aromatic with notes of citrus and cardamom.

Seedlip

Their tagline is “What to drink when you’re not drinking.” But we think the question can also sometimes be “what to do when you’re not drinking.” Drinking is such a large part of our culture, especially when it comes to spending time with people. Enjoying a glass of wine at a dinner party, checking out the newest happy hour with your BFF, geeking out over the beers at a new brewery and all holidays! When you’re not drinking for a period of time, what do you do with your friends—go out for coffee instead? With Seedlip you can still have evening hangs with your pals. Bring out the games and feel fancy with a garnished cocktail—just use Seedlip as a substitute for the hard stuff.

While we love the simple mocktails that can be made with Seedlip, we also love our wine cocktails. If you are taking a drinking break, you may have a friend who isn’t, so we made mocktails and cocktails with each Seedlip offering. Enjoy and don’t worry, there are only 2 weeks until February.

Union Wine Co Seedlip Mocktail

Spice Panoma Mocktail (Recipe from Seedlip’s website) 

2oz Seedlip Spice
1oz Fresh Grapefruit Juice
½ oz Fresh Lime Juice
½ oz Simple Syrup
1 bottle Fever-Tree Soda Water 

Juice half a grapefruit and half of a lime. Mix citrus, simple syrup and Seedlip Spice together in a highball glass. Add ice and top with soda water. Stir until combined.  

Underwood Pinot Noir Seedlip Cocktail

Spice, Soda and Pinot Cocktail 

2oz Seedlip Spice
1 bottle Fever-Tree Soda Water
2-3oz Underwood Pinot Noir  

Add ice, Seedlip Spice and soda water to a highball glass. Stir and top with Pinot Noir. Either stir again or let the wine slowly drip to the bottom of the glass.  

Underwood Pinot Noir Seedlip Cocktail

Seedlip Garden Mocktail

Garden and Tonic Mocktail 

2oz Seedlip Garden 
1 bottle Fever-Tree Tonic Water 

Pour 2oz of Seedlip Garden into a highball glass, top with Fever tree tonic water and stir.  

Seedlip Garden Underwood Bubbles Cocktail

Garden and Bubbles Cocktail 

2oz Seedlip Garden 
1 can Underwood Bubbles  

Pour 2oz of Seedlip Garden into a highball glass, top with Underwood Bubbles, stir and enjoy! 

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Make it a Mimosa Morning: Variations on a Classic Cocktail

Union Wine Co Underwood Mimosas

The holiday season is upon us once again. There is shopping to be done, parties to attend, relatives to host. And best of all, if all goes well, there will be a few mornings to sleep in and then start the day right… with some friends, a lazy brunch and a light cocktail.

That makes it a perfect time for mimosas. Generally made with orange juice and sparkling wine, we thought we would give you a few other options to spice up your brunch, impress your guests and make some deliciously unexpected mimosa combinations. Best to stock up on a few extra bottles of Underwood Bubbles. Once these mimosas start flowing, you don’t want to run out of sparkles to keep the party going.

First up, a simple but classic combination, Bubbles with Chambord, a raspberry liqueur from the Loire valley in France. Garnish this classic combination with some fresh raspberries for a little extra jazz in your glass.

Chambord Mimosa

5 oz Underwood Bubbles
1 oz Chambord
Fresh Raspberries for garnish

Union Wine Co Underwood Mimosas

Next up, we recently discovered an amazing locally made ginger syrup from Portland Syrups. They brew their syrup with “mountains of fresh ginger root… and add Japanese chilies for an authentic, slightly hot finish.”

You can add this to plain soda water to make a refreshing ginger ale, but we found it also went great in a mimosa with some fresh rosemary as a fragrant garnish.

Ginger Mimosa

5 oz Underwood Bubbles
.5 oz Portland Syrups Ginger Syrup
Fresh Rosemary for garnish

Union Wine Co Underwood Mimosas

Their season is very short, but right now most markets are selling fresh blood oranges. If you’ve never indulged, we can’t recommend these enough. True to their name, this sweetly sanguine citrus is as colorful as it is delicious. It makes for a simple but beautiful addition to your mimosa arsenal.

