Happy holidays everyone! Life is getting a little hectic for all of us right now, but it's all all so fun for us this year with our little ones getting excited seeing all of the decorations and lights, baking cookies, santa (well not all of our kiddos are loving the big guy!), and having all of their extended family spending visiting. 

I am super excited about my new Kailo Chic confetti cocktail shaker that Amy gave me as a Christmas present, and I couldn't wait to use it! With New Year's Eve on the horizon, I felt like we needed a super fun celebratory champagne cocktail to share with all of you today. To make this drink "super fun," I took some inspiration from the pink champagne cotton candy that I came across in the candy shop. Keep reading below for the recipe.

How pretty, righ?! At this point, it's the start of a French 75 cocktail  (non traditional though, as I substituted vodka for gin).

I'm in LOVE with this shaker! As if I needed an excuse to shake up more cocktails, now I have this fun new toy to play with.

So enough suspense...here is the recipe you've been waiting for!

Ingredients
2 oz vodka 
1 oz lemon juice
Champagne 
Cotton candy

Directions
Fill your cocktail shaker with ice, add vodka and lemon, and shake until icy cold. Pour into a coupe style glass or a champagne flute. At this point, you are going to want to take your cotton candy and suspend it ABOVE your cocktail. You can use a long cocktail skewer through it or you can see in from our picture, we just used 2 pretty paper straws and sat the cotton candy on top of them. For a party, stop at this point, and place all of of your glasses on a serving tray or display table. When people arrive or when you plan to hand them all out, top them all with a pour of the champagne, and watch the cotton candy disappear into your drink leaving your cocktail sweetened and pink! 

If you are having a New Year's Eve party, we highly recommend you giving this beautiful drink a try; it's a show stopper! 

If you try this drink, please let us know how it turns out for you. Till then, please relax, take time for yourself and your loved ones, and enjoy the true spirit of the season.

Sending you much love from The Boastful Host.

XOXO
​Adrienne


*Here's the link to Kailo Chic where you can buy your own confetti shaker http://www.kailochic.com/bar-cart-supplies/19444-Confetti-Cocktail-Shaker
Please note, we have no affiliation with Kailo Chic, we just love sharing awesome things that we find with you!

Well, we made it through another week! We've been busy with lots of new party opportunities over here, while still working our way through the immediate holiday celebrations ahead, and now it's time for a cocktail to sit back and relax with.

My original game plan was to have my relaxing cocktail, and then head out with the hubby for an all too infrequent date night, sporting my freshly colored and blown-out hair, but instead, we have yet another snowy day on our hands, so it's looking like a night in for this mama. Big giant bummer. 

So now you're all stuck now with a rare selfie, because I'm not wasting this blowout at home with no one seeing it except the fam!

But now back to the important stuff that you came here to read! The same snow that put a damper on my date night, was also the inspiration for today's warm decadent cocktail, a Bourbon Chai Tea with a Maple Spiced Bourbon Whipped Cream. OH YES! You heard that right!

There are plenty of great recipes out there for homemade chai, and I totally encourage you to give one of them a try, but for today, i'm going to focus in the topping for this hug-in-a-cup!

To make this deliciousness, you're going to need to steep a cup of your favorite chai tea, sweeten it with a teaspoon of real maple syrup, and get it nice and creamy with your milk of choice (half and half or almond milk would both be equally good choices). Make sure you leave room in your mug for a shot of the good stuff - Spiced Cinnamon Bourbon!

You would have one really tasty drink if you just stopped there, but I suggest you splurge and make the maple spiced bourbon whipped cream and put a big ol' dollop on top of your drink!

Ingredients
1/2 pint of heavy whipping cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 Tbsp confectioners sugar
​3 Tbsp Spiced Cinnamon Bourbon (maple bourbon would be delicious as well)
Drizzle of maple syrup

Directions
Pour heavy cream into the bowl of a mixer at a fairly high speed, using the whip attachment (as long as it's not splashing, it's fine!). While it's whipping, add in your other ingredients. Stop when the whipped cream has begun to stiffen up. Give it a taste, and adjust if necessary. Top off your bourbon chai, top your ice cream, or just eat it with a spoon...we won't tell anyone!

We hope you give this one a try! Make it tonight, snuggle up with a mug of it, and stay warm and out of the snow!

