Review & a Recipe - Giraffe's Heid Cocktail

I popped back along to Giraffe on West Regent Street on Friday after work last week with my colleague to try out the new cocktail launch, Giraffe's Heid.

I do love cocktails, but to be honest I'm not normally one to try new ones all that often as I tend to stick to what I know and like. There have been too many times that I've been disappointed.

However I thought I would give it a whirl... who's going to pass up a cocktail review, am I right?



Giraffe's Heid is a Scottish Classic with a Giraffe twist of Bulleit Bourbon mixed with Rose Syrup for essence topped up with Ginger Ale to give it a kick and finished with a stylish Lemon Twist.

Recipe:

1. Add 10 mL of Rose Syrup and a dash of Lemon Juice (5 mL) to your rocks glass.

2. Add 2 ice cubes and 25 mL of Bourbon and stir for 5 seconds

3. Add 25 mL of Bourbon and stir for 5 seconds

4. Fill up with ice

5. Top up with Ginger Ale leaving a window

6. Add a long Lemon Twist and serve



I was pleasantly surprised as the cocktail was easy to drink and didn't taste too alcoholic. I normally prefer a longer cocktail you see! I do love Ginger Ale, so this was right up my street although Bourbon wouldn't be my spirit of choice.

We also tried Ja'makin' Me Merry (my favourite) and Chocolate Christmas Luxe. Both were tasty... although I'm not a huge coffee fan so I found the coffee chocolatey dessert one a bit overpowering for me.

I wouldn't immediately think of going to Giraffe for cocktails, but I certainly will go back. We had a bite to eat whilst we were there and the food was delicious. It would make a great location for a work night out or a get together with friends as it's such a large spacious venue.

Big thumbs up from us!

We received some free cocktails in exchange for this review. Opinions as always are honest and are my own.

{Host Your Own Cocktail Party}

When I was asked if I would host a cocktail party in my own house with Social and Cocktail, I didn't need to think twice! I love a good cocktail and I love to host parties...

Basically, Social and Cocktail will provide the cocktail bartender, a mobile bar, cocktail ingredients, glassware, ice etc and will make amazing cocktails in your home for you and your guests.

This is the bar!!!

After agreeing on a date, I was then tasked with selecting 5 cocktails from their menu, which they've helpfully categorised into Dessert, Vodka, Rum, Classics and Non-Alcoholic.

I picked:

• Raspberry Mojito - Raspberry liqueur, white rum, lime juice, soda water, mint, sugar & raspberries
• Passionfruit Daiquiri - Rum, Passoa, Lime juice & sugar syrup
• Cosmopolitan - citrus vodka, Triple Sec, cranberry juice, lemon and sugar syrup
• Toblerone Martini
• Caipirinha - originated in Brazil where they are regarded as the national cocktail and contains Cachaca, sugar & lime

On the night, Evan & Damien arrived with Marc the photographer about an hour before the guests were due to set up the bar.

It was a bit like Transformers... and this is what the box became:

I had decided to use a scoring system for each cocktail for a bit of fun... so we each rated the cocktails in four different categories, Appearance, Smell, Initial Taste and Overall Impression, giving them a score out of 5.

I had a few moustaches dotted about the place.... we're supporting Movember!

Evan doing his thing behind the bar!

The Toblerone Martini... really creamy and was so nice! (spot the tache on my son's baby photo in the background!!)

Enjoying my passion fruit dacquiri

Katie had a shot and made her own cocktail...

Half way through we took a break as I had made a big pot of chilli which was warm in the slow cooker and I served with nachos, guacamole, sour cream and salsa. Just as well we all ate, as the evening wore in it proceeded to get messy! By the end of the night quite a few of us were playing Dance Central on the XBox!! Great fun.

So for the scoring...

Katie's comments were the funniest, the Toblerone Martini appealed to her oestrogen and for overall impression for the raspberry mojito, "marry me" was in her notes!!!

Here are the cocktails in order of preference with their total score *drum roll please*

1. Passionfruit Daiquiri - 84%
2. Raspberry Mojito - 81% 
3. Caipirinha - 77%
4. Cosmopolitan - 77%
5. Toblerone Martini - 65%

The Toblerone Martini score surprises me as I really enjoyed it, but I guess it's not to everyone's taste.

Our only real suggestion would be that the order the drinks are served could have been given a bit more thought as we started with the creamy dessert cocktail, whereas it might have been nicer to put this in the middle of the other more alcoholic ones to mix things up a bit. 

But all in all we were thoroughly impressed.

The cocktails were all lovely - as you can see from the scores above - and everyone was uber impressed with the service.

I would definitely consider hiring a bar in the future. For £25 per person for 5 cocktails, you can't really go wrong. It's less that what you'd pay if you were in a bar in town and yet you don't even need to leave your house! Fantastic given the freezing weather and the wait that you can sometimes have in a cold taxi queue! Evan even cleared up after himself and at the end, the glasses, bar etc was all packed up and away it went. Very professional and I'm seriously really impressed. Great value for money I reckon.

The Social and Cocktail bartenders are all professionally trained and they focus on three key aims - service, mixology and entertainment. Evan was brilliant and we were all really impressed! He delivered on all three :-)

We were suffering the next day... so a cooked breakfast was in order!!

We enjoyed a cocktail party at home free of charge in exchange for this review. Opinions, as always, are my own and are honest.

{Baby It's Cold Outside}

I've been 'window shopping' (online!) and lusting after a winter coat which is cosy but equally smart enough for a day/night out. At the moment the only warm jacket I have is my North Face parka, which isn't ideal for heading out for dinner or drinks! On the other end of the scale, I have an amazing big black faux fur coat which was gifted to me by my good friend Perth Mummy, but it's really glam and I've love something that's in the middle of the two! Too much to ask??

Keeping with the faux fur theme (it is warm after all!), I love this black jacket from Phase Eight. I just wish there was something along these lines, but with a hood as I hate having to carry an umbrella!

Fern Faux Fur Jacket, £130 at House of Fraser

This grey coat from Biba at House of Fraser looks equally cosy:

But again, no hood :-(

Short Fur Coat, Now £118.30 at HOF

This one from Next is less pricey and comes in at £70, but it doesn't look as cosy without the collar:

Neutral Short Faux Fur Jacket, Next

My other thought was to get a shorter parka with a hood which would hopefully be cosy, but smarter than my North Face. Something along the lines of this Mint Velvet parka perhaps... 

Mint Velvet Storm Grey Fur Hood Padded Parka, £169.00 at HOF

Or this fur lined one from Oasis, which is a much more reasonable £88:

Fur Lined Parka

Or how about a duffel coat with a hood, in navy unfortunately but fits the bill in terms of smart/casual I think:

ASOS Hooded A-Line Duffle Coat with Fur Trim Hood, £70

And lastly, I wanted to share this beauty... totally glam and not what I'm looking for, but I love it! 

Karen Millen Ultimate Coat in Leo Print, £350 at asos.com

Tell me, what coat and jacket style are you wearing this winter? I need some inspiration! :-)

PS Thankfully tonight I don't need to head out into the cold, as Social and Cocktail are coming to mine for an intimate cocktail party with a few of my friends. Watch this space for more details...