Exactly Barbados
A place I love to go from time to time for a delicious juicy steak and few cold bottles of Banks Beer is the Crawton Inn. Nothing too fancy about this place, as even the owner will even tell you. But what you do get each and every time is good old plain and simple fresh food that is cooked to perfection.
I have been in too many places and this especially goes for Barbados that get away with charging a fortune for crap food that I could probably cook better myself. In fact on my last trip to London I bought a takeaway in a Trinidadian place in London that would put most of your top restaurants in Barbados to shame.
The Crawton Inn for me is one of those wee unsung places that get things just right, they provide fresh food, which they cook to perfection and they make sure the beer is nice and chilled and to cap it all off they charge are fair price. And for me you cant ask for more than that, Exactly!
What a Spectacular Sunrise That Tastes So Good
You may wonder what the hell I’m talking about with the title of today’s article and of course it can only mean one thing, it is cocktail recipe time again at The Barbados Blog. Today I’m going to feature what was probably the first cocktail I ever tasted many moons ago, called Tequila Sunrise.
The Tequila Sunrise is a fantastic tasting cocktail, which for some reason I had forgotten about and I hadn’t tasted one for years. It was just the other night when I was down at a hotel bar overlooking the Caribbean Sea, when I noticed it on the cocktail menu and I had thought to myself I just got to have one of those.
For me not only is the Tequila Sunrise a fantastic looking cocktail, but it tastes rather good too, and overlooking the Caribbean Sea, along with the warm Barbados evening air, I would go as far as to say it tasted amazing. For some strange reason the second one tasted even better, as did the third and fourth….
Tequila Sunrise Recipe:
Ingredients:
4.5 cl (3 parts) Tequila
9.0 cl (6 parts) Orange juice
1.5 cl (1 part) Grenadine syrup
Directions:
Use a highball glass and half fill it with crushed ice.
Pour the tequila and orange juice into the glass over the ice.
Tilt the glass before adding the Grenadine syrup, which should be added by very quickly holding the bottle vertical and pouring it down the side of the glass.
The Grenadine will float straight to the bottom of the glass and then slowly rise up through the drink.
Drink with a straw, and for the girls add some garnish, such as a slice of orange and cherry.
The Tequila Sunrise was given it’s name because of the way it looks when it is poured into the glass, and I can honestly say it tastes magical watching the sun set here in Barbados with your girl, and I think I may get lucky after a few of these later on tonight!
Hooked On The Red Stuff Called Sorrel
I must admit I have developed a real craving for Sorrel Syrup Juice since I moved to Barbados all those many months ago. It has such a unique and delicious taste that I cant seem to live without it.
It is such a quick and easy drink to make, a wee drop of sorrel concentrate, some water and of course some ice, all in a large glass. It is a perfect thirst quencher, which I must have on a daily basis.
I know there are many purists out there that will moan at me for not taking the time and effort to make the real thing from the plant, which I will have to do one of these days.
From what I have heard the real Sorrel drink tastes out of this world, I cant believe I haven’t tasted it yet. My family members are letting this Scotsman down; maybe it tastes so good they don’t want to share it with me.
The Wandering Scotsman Is Behind Bars Again In Barbados
I had committed no crime but I the Wandering Scotsman was behind bars in Barbados once again. Fortunately the bars I’m taking about are those of a rum shop down at Oistins Fish Fry here in Barbados where I was buying some bottles of Ice-cold Heineken lager.
I have personally never committed any crimes against society so I don’t know how it feels to have my liberty taken away and be sent to prison to be kept behind real bars. I can only imagine how bad it feels not to have the choice to head to the beach when I want, to go to the rum shop for a few ice cold drinks or have some romance with the wife.
I feel that most of the criminals that are in prison if they thought about the consequences of being caught for their crimes and sent to prison and how it truly feels to have your freedom taken away, they would stay on the righteous path.
I know there are those that think crime pays and it is a short cut to lots of cash, forget it! Crime only leads to misery for those that are the victim and eventually your day will come when you pay for your crimes and face justice. For those of you that are in prison yes the ice cold Heineken tasted real good, you don’t know what your missing, but I suppose you maybe do!
Long Island Iced Tea for Real Adults Only!
My personal favourite cocktail is the infamous Long Island Iced Tea, which I would say is a cocktail for real adults only, because it is one strong drink. If you can’t handle your liqueur a few of these and you will be in a different world.
Because I have broken my own rule about taking things easy at the weekend! I had to spend some of today, which is Satruday, working from early this morning until mid afternoon and as a result I need to wipe away that terrible painful memory, The Long Island Iced Tea will do that perfectly.
