A Trip Around the World During Lockdown I

I finally got around to hosting another themed evening, something I've been looking forward to for a while. After some lockdown rules have been relaxed, I grasped the opportunity to be creative. Since we couldn't travel the world during the pandemic, I thought it appropriate to bring the world of cuisines to us. For this evening of various cuisines, we kept the guest list short, with only one of my sisters joining my husband and myself.

To make the evening a bit more fun, I incorporated facts of the dish and country of origin into the evening's proceedings. I decided on the same game for all courses during the evening - guess the dish or drink and the country of origin. I printed cards with descriptions and facts of the food item, and my husband read it out loud to make it a bit more fun. I also printed a map indicating all countries visited during the specific course as an additional clue. 

This Trip Around The World During Lockdown Evening will be broken up into several blog posts, as there are so many delicious dishes I'd like to share. For this post, the focus will be on the drinks course. This drinks tour was hosted by Siñorita Aperitif (aka Miss 'Alcoholic drink taken before a meal to stimulate the appetite').

It was extremely fun designing the menu, but very difficult to choose only one dish per country, and I changed my mind multiple times. I also decided to buy some of the dishes instead of making it, since there wasn't enough time to make everything myself. And of course our beautiful 6-month-old son who needs attention also meant that my time was a bit limited.

The tour started in South Africa. As stated on the invitation, the flight boarded at 16:00. For the evening to start, my two guests had to guess the name of the South African drink and snack, as well as the main ingredients in it. We started off very easy with a quite iconic and Proudly South African shooter and snack - Springbokkies and oepsies. My mixologist skills need a bit of refining, as the lack of a definite break between the green mint liqueur and golden Amarula Cream is quite clear...  But it tasted all the same and started the tour off with the right kick! My husband prepared the oepsies on the braai - I absolutely love the flame grilled bacon with cherry sauce!

Next stop on the tour - Italy! For this one I was able to use one of my favourite drinks, which we call my 'fancy drink' I like to drink on weekends. This drink consists of equal parts Amaretto liqueur, which is of Italian origin, and lime cordial, finished off with an ice cube, although the ice melted by the time the plane landed in Italy...

As wine is our favourite beverage we enjoy together, and was also the theme of our wedding, I had to include wine into the drinks tour. I was able to obtain authentic French wine - Bordeaux. Bordeaux is also known as Claret in the UK, and using this as a clue, threw my guests off the trail a bit. The wine was too sweet for me, but my husband and sister enjoyed the rest of the bottle throughout the evening.

When creating the menu, I required another drink to get to the total of 5, and with the lockdown restrictions, the liquor shops were only open from Monday to Thursday. Luckily, we had a cabinet full of different liquor due to all the cocktails I experiment with. I realised that Cointreau (orange liqueur) is also from France, hence the second stop in France on the drinks tour. This is a really lovely liqueur which reminds me of liquid sweets.

Time for some Belgium beer! Originally I wanted to use German beer, but I couldn't find any. So next best thing - Belgium beer! We drank a small tasting of Stella Artois. This beer is quite sweet, unlike the normal bitter taste of beer I'm used to. Definitely something to keep in mind for someone who wants to drink beer but likes a sweeter taste.

Last stop on the drinks tour - Poland, and of course a cocktail! I wanted to do something with Russia and vodka, but couldn't find any Russian cocktails that seemed delicious. And then I found this gem - Polish Apple Pie, or as they say in Poland Szarlotka. This cocktail is one part vodka and two parts pure apple juice. Although traditional Żubrówka vodka should be used, I decided to use Smirnoff vodka we had in the cupboard. This is a sweet an easy cocktail to make, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to make a quick cocktail in two ticks.

Be on the lookout for the next round of the tour - snacks and starters! Hosted by Knight Antipasto!

The Invitation