XOXO
​Adrienne

This week's post is especially for all of the SAHM out there (and the SAHD too!). Here at The Boastful Host, we typically try to avoid the cliche "mommy needs wine" type of comments. Let's be realistic, we'd be drinking nonstop if we drank because of the kids! The reason we like to highlight a cocktail each week, is because they are celebratory, fun, and tasty (we hope you agree!), and those things are what The Boastful Host is all about. This week though, I'm getting personal! If you follow us, you likely know that I have a 2 year-old daughter, and as adorable as she is most of the time, today, she is just driving me crazy! Along with the just the general "terrible twos," we are also a couple of weeks deep into potty training. She's exhausted my patience. I've screamed. Naps have been skipped. And yes, while typing up this post, we've even had a glass vase break that I had to go tend to! I know it's just one of those days, and tomorrow will likely be back to normal, but today I would do just about anything for peace and quiet. Right now, if I was told there's a trip waiting for me, I could be packed and ready to go in less that 5 minutes! 

With that in mind, our drink today is usually called a Hawaiiantini (that I borrowed from a restaurant that no longer exists), I'm upgrading that name to a "I Need a Vacation Right Now 'tini" for my mood today! This refreshing drink tastes like a vacation in a glass, and I hope, if even for a second, it will allow me to sit back and take a vacation in my mind.

Read below to see how to make this for yourself.

As you know, we like to keep our cocktails easy, and this one is no different. When you're having a rough day, it needs to be quick and easy!

The "I Need a Vacation Right Now 'tini" only has 3 ingredients - vodka, pineapple juice, and fresh orange juice.

Ingredients
2 oz vodka
1 oz pineapple juice
squeeze of fresh orange

Directions
Pour all ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice, and shake until frothy and cold. Pour into a martini glass or coup and garnish with an orange wedge. 

During a small window of calm, I was able to get this picture. Hopefully this post will act as a good reminder to really appreciate those fun  days we have normally. To all of my fellow mommies out there, I send you calming vacation thoughts fueled by tasty vacation-like cocktails!

Much love to all!
​Adrienne

It's December 1st and it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas over here! Tree is up, stockings are hung from the mantle, and as for all of the little decorations, well I'll probably tinker with those for the next 24 days! We are officially in the holiday spirit and want to share some of that spirit with all of you. 

For me personally, I love to give gifts that are handmade, or personalized in some way, and I know many people, and probably a lot of you, like to do this by baking up a ton of cookies to gift to all of your loved ones. I'm not much of a baker though, so I do what I do best, by giving the gift of cocktails! For the past few years (along with my husband too; I don't want to take all of the credit!) we've been making homemade Irish cream, and it is delish!

Even if you're not prepared to be making numerous batches of this, consider making even just a half a batch and storing it in a mason jar in your fridge. It's a nice touch to be able to offer it with coffee or hot cocoa when guests visit all season long.

Those are the ingredients you are going to need. You'll see there's nothing too crazy in there and much of it, you may even have in the house if you do some baking. There are a number of recipes floating around out there on the interwebs, but after some experimenting and taste testing (and lots of positive reviews from friends and family!), this one is the winner!

The best part about this recipe, is it's so easy...just dump everything in a pitcher and stir. 

Ingredients
2 cups Irish whiskey (it does not need to be expensive high-end stuff!)
2 cups light cream
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 tablespoon chocolate syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon instant espresso, dissolved in 2 tablespoons hot water
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

​Directions
Combine all ingredients in a pitcher and stir well. Refrigerate until ready to drink. If you're planning on gifting it to friend, pick up a case of mason jars at your local grocery store, pour into jars, and add a cute little bow or tag.  

Serve over ice, add it to coffee, shake with vodka and coffee liqueur to make a white Russian, or just pour some over ice cream. You can do no wrong with this delicious adult beverage!

We would love to hear about your holiday traditions. Leave us a comment with your favorite cookies, holiday dinners or cocktails you like to serve (or just like to eat/drink!).

xoxo
​Adrienne

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! We hope that you had a wonderful day filled with delicious food, tasty drinks, and - most importantly - spent it with people that you love dearly.

