This cocktail is from the original Swept Away menu (Negril, Jamaica). It's called a Jamaican Browning. Browning is the sauce used in stews in Jamaica and not the automatic weapon of WWII. The taste is an adult chocolate milk shake.

In a blender mix:

Creme de cocoa

Whole milk

Dark rum

Rum cream (if you can find it here in the US)

Simple syrup

Papaya chunks

Ice

Blend until smooth. Drink.

margarita for me too. I like mine on the rocks, no salt. I've found a really good marg mix too. It's called "Freshies." Has an excellent flavor, not too sweet. cheers.

I started to tell you about my father's sangria, but the site ate it as I was typing. I don't think I could replicate it, but it was cold and refreshing and tasted like Summer, but was also a blend like long island ice tea, that went down like a refreshment but packed a wallop. It was made when the there were dozens in the back yard in the Summer heat, and was oh, so good! Except the one time Grandma thought it was fruit punch and drank a whole tumbler of it. :( That was bad. But otherwise it was most excellent!

A good Mai Tai is hard to beat.

We like Ina G’s Real Margaritas.

1 cup white tequila

1 cup triple sec

1/2 cup fresh lime juice

2 T. fresh lemon juice

2-3 cups ice

Puree in blender and enjoy!

I am a big fan of Mojitos and make a pretty darn good one! Lots of mint from the garden, fresh squeezed lime juice, simple syrup, white rum, top it off with some bubbly water...recipes call for club soda but I use Gerolsteiner bubbly mineral water instead.

Tanqueray and tonic with a lime wedge. Very refreshing on a hot day!

My favourite cocktail is one made for me. I've never made one for myself. That would spoil the luxury.

Tanqueray and tonic works for any season and any occasion. If a St Bernard were to deliver snowbound and freezing me a drink in its collar-hung flask, I'd want it to be a T&T.

That said, summer is Spritz Season. I prefer Campari and Prosecco, SWMBO prefers Aperol and P. Aperol is sweeter, cheaper, more accessible, the drink to get teens and young-uns hooked on spritz before transitioning them to the more bitter, grown-up, pricier Campari. They are, naturally, both owned by the Davide Campari-Milano company.

Tanqueray gives me a headache, and so I drink Bombay gin instead. I also make my own tonic water, which has 15 ingredients. I make it as a syrup first (for easy storage), and then I add carbonated water to it. This way I can make it without sugar - I use Splenda instead, which is what I prefer. Diet tonic water is normally made with saccharine, which is why I make it myself.

I make Margaritas with Cointreau instead of Triple Sec, and I normally make them with frozen limeade concentrate plus fresh lime juice.

Ricky, that drink sounds like something I would love, but finding papaya around here takes a miracle. I was able to buy it canned once when I found it in an Asian market -- haven't seen it available since. And I was able to buy it fresh once, right at the beginning of the covid shutdowns, when restaurant produce was making it's way up here. :)

oh, hobbitmom, it's all about the salt for me. lol!

plllog, I hate it when a long text gets eaten and lost!!! I'd like to have a perfect sangria some day and what you describe sounds very good. Unfortunately, our climate and fruit availability is quite different from yours, so sangria is not something that's often made up here. Here you're more likely to have hot chocolate with a melty marshmallow. lol!

jrb451, I have never had a Mai Tai! wow.

chloebud, that recipe sounds really good and makes one massive drink. :)

Olychick, I've never had a mojito! that sounds interesting!

LoneJack and John, I totally understand the love of Tanqueray because many of my friends prefer it, but I cannot tolerate gin. My usual is vodka and tonic with lime. For some reason I don't think of that as summery though. I guess I should. :)

floral_uk, I like your way of thinking! :)

Lars, we were typing at the same time. For me, drinking gin makes me feel like I was drinking shards of glass, but I'm intrigued by your homemade tonic water! Is it a recipe you created from thin air? 15 ingredients is a lot. My mother would also make her margaritas with cointreau instead of triple sec! I prefer the latter though. :)

Gin and tonic is a favourite of mine but I've never thought of it as a cocktail. It seems too simple. There are lots of excellent gins to choose from but I do like Sipsmith and Hendricks. Preferred tonic is Fevertree.

I do like Sipsmith and Hendricks.

