These are the cocktails of left over party slops. My friend Mike (or @mjog as we sometimes like to call him) passed on his party slops to me when he decided to pack it all up and live loose… so I set about finding cocktail solutions to all the orange flavoured liquore I inherited. This send off treat is one of the loveliest summer cocktails I’ve had and one of the most fun nights.

Makes: About a liter (or 16ish drinks)
Prep: 5 min plus an hour chill

Ingredients:
3 cups of blood orange juice ( you can squeeze this fresh if you like, but it will take about 10 oranges)
1/3 cup of Grand Marnier (or Cointreau or Triple sec)
4 teaspoons of sugar (adjust to taste or choice of orange based liquore)
1 750ml bottle of Prosecco chilled

Prosecco is an Italian sparkeling white. It’s not like other sparkling whites (like brut) but more sweet and subtle – if you can, I think a cheap alternative would be the blonde lambrusco although this might also be hard to find. The point is find something light and a bit on the sweet side.

You don’t need to prepare this ahead of time, but it is really easy if you do the first step and the rest as you serve. Just make sure your ingredients are chilled and that you have plenty of ice.

1. In a pitcher add the Grand Marnier, sugar and blood orange juice and give a good stir until the sugar is dissolved.
2. Crack open the Prosecco and stir while adding to the pitcher, add ice and serve.

If your like me and want to love sake but find it a tad too full on, this cocktail is a great way of using a few drops of sake leftovers. Its also a light cocktail, not to heavy on the alcohol content and full of anti-oxidents so a really good one to incorporate into a cocktail party, because it is just too easy for these things to get out of control

Makes: 2 and a bit liters
Prep:5 min, cool for one hour

Ingredients:
1 liter of soda / mineral water
1 liter of pomegranate juice
8 shots of sake
2 green tea bags
1 lemon

1. Boil up the soda or mineral water and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes depending on the weather.
2. Throw green tea bags into the warm soda and make tea to your liking
3. Place in a pitcher and allow to cool for 15-20 minutes
4. Add the pomegranate juice and sake to the picture and refrigerate until ready
5. Serve with ice and wedges of lemon which you should instruct your guests to just add a little squeeze
6. Enjoy with sushi or not…

Serves: 1

Ingredients:
2 parts tequilla
2 parts lime juice
1 part triple sec
Fresh lime or lemon to decorate

1. Shake tequila, lime and triple sec over ice
2. Rub the rim of the glass with the lemon/ lime slice to moisten so that the salt will stick to it.
3. Turn the glass upside down on a plate of salt.
4. Pour the grog into your glass making sure you don’t mess up the salt.
5. Garnish with a slither of lemon / lime

Serves: turns a bottle of wine into about a bottle and a half.
Prep: 10 min
Rest time: 2 hours

Ingredients:
1 orange sliced and cut into small pieces
1 lime sliced and cut into small pieces
1 punnet of strawberries toped and quarted
1 cup of sugar
1 ½ cup of water
1 cup of orange juice
2/3 cup of brandy
1 bottle of red wine

1. Dissolve sugar into the water and allow to cool. It is important that this cools so that it doesn’t wilt the fruit.
2. Slice up the fruit and place into a bowl.
3. Add the sugar water, orange juice and brandy to the bowl allowing to marinate for 2 hours.
4. Add the red wine just before your guests arrive and serve.
5. Keep a second bottle of wine handy so you can adjust to the sweetness… I enjoyed half of my sangria and then decided I’d prefer it less sweet and added another 1/3 bottle of wine. In the future I might go with 1.5 bottles. It seemed to be quite strong in alcohol effects as it was.

Per serve
Ingredients:
One lime cut into eighths
A shot of white rum
Mint sprigs
Soda water
Ice
A splash of sugar water (make a batch by dissolving one tablespoon per cup)

Its sure to make you tingle while warding off colds and nasty hangovers

Using a pestle crush ice bruise the lime and a few sprigs of broken up mint. Transfer into tall glass with a little extra ice add the shot of rum, a splash of the sugar water and top with soda water. Taste and add more sugar or lime to taste.