Long Island Iced Tea Recipe
Ingredients:
0.5 Shot Hendricks Gin
0.5 Shot De Kuyper Triple Sec
0.5 Shot Russian Standard Vodka
0.5 Shot White Rum
0.5 Shot Tequila
1 Dash Coke
1 Teaspoon Caster Sugar
0.5 Shot Lemon Juice
1 Slice of Lemon
Ice cubes
Method:
Put all the ingredients except the coke into cocktail shaker and shake for 1 minute. Then pour into a highball glass with ice in it and then finish off by pouring the coke on top, add the slice of lemon to finish things off. I personally think that a Long Island Iced Tea should be drank wth a straw, for some reason it makes it taste better!
Sit yourself down on a comfortable chair, play some good music and enjoy the best cocktail in the world, the Long Island Iced Tea.
I just recently heard a song called “Now, It’s Over”, which is number 8 on the play list below and I just love it. I found it by chance and I’m glad I did.
Yellow Bird Is Going to Taste Delicious
It is Independence Day in Barbados on Sunday so that is a perfect reason to have a few cocktails along with a few bottles of Banks Beer this evening. I intend on starting off with a few Pina Coladas and then move on to a few dozen or so Yellow Birds.
Thankfully I have friends that travel to Barbados on a regular basis and they as guests like to bring me a few duty free bottles of spirits as they know of my reputation as a cocktail connoisseur, because if they never my drinks cabinet would be empty apart from local rum. The cost of non Caribbean Liquor in Barbados is outrageous.
Yellow Bird Cocktail Recipe
Ingredients:
1.5 - Shots White Rum
0.25 – Shots Galliano
0.5 – Shots De Kuyper Crème De Bananes
0.25 – Shots De Kuper Apricot Brandy
2 – Shots Shots Pineapple Juice
1 – Teaspoon Castor Sugar
0.5 – Shot Lime Juice
Instructions:
Pour all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker, along with some ice cubes and mix for 1 minute and then serve in a glass, I personally use a Martini Glass and garnish with a slice of lemon. Then drink them till your heart is content and celebrate the 30th of November 1966 when Barbados freed themselves from the shackles of the United Kingdom.
Hopefully one of these days just like the Barbadians, I as a Scotsman will know the great pride and joy that is being felt all over the island, when my country Scotland eventually frees itself from the shackles of the United Kingdom and eventually gains it’s own independence.
Caught In a Tourist Trap In Bridgetown
It doesn’t matter what country I’m in, I have always tried to avoid tourist traps like the plague, and yesterday I well and truly had the misfortune to visit one in Bridgetown in Barbados.
I had been in Bridgetown on Business and it was time to take things easy and have a few cold beers and have something to eat. I had passed by a place called Bump and Wine Café numerous times, but had never been in it. It is a family ran business that is named after a song that a local Soca star had in the 80′s, he also owns the place.
What can I say about Bump and Wine, well lets start with the good things, it has a fantastic outdoor balcony area with a good view of some fancy boats and the centre of Bridgetown, the pretty girls working in the place were a bonus, the décor of the place was good. All in all Bump and Wine Café looked like a good place to have a drink and something eat.
Well I was gravely mistaken, like tourist traps all over the world they served the most bland and second-rate food imaginable and then charged you like you were eating in a quality restaurant. I have eaten better food at a wooden Shack in Barbados, than I have at Bump and Wine. That is kinda sad. I have to laugh at the menu that claimed the Jerk Chicken was real hot; there was nothing hot about it. It gets worse, even the lager was way overpriced, listen to this it was $9.00BDS for a bottle of Carib Lagar. Now I wouldn’t have minded paying the money if it was ice cold, but they couldn’t even manage that.
Now don’t get me wrong I don’t mind paying a bit over the odds for a meal and drinks in nice and comfortable surroundings, but please give me decent food to eat and ice cold beer. Unfortunately Bump and Wine Café gets it sadly wrong.
I guess I should have known that when I walked and all the customers were white tourists mainly from England, that the place was a grade A tourist trap, in fact the only local people in the place were serving there. They seriously need to get a decent chef in the place and start serving ice-cold beer. Bump and Wine Café Just Do It!
I Hope the Tropical Princess Tastes Good
It is the Weekend and I’m going to see the latest instalment of the James Bond franchise called “Quantum of Solace”, which by all accounts is meant to be pretty good. To get me into the mood for going to see one of my favourite movie characters of all time, I intend on having a few cocktails.
The Tropical Princess is real sweet cocktail that is almost as sweet as all those beautiful Bajans girls that you see all over the place in Barbados. A few of those and I mean cocktails; will have me in the party mood for watching Bond.
Tropical Princess Recipe:
Ingredients:
1 part White rum ·
1/2 part Crème de cacao (white)
1/2 part Passion fruit liqueur
1 Passion fruit juice
2 parts Pineapple juice
1 Pineapple slice
2 teaspoons Sugar syrup
Instructions:
Shake all ingredients, including the passion fruit juice (preferably fresh, seeds and all), over ice and strain into a glass. Garnish with a pineapple leaf and wedge on the rim and few passion fruit seeds floating on top.