Amy and I have very different family dynamics and we celebrate in our own special way. For me it's all about a low key day in sweats and cooking the best food I know how for my little family of 3 (actually 4 if you count my Boston Terrier, Bean Sprout). While I love cooking the big meal, what I enjoy even more, is leftovers! Actually, to be more specific, I love transforming leftovers into something COMPLETELY different. And that's what inspired today's cocktail

Our cocktail today is a Cranberry Sauce Margarita! Yes, you heard me right! There's always leftover cranberry sauce, and what better way to use them up but to create a cocktail? 

You may be thinking "is she for real?' but just think about it...how can this be bad? A little tequila can't be bad, right?!

We happened to have some leftover bell peppers and lots of onions, so I was thinking turkey fajitas sounded like an easy quick dinner, especially since our turkey already gave a nod to Mexican in the apple, sage, chipotle glaze. (Side note, today was the first day of potty training bootcamp in my house, so quick and easy was key since we are officially spent!) 

So back to the tequila already...check out the ingredients below. You probably already have all of this on hand, right?

Ingredients
6 oz Silver Tequila
4 Tbsp Homemade cranberry sauce
4 oz Fresh squeezed orange juice
2 oz Fresh squeezed lime juice

To rim the glasses
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 Tsp Chipotle powder

Directions
1. Mix the sugar and spice blend on a small plate, and rim 4 glasses by rubbing a wedge of lime along the rim of each glass, and then dipping each into the blend. Then fill with ice.
2. In a large cocktail shaker filled with ice, combine all of the ingredients above and shake until frosty.
3. Divide evenly among glasses and enjoy!

I hope you give this "leftovers" drink a try, it is so yummy! 

We would love to hear what you think of leftovers. Do you like to reinvent everything like I do? Do you just love a big "Thanksgiving Day" Sandwich with the works? Or maybe you're not a big fan of leftovers and are just ready to move onto the next meal...like sushi!

Till next time...remember to Shop Small Saturday!
​Adrienne

With Thanksgiving less than a week away, The Boastful Host is getting excited! We're finalizing our menus, our mouths are watering thinking about all of the yummy food, and even when you think it's complete, there's still always room to add just one more side! But with menus nearly complete, I now want to make sure you have a easy cocktail that you can drink all afternoon, and still be able to make it to dinner. 

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays, where you can really focus on spending time relaxing and spending time with the ones you love (or in some cases, maybe it's more like tolerate!). With parades, dog shows (my personal favorite TV viewing on Thanksgiving), and football, you're likely to be lounging around snacking and drinking all day long. I think it's nice to be able to offer a drink that's festive and complementary to the flavors of the holiday, but it also needs to be simple enough to please everyone, and light enough to ensure that no one's going to be passing out on the couch before dinner is served.

So we're taking a crowd favorite for Thanksgiving, cranberry, giving you one very simple recipe, and offering slight variations so you can customize it to best suit your tastes.

Cranberry Quencher (served 3 ways)
a. Basic recipe:
1 orange, cut into wedges
2 cups of cranberry juice
1 liter of seltzer
8 oz vodka

In a pitcher, place your orange wedges and muddle them until you get all of the juice out, and then add remaining ingredients and stir. Pour over ice into your favorite glass and you have a simple refreshing cocktail.

If you're thinking, "that's sounding just too simple, what else can we do to kick this cocktail into overdrive?" well then here are a couple of ways to switch it up.

b. All of that cranberry just a little too tart? Add a few teaspoons of sugar while you're muddling the oranges to bring out the natural sweetness, and if that's not enough, try swapping out the plain vodka for vanilla vodka. Who needs pie when this cocktail is being served?

c. Maybe it's not a celebration until there's bubbly? Hey, I can respect that! In this case, use only 1/2 the seltzer, and then as needed, pour enough for 1 or 2 drinks into a cocktail shaker with ice, shake until nice and icy. Pour into a martini glass leaving enough room for a splash of cava or prosecco. 

Hopefully you'll try one of these at your turkey day feast! 

We wish you all the happiest of Thanksgivings!
Adrienne
xoxo

Happy hour is here! And if you're using our blog as inspiration for what to pour tonight, why not open a bottle of your favorite red, while you read our "words of wisdom" (or should I say some very simple advice and we'll leave the wisdom to the true wine experts!). 