Blood Orange Mimosa

5 oz Underwood Bubbles
Juice from one blood orange

Underwood Mimosas

For our final concoction, we decided to try some yuzu syrup. Made from the Japanese yuzu fruit, it is like a blend of lemon and grapefruit with just a touch of salt. When we were making this drink, we decided it needed a little more sweetness to balance out the cocktail, so we juiced a clementine as well. We recommend going easy on the yuzu syrup… it can be pretty intense!

Yuzu and Clementine Mimosa

5 oz Underwood Bubbles
1/4 oz Yuzu Syrup
Juice of 1 Clementine

Underwood Mimosas

Hopefully, this gives you a few new and interesting options for entertaining this holiday season. Whatever flavor strikes your fancy, we hope you have the opportunity to share a late morning brunch and cocktails with your friends and family.

Underwood Mimosas

Bon Appétit and #pinkiesdown!

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Photography, Text and Recipe by David L. Reamer.  (@dlreamer)

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Tips For The Season: Pinot Pomegranate Punch

Union Wine Co Underwood Pinot PunchOnce again the season to entertain is upon us. From Halloween straight through the New Year, it’s just a part of life that you will have more guests, throw more parties and have more responsibilities to entertain. But, there is no need to get stressed! One thing we all know about entertaining is that the more you can do ahead of time, the easier—and more fun—it all becomes.

One way to do that is to prep as much food as possible, but another way is to make sure you have plenty of delicious drinks on hand for your guests. And, one of the best ways to check this box is to create a punch or batch cocktail that can be done a few days in advance and stored in the fridge. So, we decided to help out and suggest an Autumnal Sangria style Pinot Noir Punch that has a little bit of a kick but still stays on the fruity side. It can be made up days in advance, and in fact, doing so will only improve the flavors.

Union Wine Co Underwood Pinot Punch

Pinot Pomegranate Punch

2 bottles Underwood Pinot Noir
2 C Pomegranate Juice
1/2 C Unsweetened Cranberry Juice
1/2 C Cointreau
1 C Spiced Rum (such as Flor de Cana)
22oz bottle (2 3/4 C) of Hard Cider

Garnish:
Pomegranate seeds
Cranberries
Orange slices
Cinnamon Sticks

Union Wine Co Underwood Pinot Punch

Combine all ingredients. It’s that simple!

Feel free to add or subtract any amounts to best suit your palate. Refrigerate ahead of time and serve cold, over ice or room temperature. Since the orange and cranberries float, place those in the punch as a garnish. The pomegranate seeds, however, will sink, so we recommend putting them in a small bowl and having your guests help themselves.

(Looking for a funky punchbowl and cup set on the cheap? I highly recommend checking your local Goodwill or Salvation Army!)

Never dealt with a fresh pomegranate? Well here is a nifty technique to help get the most from your fruit.

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Kitchen tip:
How to deal with a Pomegranate.

Step one:

Gently run a serrated knife around the equator of the pomegranate. The skin is very tough but not very thick, so its best to just barely break the skin to preserve the most amount of seeds.

Underwood Pinot Punch

Step 2:

Gently tear the fruit into two halves. You can then go on to tear the halves into smaller segments.

Underwood Pinot Punch

Step 3:

In a shallow bowl of room temperature water, gently break apart each section. All of the seeds will sink to the bottom and all the white pith will float to the surface, assuring easy separation without mashing any of the seeds. Simply dispose of the rind and all pith and strain the seeds through a mesh colander.  Keep covered in the fridge until party time.

Underwood Pinot Punch

Cheers!

Underwood Pinot Punch

Photography, Text and Cocktail by David L. Reamer.  (@dlreamer)

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The Hood River Fruit Loop Apple Picking in the Gorge

Union Wine Co Fruit Loop

If the idea of a Fruit Loop conjures up sugary Saturday morning cereal, you wouldn’t be alone. But out here in the Pacific Northwest, we Portlanders know it as something very different. In fact, an incredibly healthy alternative, the Hood River Fruit Loop is a series of U-pick farms and orchards specializing in Autumnal produce.