There you have it the Tropical Princess a delicious tasting cocktail that will get you in the mood for an enjoyable night.
If the Tropical Princess isn’t your thing I have a few others that may well do the trick for you, Time To Chill Out and Take It Easy In Barbados and The Best Pina Colada Recipe In The World.
The Smart Businessman the Humble Coconut Seller
You see those humble coconut sellers all over the place in Barbados selling their wares at the side of the road. Some have carts, which they push along the road full of coconuts heading towards their selling pitch, some arrive in cars and have make shift tables, which they sell from, others have a full truck load of coconuts and an old chest style freezer parked at the side of the road, where they have ice buckets that are used to keep the bottles of coconut water nice and cool.
For me the coconut seller could be considered as being a very smart businessman, selling coconuts I’m sure wont make them rich, but for the smart and hard working ones, I’m sure they make a good living and above all else they are their own boss.
For me the coconut seller has a great wee simple business that works fantastically well. They go climb the coconuts trees first thing in the morning and collect their stock for selling to the public. I personally don’t fancy climbing those coconut trees, no thank you! I have personally watched them swiftly climb up a 30 feet tree from the comfort of a hotel room balcony and that made me sweat, that’s too much like hard work for me.
When the coconut seller has finished collecting his coconuts and has the stock level’s he requires to make what he needs to for that particular day, he goes to his pitch where the disciples of coconut water will descend upon him for there fix. I’m sure everyone that loves coconut water in Barbados, will have favourite sellers that they go to.
The coconut seller I go to has choice of products available for sale; you can either buy a coconut for $2.00BDS, which includes a straw, for tourists only! He also sells bottles of coconut water, which come in two sizes, the handy small bottles which fit perfectly into the bottle holder in my car, they cost $3.00 and they have the larger bottles which are I think 1 litre and cost $12.00 and best of all they are chilled. They also sell the coconut jelly that comes out of the coconut. I’m not too sure what happens with the empty coconuts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a use for them, maybe someone out there will enlighten me.
You wouldn’t believe how many coconuts some of the sellers start off with, some have a truck full of the things, and believe me by 2pm most of them will have sold the whole lot. I can see why, because there is nothing quite as refreshing as a cool bottle of coconut water, when the Bajan sun is beating down.
I personally have great respect and admiration for the coconut sellers that you see dotted all over Barbados, I for one feel they are running a fantastic wee business and this Wandering Scotsman sure does appreciate them and all their hard work.
Ever since I first tasted coconut water all those years ago, I have loved it and can’t get enough of the good stuff, I Sure Do Love Them Coconuts They Are Delicious!. Another great fruit that you find sold at the side of the road all over Barbados is the Ackee and I also find them delicious, Mamoncillo Sure Does Taste Sweet and Delicious.
Time To Chill Out and Take It Easy In Barbados
It is the weekend once again and as most of my readers will be aware, that the weekend means only one thing and that it is time to take things real easy and spend some quality time with the family.
Don’t get me wrong I don’t take things easy during the week; I work real hard during and put in a 12+ hours a day. I’m a firm believer that if you have things that you want to achieve in life that you have to put the effort, time and thought into making those things happen. But I also believe that you have to spend quality time resting and relaxing and enjoying life with your family and friends.
I was going to head to the beach and enjoy my favourite aspect of life on Barbados. For me nothing beats taking things easy at an amazingly beautiful beach and enjoying the warmish waters of the Caribbean Sea or even the cooler waters of the Atlantic Ocean, I don’t mind I love them both. It is a wee bit wet today so I will put the beach on hold until another day. That reminds me, I need to get a new boogie board, because of the damage to the last one caused not by sharks, but by my Staffordshire Bull Terrier, that thinks it is protecting me from the Boogie Board.
I have a load of magazine’s to read and a few board games that the kid loves to play to keep me occupied. I also have one of my favourite cocktail recipe’s called the Road Runner to try out later when the kid is safely tucked away in his bed, which I’m looking to sampling again because it has been a while. I know this cocktail tastes real good, because I have sampled it before back home in Scotland during one of my legendary cocktail evenings.
The Road Runner
Ingredients:
Amount Ingredient (Click ingredient for more recipes)
2 Shots Russian Vodka
1 Shot Disaronno Amaretto
1 Shot Coconut Cream
1 Shot Cream
1 Scoop Ice Cream (Vanilla)
Method:
Blend all ingredients with crushed ice until smooth.
Serve in a Martini Glass.
This cocktail is pure heaven, it seems to hit the right spot for me everytime I have it! I also have have a few more cocktail recipes, which you may find of interest, The Best Pina Colada Recipe In The World and Cocktail Recipes For The Weekend.
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