A quick recap from last week's post...

1. You can choose to pair your wine with food by contrasting or mirroring (we're focusing on mirroring)

2. Both white and red wine can be broken up into the categories of light, medium, and bold

3. All recommendations are merely suggestions and tips from the experts. The most important piece of advice when it comes to drinking wine, is just drink what makes you happy! 

Last week I gave a shout out to Clinton Kelly on the Chew for his easy, non-intimidating explanation of wine and food pairings, which is yet again, where this graphic below was  borrowed from:

As we did last week, we've chosen a red wine from each the light, medium, and bold, categories.

For the light category, we went with a Pinot Noir. With this chosen wine, berry preserves-raspberry, blueberry and cherry are coupled with hints of sweet spice and an earthiness on the nose. This would be amazing with a nice piece of salmon with a blueberry reduction, using a splash of the wine before serving and vinegar to create a bit of a sweet and sour effect. A hearty fish taco with halibut and a berry and avocado salsa would also provide a great compliment, mirroring the flavors in the wine. 

We chose a Merlot for the medium category. This one, with ripe plummy aromas with hints of dark chocolate, subtle herbs and black cherry with a mild fruity acidity, really would go well with so many different foods, as do most wines in the medium category. The mild acidity mirrors that which you get from tomatoes lending itself as an easy pick with a traditional Margherita Pizza. Or why not even give it a try with a rich chili that has a hint of bittersweet chocolate? 

Our final wine of this 2 part series, is a bold Cabernet Sauvignon, which is probably the most famous red wine grape variety on earth. This wine is dark garnet in color with a nose of black cherry and red plum. Its full bodied taste explodes with blackberries but is balanced by sweet cedary notes from its duration in American oak. Those cedar notes make it a perfect pairing with a steak that's gotten a nice char in a smokey cedar grill.

Hopefully, if you're a wine novice, this has given you some information to help you feel a bit more confident the next time you try to choose a wine to serve. Also know that whether in a wine shop or in a restaurant there is never any reason to be embarrassed to ask for a recommendation. It takes years to become a wine expert, so feel good knowing that they're helping to guide you based on your specific taste preferences. 

For those missing a fun cocktail...stay tuned till next Friday! 

XOXO
​Adrienne

Happy Friday everyone! I think you can all tell that I love crafting fun new cocktails, using seasonal ingredients, and most of all, sharing them with all of you. But when you're in-laws are visiting (and boy am I blessed with some of the best in-laws ever!) and they're more interested in wine than cocktails; it means it's time to open a bottle of wine!

I love a refreshing rosé poolside in the summer, bubbly for a celebration, and with all of the great BYOB restaurants around, we'll often pick up my go to - Sauvignon Blanc; but a wine expert I am not. Earlier this year my favorite host, Clinton Kelly on The Chew, did a really simple tutorial on selecting and pairing wine with food, and I thought it was really helpful. So for something different today, rather than share a cocktail, I'm going to share with you a few of the tips I took away from that segment on The Chew.

I want to be clear that this is a very basic look at wine, and it only just touches on how to pair different varieties with food. For anything more sophisticated than this I would totally want an expert to take over the explanation!

Let's get started: contrasting and mirroring are two ways to pair wine with food. Contrasting involves choosing foods with the opposite flavor of the wine to emphasize the flavor of each, while mirroring involves pairing the wine with food that goes well with the flavor. Whichever you choose to do is perfectly fine, it's all about what you think tastes best. Today though, we're just going to focus on the concept of mirroring which applies to both white and red wine.

Today we'll go through the whites with Light, Medium, and Bold categories, taking note, that for both red and white wines, as the color darkens, the flavor intensifies for a bolder flavored wine

So for today let's take a look at the whites:

In the photo above, we've pulled one example from each of the categories.

For the light category, we've chosen a Pinot Grigio. For this particular one, you'll smell notes of dried lime rinds, pear blossoms, and tastes hints of honeysuckle and ripe pear and is a tad sweet. In mirroring the flavors, this would be perfect with a great fall salad of baby greens, with apple or pear, and candied nuts mimicking the sweetness of the honeysuckle.

