New Years Eve Spirits

As you know, I bartend during the summer.  While I am not much of a cook, I do think I am pretty good at mixing up an enjoyable drink or two.  For our New Years Eve celebration, it was my job to come up with a few cocktail ideas.

The first one was a Dark and Stormy (source: foodnetwork.com)

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 (4-inch) piece ginger, sliced, reserve 4 slices for garnish
• Ice
• 1 liter seltzer water
• 4 shots dark rum
• 4 lime wedges, for garnish
• 4 small skewers

Directions

In a small pot over medium heat, combine the sugar, water and theginger. Bring to a boil then shut off the heat and let cool to room temperature.

Fill 4 glasses with ice. Pour seltzer water into the bottom third of each glass. Add 1/4 cup of the gingersimple syrup to each glass and gently stir. Put a teaspoon upside down over the glass and pour 1 shotof rum over the spoon, so that the rum stays separated from the seltzer.

Put slice of ginger and lime wedge onto each skewer. Garnish each drink with the skewer and enjoy.

The second one was one I merged a recipe with my own idea.  I combined frozen blackberries with Creme de Blackberry and Prosecco.