Floral - I don't believe I've ever seen that brand of Gin sold here in my area. Maybe it's not imported to the states IDK. I'll have to look for it next time I'm at Total Wine...they seem to have the best selection around here. I'd probably have to pay a tariff upcharge!

@party_music50, if you want to venture outside your preferred liquors, there’s a Pimms Cup (easy) and a Pisco Sour (complex). Both are tasty.

Sipsmith and Hendricks are two separate brands.

Here's my recipe for the tonic syrup. I combined it from several recipes that I found online, adjusting the ingredients to my taste. I've made quite a few variations of it, but this is what I like best:

Homemade Diet Tonic Syrup

Quinine Tincture

• 6.5 grams powdered cinchona bark
• 161 ml (5.3 oz., 2/3 cup) Everclear

For the botanicals

• 20 grams citric acid
• 20 grams angelica root
• 20 grams lemon peel, peeled with a vegetable peeler
• 20 grams orange peel, peeled with a vegetable peeler
• 30 grams grapefruit peel, peeled with a vegetable peeler
• 15 allspice berries
• 10 whole cloves
• 8 grams coriander seed
• 5 grams green cardamom pods
• 5 grams juniper berries
• 1-2 stalks lemongrass, cut into quarter-inch rounds (optional)
• 550 ml water (2-1/3 cups)
• 48 (48 packets) grams Splenda (2 cups bulk, equiv to 2 cups sugar)

Make the quinine tincture

Mix the cinchona powder with the Everclear, cover, and let sit overnight. Strain through a paper towel in a strainer being careful not to add the sediment. Discard sediment.

Make the botanical syrup

Add all the ingredients except Splenda to a medium saucepan. Heat over medium-high heat until it comes to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes.

Add the Splenda.

Store in fridge 2-3 days mixing twice a day.

Measure out 55 ml (1.8 ounces) of the quinine tincture and mix into the cooled syrup.

Keep the rest of the quinine tincture in an airtight container (the tincture will keep indefinitely).

Store the syrup in an airtight container in the refrigerator. It should keep for at least 3 weeks. Makes 28 oz.

I usually make a double batch and freeze half of it.

PM, there is no “right” way to make sangria, though I'd say it must have red wine to go with the name, brandy for oomph, and fruit. We often had big Summer do's in the backyard. Father would pull out the gigantic punch bowl and clean out the bar cabinet.

A couple of bottles of low tannin red wine, on the good side of palatable (better than two buck chuck), but fairly cheap (one doesn't throw the good stuff in punch!).

Whatever leftover partial bottles of Manischewitz wine are left from the hordes at Passover, including concord, semi-dry and cherry (which might be the whole bottle—people brought cherry, but I don't know who might have drunk it) (ick but that sweet fruity thing is great for sangria). (Since I've been hosting, only my grandmotherly auntie actually drank the Concord grape either, though many in my youth did. We had fine wines, but some really like the sweet, and several bottles were opened (dozens of diners at the table). Great thing is, the sweet stuff doesn't degrade after opening the way fine wine does—or if it does, not enough so to matter in punch or cooking.)

A bottle of schlivovitz (phonetic spelling, Polish plum brandy, Grandpa would bring bottles now and then) and/or schnapps (ditto on Grandpa, the European fruit made liquor, not the candy flavored American stuff). Or any fruit brandy if those aren't handy.

Citrus juices (probably frozen concentrates) and sliced citrus (orange, lime, lemon) for pretty.

Blocks of ice to dilute and chill.

You can use any kind of sweet fruits in a sangria. The above is just my best recollection of how Father did it—only in quantities for large crowds. He worked diligently on the balance. It didn't taste very sweet, just pleasantly, and you couldn't really taste the alcohol, which is how Grandma got so sozzled. It was delicious and very refreshing. Some people insist there be peaches—I think they must need them to disguise tannins. Generally, you'd use peaches if they were overripe and starting to ferment…and if you didn't have any schlivovitz!

Hm…. I just had a passing memory of my father with a four cup Pyrex measuring cup. I'm thinking he had done a lot of arithmetic and was trying for a much smaller batch…

Plllog, your description of sangria is nothing like I’ve ever seen made around here, and it sounds so much better!

Lars, that’s a fascinating combination of flavors in your tonic!

I love a margarita on the rocks without salt, but rarely ever have one. Triple sec and Cointreau are both delicious. Tequila is the only hard liquor that I actually sort of like the taste.