In the medium category we have a Sauvignon Blanc that has characteristics that are green, flinty, and mineral. It also has flavor notes of lemongrass and grapefruit. This medium bodied wine would pair nicely with a cheese board, especially with a Humbolt Fog goat cheese with it's ribbon of vegetable ash. Or completely different pairing, but equally delicious, would be a thai curry. 

We chose a Viognier for the bold category. With an aroma like prosciutto and melon, a soft texture, and attractive floral and ripe peach flavors, this wine would be great with a chicken saltimbocca, highlighting similar flavors but nice and crisp to cut through the fattiness of the prosciutto.

Next week we will go through red wine, and then you will be armed with basic pairing knowledge the next time you're sent to the store to pick up wine for dinner.

One important point to leave you with...no matter what the recommendations suggest, the most important thing, is to drink what you like! 

Till next week, cheers!
Adrienne

Happy Friday friends! Have you had one of those weeks where you're just not sure how you are going to fit everything in? This is definitely one of those weeks for us! So much fun stuff happening over here, and we can't wait to share it with all of you!

If you've been reading some of our recent posts, you know we have some vendor fairs coming up, and tomorrow is our first one (it's in Monmouth Beach if you'd like to stop by!). We will have a mini Halloween party set up with a fun little trick-or-treat activity for the kids, we'll have some DIY craft samples with take home instructions, and you know it's not a party without food and drinks!

We know many of you won't be able to be there, so we wanted to share everything that we'll have, with all of you, right here, starting with our cocktail of the week! We'll be serving it non-alcoholic tomorrow (unless you ask us nicely to spike it!), so that's how the recipe is shown below. My recommendation, is fill your glass with ice, add a nice shot of bourbon or whiskey, and top it with the punch. Delish! 

This week's drink features fresh apple cider, and is perfect for a crowd. And if you really want to get the full experience of being at the street fair with us, try baking yourself up the Peanut Butter Caramel Apple Pizza that we're serving alongside the punch! Check out the recipes below:

Now that you have food and drinks taken care of, why not just go ahead and throw yourself a small Halloween party?! If you're thinking, "hey, maybe I should" check out our flier below with instructions for a simple DIY craft you can do easily with one, or a whole group of kids!

I hope you enjoyed your "virtual visit" to this weekend's street fair! Please let us know if you try any of the recipes or the DIY Pumpkin Puzzle; we want to know how they turn out and would love to see your pictures!

XOXOXO
​Adrienne 

Happy Friday everyone! So do you know anyone that takes their birthday a little too seriously? Someone that is well into adulthood and still wants parties, and celebrations all month long? If you don't, you do now, because that person is me, haha! Lucky for me, my darling husband has completely embraced my crazy, and my general love of parties and all things celebratory. With my birthday tomorrow, he told me that a special birthday cocktail should be a must for our Friday drink of the day to kick off "birthday weekend," and who am I to argue?! What made this suggestion even more appealing, was that he offered to be guest bartender this week, since "you shouldn't have to make your own birthday drink." 

​

Getting everything prepped and ready to go! And to be completely honest with everyone, we thought we had a couple of ingredients already in the house, so we didn't buy them...well, we were wrong! So we improvise; no biggie. One of the most important pieces of advice that we can offer you is, know that something will inevitably go wrong, the unexpected happens, you forget an ingredient, whatever...just go with the flow! 

Don't worry though, you're still getting the tried and true Birthday Cake Martini recipe! 

Here's Paul in action. As you can see, it has cream...and whipped vodka in it, how could it be bad? 

Birthday Cake Martini

Ingredients
2 ounces whipped vodka
1.5 ounces amaretto
1 ounce white chocolate liqueur
2 ounces half and half
Honey and sprinkles for garnish

Directions:
Begin with two shallow dishes or plates. To one, add a teaspoon of honey. To the other, add the sprinkles. Rim the edge of the martini glass first in the honey and then in the sprinkles. Set aside.

In a cocktail shaker filled with ice, combine the vodka, amaretto, white chocolate liqueur and half and half (or light cream, or milk. whatever you have for your coffee will work just fine). Shake vigorously. Strain into your prepared martini glass

You can see Paul had a little extra fun with it, adding the whipped cream and birthday candle. 

Give this drink a try next time you have a birthday celebration!

Have a great weekend...I'll be celebrating!
xoxo
​Adrienne