Great for day trips with the whole family, the Loop is a very simple drive from Portland: about an hour out Hwy. 84 along the Columbia River and then just up Hwy. 35 through the town of Hood River. On a clear day, the views are beautiful and as much fun as the apple picking. There are many farms along the Fruit Loop to choose from. Each has a myriad of apple varieties available at different points during the Autumn season, as well as pears, grapes and other fruit. You can see what is available and when everything is available on the Official Fruit Loop Website.

Union Wine Co Fruit Loop

For my recent trip out there, I chose to visit one of the farms that is the farthest away from Hwy. 84, but well worth the extra few miles drive: Kiyokawa Family Orchards. Located in the small town of Parkdale, this very accessible family-run orchard has one of the largest selections of apple varietals on the Fruit Loop. I was on the hunt for my favorite apple—Honey Crisp—and I was not disappointed. The Honey Crisps at Kiyokawa were the size of softballs; red, delicious and ready to be picked.

Union Wine Co Fruit Loop Union Wine Co Fruit Loop

Kiyokawa Orchards has many different sections to pick from, so even on the busiest of Autumn weekend days, there is never an issue of overcrowding or a lack of fruit to be harvested.

Union Wine Co Fruit Loop Union Wine Co Fruit Loop Union Wine Co Fruit Loop Union Wine Co Fruit Loop

To commemorate my trip out to the Fruit Loop, I created a cocktail using one of the many amazing hard ciders that are produced out in the Columbia River Gorge, Son of Man Sagardo. A Basque-style cider, possibly the only one produced in this region, it has a very dry flavor that I thought would pair really well with the off-dryness of the Underwood Pinot Gris.

I just needed a little bit of herbaceous flavor to round out the cocktail and found that Dolin’s Génépy des Alpes, with its rich Artemisia flavor, worked perfectly. A very simple cocktail served on the rocks, it really embodies the full flavors of Portland’s most glorious season.

(Note: Son of Man can be purchased at a few places around town, but I found it at Belmont Station.)

Underwood Pinot Gris Apple Cider Cocktail

Basque in the Glory

2 oz. Son of Man Sagardo Basque Style Cider
1 oz. Underwood Pinot Gris
1/2 oz. Dolin Génépy des Alpes

Pour all ingredients over ice, stir vigorously and enjoy!

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Photography, Text and Cocktail by  David L. Reamer.  (@dlreamer)

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Link Up with Freeland Spirits

Underwood Strawberry Cooler Freeland GinEarlier this summer we were on the search for the perfect spirit to complement our Underwood Strawberry Cooler. We thought the bright and floral notes of a gin might be the best pairing. After tasting a few, we landed on Freeland Spirits’ Gin.

Freeland Spirits not only has amazing tasting gin, but they are an incredible women-owned craft distillery located in NW Portland. One of the few distilleries owned and operated by women. They have been open just over a year but their beautiful tasting room, original packaging, and warm personalities have already made a positive impact in the distillery community in Portland. 

Freeland Spirits

Freeland Spirits Gin Underwood Strawberry Cooler Cocktail

We worked with their team to create a cocktail that was just released on their menu and will be featured at the Distillery Row Beach Bash this Sunday (8/18). Grab some Strawberry Cooler and Freeland Spirits Gin to create this cocktail at home or stop by Freeland Spirits on NW Vaughn in Portland to find it on their menu.

Link Up 

Underwood Strawberry Cooler
2oz Freeland Spirits Gin
1oz Lime
1oz Simple Syrup
2oz Coconut Milk 

In a shaker tin add Freeland Gin, lime, coconut milk, and simple syrup shake and strain into a glass of their choice and ice and top with Underwood Strawberry Cooler!
Cheers! 

Underwood Strawberry Cooler

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