Amore Vietato

Everyone has a nickname for their significant other. Some are not pronounceable in polite company. Those are the unfortunate ones who are not happy. Others, like me, are very happy in their relationship and still have to chuckle at the idiosyncrasies of our mates.


Connie has his own challenges and chief among them is to send him to find something with indistinct directions. So, Connie, please get me the blah, blah blah. It's on the second or third shelf from the right, or it could be on the left, it's in a skrunchy packet with pinkish...


The grumbling starts immediately.


It's not that he doesn't know what I am looking for. It's just that he, like most guys, never gets beyond the first level of things. If it isn't close enough to bite him in the arm (euphemism), then he isn't going to find it.  The back of the shelf may as well be the North Pole.



Send him to the freezer. Fuggedaboudit! He'll be standing there hoping that the pork chops will leap from the shelves and land in his pocket.

Now on the other hand, he's pretty darned patient when it comes to hunting for something on the internet.  Well, ok, more patient than he is hunting in the pantry or freezer.


So, let's find a cool Valentine's day drink to enjoy before our meal. Simple enough. Type Valentine's Day Drink Recipes into Google and guess what? Many responses, thousands upon thousands. (How many people go past the first two or three pages?) Connie clicks on the second link. It is a link to an extremely popular young woman's magazine which will go nameless here.



A couple of clicks later and the grumbling starts. Do you know that they say? “Our 15 top Valentine's Day drink recipes”, but once you click through, there are some nice pictures, some enticing sounding drinks, but no recipes! When you click on search on their website, it comes back “not found”. Grumble, grumble, grumble.  By this time I'm standing behind his chair commiserating.  After some more grumbling, he did the practical thing and went and searched on the drink name, Amore Vietato, or Forbidden Love.


What did we think?  Very tasty. Interesting flavor combination with the tartness of the orange and the sweetness of the strawberries and syrup. We had the Hendricks gin which was called for in the recipe. It is different. It is not juniper based gin, just different. Anyway, I would suggest giving this a try. Pretty nice.  The color was perfect for Valentine's Day.  And, the orange peel hearts? 

Perfect touch.  Thank you, Sweetheart!


Amore Vietato (Forbidden Love)
For two:

Ingredients:

4 oz of Hendricks Gin
2 oz of Blood Orange Juice (couldn't find it. Used fresh squeezed OJ and some maraschino cherry juice for the coloring)
Simple syrup (we use 1:1)
4 strawberries (hulled)
4 slices of cucumber (we didn't use it. This is a Hendricks thing. They always seem to call for cucumber because of the botanicals they use in their gin. Didn't seem worth buying a whole cucumber for 4 slices in two drinks.)
Orange peel for garnish


Directions:
Muddle the fruit and the simple syrup in a cocktail shaker. Add the gin and the juice. Add ice. Shake, shake,shake. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with the orange peels formed into hearts.

Kiss the one you love (it's Valentine's day). And enjoy!



adapted from:  blogs.forbes.com/lisamogensen/2011/02/08/seductive-cocktails-from-the-vegas-experts/