Irish Cream Liqueur - Coole Swan

The holiday season may be over but here at the Amazing Blog we are carrying on the festivities with a few glasses of Coole Swan. It is a unique cream liqueur that blends Irish Single Malt Whiskey, Fresh Irish Cream and White Belgian Chocolate. This is a very special combination indeed and certainly not just your run-of-the-mill whisky and cream liqueur. The result is a luxuriously smooth and original taste that frankly we cannot get enough of.

Coming from a long line of farmers, the founders of Coole Swan set out to create the finest tasting liqueur using fresh cream produced on their own farm at Tatestown, County Meath. The brand pride themselves on gathering the highest quality ingredients from the most trusted of sources. Coole Swan draws a line between traditional Irish drinks and a modern twist - producing a flavour that is silky, smooth and delicious.

We highly recommend visiting their website to try out some of the suggested recipes that they have created. We made the dessert Coole Swan Tiramisu and a few of the cocktails like the Perfect White Russian and minty The Green Avenue both guaranteed to get the party started!

We loved the elegant and beautiful trademark packaging that comes with the product, and it would make a fantastic gift or party staple. Served best in a frosted glass of ice, you will love the experience of Coole Swan's rich scent and nutty tones, enhanced by the triple distilled Irish Malt Whiskey.

 Coole Swan is just too good to be missed - buy it here from £6.73 to £29.00.

Christmas Special - Drinks

At this festive time of year there’s nothing better than cracking open a bottle of the good stuff with family and friends. Here at The Amazing Blog we love nothing more than a cold glass of Baileys in the evening, or warming mulled wine, but we wanted to go on the search for some fun alternative Christmas drinks. These were the ones that came out on top.

Firstly we moved away from traditional festive beverages, to introduce Juniper Green Organic Gin. This is a refreshing and versatile spirit to give you a break from all the rich and heavy foods that we will no doubt consume too much of.

The strong yet smooth spirit is perfect for a delicious, crisp gin and tonic, but also allows for some creativity. We loved trying it out in Cocktail recipes, one named Strawberry Basiltini combined the gin with strawberries, syrup, lemon juice and basil. If you prefer a burst of citrus, add some lime or grapefruit juice to the gin with crushed ice. It was so refreshing to try new flavour combinations and a fun festive activity with our friends. If you want to get your hands on a not so traditional Christmas drink, Juniper Green Gin is available here for £16.90.

Next, we have a drink that will get every chocolate-lover excited. Rubis have created a Chocolate Wine. That’s right, combining two divine flavours to enjoy at once. This incredibly indulgent wine is the ultimate Christmas treat, blending tempranillo wine and rich chocolate that contains hints of cherry and red fruit. The flavour combination is typical of Christmas, it could be enjoyed as a light dessert or reserved for those special occasions. We couldn’t get enough of this beautifully rich and fragrant wine, it was truly delicious and luxurious.

We found it could be enjoyed best when chilled over ice, but it can also be served at room temperature. If you want to pull out all of the stops this Christmas, treat your guests to this ultimate chocolate experience, Rubis Chocolate Wine is available here for only £13.

Not quite chocolatey enough for you? Maybe try out the delicious Chocolate Rum Liqueur from Demijohn .

Distinctly unique, and perfect for chocolate and rum lovers alike (all the better if you love both!), this delicious blend of cacao and Golden Caribbean Rum is the perfect digestif, or even nightcap come Christmas Eve. Not as sickly sweet as some chocolate drinks, it certainly warmed us up.  Certainly a more adult way to enjoy a chocolate treat at Christmas, we’d be happy to see this delicious beverage in our stocking. Grab a custom bottle here , with prices starting from £4.92 for 40ml.

For something a little fruity, British Cassis is the ideal candidate this Christmas. This is a highly versatile alcoholic fruit mixer can be combined with our favourite spirit;, white wine, and Champagne. The mixer is inspired by the French liqueur, but given a modern British twist by using the blackcurrant crop. We thought it made a decadent after-dinner drink to provide some fruity refreshment after the heaviness of a meal. It added excitement to the dullest of spirits, sweetening up the bitterness of vodka, and contrasting the sharpness of gin. Our favourite combination was without a doubt British Cassis and Champagne, it created the most fragrant, luxurious and sweet sparkling beverage.

