#ELYSS I could go a bunch of different directions with and I'm not sure which I wanna try 🤔

[blujayonthewing]

@antique-symbolism BEARING IN MIND that the ones I've invented or heavily modified are still works in progress... :D

Melliwyk's Nightcap

- 1.5oz brandy - 1oz white creme de cacao - 2oz whole milk - 2 drops purple food coloring - 1 dash lavender bitters - about 1oz heavy cream - pocky

Shake all ingredients except cream together with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Float a layer of whipping cream on top and garnish with a stick of chocolate pocky.

NOTES: Melliwyk likes brandy (when she drinks at all), a brandy alexander is sometimes considered a nightcap, and lavender-- well known as a sleep aid-- is among her many nicknames :D I wanted so badly for this one to be natively purple but I just couldn't do it, and unfortunately 'visually evoking Mel's actual nightcap' is part of the point, so, food coloring it is :') I originally did this with lavender syrup (I don't think I measured it; I wrote down 'a barspoon' but I just poured An Amount lol)-- I think the extra sweetness was nice, but on the other hand the lavender syrup did bring a kind of cloying lavender perfume flavor that the bitters avoids? I've thought about adding back simple syrup but I don't want it to get TOO unwieldy with too many ingredients 🤔 Also I've tinkered around a lot with the base but a standard brandy alexander just uses heavy cream straight up, and I think that actually might split into a (mostly) white foam layer anyway once it's shaken so I might try returning to that next and see how it works out. Also I thought the pocky would be just a fun lil bit of extra visual flair BUT it turns out the chocolate scent really adds a lot to the experience!

Presto!

5oz strawberry lemonade

1oz UV Blue Raspberry Vodka

0.5oz grenadine

1/4tsp purple luster dust

Starfruit

Stir ingredients together with ice. Garnish with a slice of starfruit and drink with a curly straw.

NOTES: The infuriating thing about this one is that I found it by googling 'purple cocktails', went out of my way to buy the blue liquor and grenadine, and then found out it's only purple because of the huge amount of purple food glitter (I wanted to add just a little hit of gold glitter instead but it looked a) not purple and b) really bad). BUT-- the flavor profile is exactly perfect-- bright, sweet, and snappy-- and WITH the luster dust, so is the aesthetic 🤔 This one needs tinkering. I think I could probably get it natively purple with just a little bit of blue caracao, without changing the flavor profile too much. I ALSO realized that obviously this one actually should be fizzy, so I'm wondering about adding a sprite or a club soda, or whether carbonated strawberry lemonade is a thing or...?

Goodberry

1oz raspberry syrup

0.5oz lime juice

2oz gin

2oz tonic

fresh raspberries

Gold luster dust (optional)

Shake syrup, lime juice, luster dust, and gin with ice. Strain into a glass with raspberries and fresh ice. Top with tonic.

NOTES: Gin derives its flavor from juniper berries, and the gin and tonic was invented for medicinal purposes; this raspberry g&t also ends up being the exact shade of pink that I've drawn goodberries, which are a little infamous in Juniper's campaign as being hated by Fengling, haha. IN THEORY I want this to be garnished with a sugared raspberry but in practice raspberries go soft about twelve seconds after buying them so I've never actually had a chance to do that, but I think it'd be cute :3 (to be honest the raspberries mixed in are also essentially garnish and I've made this a lot without them because we never have raspberries in the house, you don't really need em, they're just nice). Speaking of gin, I've also done a lavender earl grey gin cocktail in the past that I've always lowkey associated with Juniper as well, but I dunno how to make that as ~thematic~ aside from 'it just feels right,' lol. iirc that one is essentially just earl grey iced tea, lemon juice, gin, and I think lavender syrup-- I don't have an exact recipe cause I haven't made it in awhile but 10/10 would recommend

The Druidcraft comes from this post, EXCEPT that the original recipe calls for honey, but actually you have got to do a honey syrup instead or it just won't mix properly (I have a bottle made up, but it's really easy to just like. stick some honey and some hot water in a little cup and mix them together for a small amount). It's really nice! I also add a lil gold shimmer to this one, because I'm a nerd and it's ~magical~

By the way, these have all spiraled out of me thinking about the tavern themed home bar/ game room we want to build in the basement, and specifically thinking about how it'd be fun to invent a healing potion cocktail, which... I have still not done, lmao :'D I actually want it to be a shooter (you can down a potion as an action, after all), and the problemmm is that I'm a chronic overthinker; lots of drinks are red, it would be pretty easy to throw together something that's red, but I can't decide what kind of flavor profile I want it to actually have 🤔

god I wish I had a good camera and somewhere with good lighting to take pics of the dumb dnd cocktails I've modified/ invented