With the cold creeping in mulled wine and cider are making a re-appearance so I thought why not introduce you to the mulled cocktail.  It’s not a new concept, but for some (bizarre) reason it isn’t as popular as it’s other mulled colleagues.

I find mulled wine can get a bit sickly after a glass or two, and if you spill it, it’ll ruin your night/shirt/carpet.  Mulled ciders also seem to lack that ‘edge’ so here is a simple recipe to make at home.  We made this at our last two events and it is one of our showstoppers, very popular with all that tried it.  Here is what you’ll need to make it at home

Minus 33

Cloudy Apple Juice

1 Lemon

Orange Peel

Cinnamon Sticks

(feel free to sprinkles of cloves, cardamom, star anise too!)

Calories: 134

Pour a litre of apple juice into a pan with the juice of a lemon, throw in one-quarter of an orange peel (squeeze in some juice please) and add the cinnamon stick.  Simmer on a low-medium heat and bring to boil.

Once piping hot, remove the pan and pour a measure or two of Minus 33 into a mug.  (Do not boil the spirit with the other ingredients, the alcohol will evaporate and where is the fun in that!?).  Pour 25ml Minus 33 into a mug and then add 200ml of hot concoction, throw in a thin slice of lemon as a garnish and enjoy with friends.

Trust us, you and all your guests will love it!

It's feeling Minus 33 outside and frankly, when it comes to the snow, as Brits, we tend to do two things:

1) Complain that our country isn't better prepared to deal with 'a little snow'

2) Look out the window, decide that injury or even death at the hands of an inch of snow isn't worth the risk of going outside and voila, you now have yourself a Snow Day.

We have this conspiracy theory, that secretly, we don't want the council and government to improve our snow preparations because if they did we'd all have to go to work. An unwritten code, that we all sign up to ensure we can all milk that one snow day a year.
We all work too hard and so the odd snow day here and there allows us to tuck up on the sofa, wrap ourselves in a duvet with the heating on and 'work' from home.

We say embrace it! Turn your email notifications off, put some crappy daytime TV on, (who knows you may discover you do have some cash in the attic) and just treat yourself to a relaxing day because the other 365 days you work hard enough.

Snow Days when we were at school were great.  But snow days with alcohol are much better.  That said why not unleash your inner child, mix building a strong duvet fort (follow the link for expert fort building tips) with the added grown-up benefits of being able to drink while you do.

To help you relax, we're dusting off a Christmas favourite of ours, the Mulled Cocktail.

Simple to make, and only requires a few basic ingredients. Make your Snow Day Extra Special.

Ingredients:

Minus 33

Cloudy Apple Juice

1 Lemon

Orange Peel

Cinnamon Sticks

Calories: 134

Pour a litre of apple juice into a pan with the juice of a lemon, throw in one-quarter of an orange peel and a cinnamon stick.  Simmer on a low-medium heat and bring to boil.

Once piping hot, remove the pan and pour a measure or two of Minus 33 into a mug.  (Do not boil the spirit with the other ingredients, the alcohol will evaporate and where is the fun in that!?).  Pour 25ml Minus 33 into a mug and then add 200ml of hot concoction, throw in a thin slice of lemon as a garnish and enjoy with friends.

Crouch. Bind. Set. The Six Nations are back! To celebrate we are uncovering our nation specific themed cocktails.

What better way to show your national pride than shaking up some national pride in a cocktail shaker!?

Keep your eyes peeled as we uncover the full range over the coming weeks.

We have done our usual experimenting and been working hard (cocktail tasting is an exhausting task that requires dedication, and expert hand–eye co-ordination in order not to spill a drop).  Our aim; to create six fantastic Minus 33 based cocktails that represent the respective countries either visually or culturally and the best bit is that they are all incredibly easy to make. So easy, you could probably make all six during the half-time of a rugby match.  

Spring has sprung and we've been getting our shades out and picnic hampers ready.

This cocktail is one for the bitter fans, grapefruit and Campari work with Minus 33 to bring a sharp citrusy flavour. But if sharp isn't for you, or if you don't like grapefruit, we've come up with a great substitute for you, just see below.

At 120 calories a glass, this cocktail not only is light, 'springy' and refreshing, it is low calorie too. Bring on the sunshine!

(Serves Four)

350mls red or pink grapefruit juice (use pomegranate juice if you prefer sweet over bitter)

350mls low calorie lemonade or use soda water if you like it really bitter! 

120mls Gin

30mls Tablespoons Campari

Ice cubes

Grapefruit or apple wedges for the ears

Method

1. Stir grapefruit juice, lemonade, gin and Campari together in a pitcher
2. Fill 4 glasses with ice and top with the cocktail mixture. Cut an angled slice into the fruit then slide onto glass to create the ears

121 calories

The Ginness

St Patrick's Day Cocktail

For St Patrick's Day, we wanted to make something that was truly mind-blowing.

The cocktail we present today is truly unique. In our experiments, we tinkered with the idea of creating something green, but we didn't want our cocktail to fall into the background. We needed something that stood out in both profile and taste yet also screamed Ireland.

We left this job to Matthew, our half Irish geek - St Patrick's day for him is important for a lot of reasons, but the key one being bringing his family all together and celebrating their heritage and faith.  What he concocted was the Ginness!

Yes, you read that right; essentially Gin (not just any gin mind, Minus 33 of course) and Guinness. Now, I know what you're thinking some things should never be mixed, and we'll admit, we were sceptical on this one however, this cocktail blew our minds - it is DELICIOUS.

As we did with the Minus 33 recipe, we even ran it by countless people, to make sure we weren't alone - and people loved it.  If you like Gin and you like Guinness, heck, even if you don't, you HAVE to try this one (disclaimer* it does look a bit like a vodka coke though). 

After tasting it and realising that it actually tastes pretty good, your next question may be, but why?

Our answer to that is simple - for the craic, why else?! We both like gin and we both like Guinness, so we thought, why not? It also gave us an excuse to drink Minus 33 and Guinness in the office while we were 'working'.  The end result was even better than we could have imagined!

If you feel like kicking back and starting your St Paddy's Day off right this Friday, have a taste of our Ginness cocktail below:

Ginness

What you will need:

50ml of Minus 33

100ml tonic water

200ml Guinness

Ice cubes

Lime wedge for garnish

Method

1. In a tall hi-ball glass, place the ice cubes in.
2. Pour Minus 33 and tonic over the ice.
3. Stir for a few seconds with a long spoon
4. Slowly pour the Guinness over the Minus 33 mixture.
5. Add the 'green' lime wedge as garnish.