Get fruity this Christmas with your own British Cassis, available here for £15.

Lastly, Christmas isn’t the same without a warming, spiced beverage. Friary Liqueurs have created a delicious and fitting Christmas Liqueur, combining honey, French brandy and Christmas Spices. I can almost feel the liquid warming my belly just thinking about it. Best served warmed in a brandy glass, this festive drink makes a perfect evening tipple accompanied by a mince pie or two.

The fragrant liqueur sparks memories of Christmas’ past and present, the spices encompass everything we would associate with this time of year. If you want to enjoy a more traditional Christmas beverage, Christmas Liqueurs is the one for you. It’s available here for only £15.  

Shake Up Your Cocktail Recipes with Alchemist Dreams Liqueurs

At The Amazing Blog, there is one thing that we can all agree on when the weather is warm and the sun is shining, we love to make (and drink!) cocktails. However, sometimes we get stuck in a rut of making the same old drinks time after time, so we were looking for something new to spice up our cocktail recipes ready for the approaching bank holiday weekend! When we discovered Alchemist Dreams, we thought we had died and gone to cocktail heaven!

Alchemist Dreams offer a bespoke liqueur service, allowing you to create your very own liqueurs! To create your signature liqueur, you have to first choose from a range of delicious fruits to create a base for your liqueur. Then you can select a couple of accent flavours such as vanilla, wormwood or cacao to create a truly unique flavour based around your own personal taste, meaning you get exactly what you want from your liqueur!

When creating your own liqueur you can also select from a range of bottle shapes and sizes to cater for your needs. We think that the Alchemist Dreams liqueurs would make a fantastic present for friends or family as it is a truly unique idea that everyone is bound to be impressed by.

If the thought of designing your own liqueur seems a bit too confusing for you, don’t worry, under each ingredient the types of accent or base flavour that would compliment it have been listed, so you can’t really go wrong! You can also choose from a range of tried and tested home blends if you are feeling less creative!

We sampled the home blend Summer Storm, which  is a concoction of lime, ginger, and Elderflower. This is a perfectly summery liqueur; it is light and perfect for a relaxing summer evening. We also tried out Twisted Mocha, a combination of coffee, cacao, orange, and cinnamon. We loved it! It tastes like an orange latte, and is very energizing and uplifting. Other home blends that are available are: Black(berry) Magic, Broken Temperance, and High Tea, all of which have a unique combination of flavours and we think they sound amazing!

You can drink these liqueurs in a variety of ways so you will never tire of your blend. Alchemist Dreams suggest that you first try the liqueur on its own, as it is perfectly tasty neat or on the rocks. You can mix it with soda or tonic water to create a long drink out of your liqueur. One very interesting idea is pouring it over ice-cream – something we are definitely going to try with the Twisted Mocha flavour! Best of all though, these liqueurs can be used to create bespoke cocktails of your own design, which is sure to impress at parties or dinner events!

If you fancy testing your mixology skills to add a twist to your home-made cocktails we recommend creating your own bespoke concoction in the  Alchemist Dreams website, prices start from just £5 for a 50ml miniature.

Celtic Marches

With all the barbecues, parties and events you attend in the summer, it's always nice to mix things up. I'm sure everyone's sick of the same wines / beers / wine coolers being served wherever you go. Anyone can grab a bottle from the off license and that's all well and good, but for the more experimental drinker, The Amazing Blog has found Celtic Marches. Celtic Marches are based in Herefordshire and specialise in making unique liqueurs. And let me tell you, they're very tasty. Their two brandy based liqueurs, Bloody Furlong and Number Nine, are unlike anything you've tried - assuming you've never tried Celtic Marches. Bloody Furlong is flavoured with apple and maple, and Number Nine is flavoured with apple and blackcurrant. While they say you can drink the liqueurs neat, I prefer to mix mine, and the Celtic Marches website has recipes for delicious summer drinks. For those of you who don't want the hassle of mixing a drink, they also have a cider, Abrahall's Cider. And for the really daring drinkers amongst you, Number Nine mixed with Abrahall's is a flavour sensation. They both taste and look different to a lot of other brands on the market, and all the bottles are hand-finished in wax. They use the highest quality ingredients and you can definitely tell when you taste them.

So this summer, treat yourself and your friends to a few new tipples! Celtic Marches products are available to buy on their website.