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We're traveling with friends this weekend to a rented cottage in the Catskills where our only plans are to eat, drink, be merry, and run around in the woods. Tonight was our menu planning session where we had dueling iPads firing up suggestions.
My thoughts immediate turned to the grown-up time after the kids go to bed when yummy beverages should be imbibed, and I downloaded the Martha Stewart Cocktails app. As you would expect from Martha, the app is beautifully done with mouth-watering photography. It makes you really wish you could download a member of her staff as an in-app purchase to come mix these things.
The interface is luscious. It has the appeal of Pinterest - simply select the drink photo that interests you and go to the recipe. Once in the recipe view you can swipe through all of the different recipes. The app comes with recipes for twenty of Martha's Classics, such as a vodka-mint gimlet, a frozen bloody mary, a caipirinha, a pineappple-gin kir, and an herbal lillet cooler. There are also five bar snack recipes like spiced walnuts and artichoke parmesan crostini. The recipes are easy to follow and most have easily accessed ingredients, though some use seasonal fruit and others have some obscure liqueurs that will surely have me on a scavenger hunt around Manhattan. Then I'll just have to come home and make myself a Manhattan.
The app costs $2.99, and in-app you can download more recipe groups. I also downloaded Holiday Cocktails (winter fruit sangria, pear and cranberry bellini, spiced chocolate eggnog) and Cutting Edge Cocktails (vodka-dill martini, grape-elderflower fizz, purple basil mojito) for free. And preggo Geekmoms rejoice! You can also get 20 recipes for Mocktails, including a prickly-pear agua fresca, a honeydew granita spritzer, and cucumber limeade. Thirsty yet? For $0.99 each, you can also get Summer Coolers and Regional Favorites. I might need to pay the 99 cents to get Martha's Manhattan recipe.
For the weekend we're going to try the homemade eggnog, the winter fruit sangria, and the pear and cranberry Bellinis, but this app is making me want to try everything.
