Drinks In Recipes

My boyfriend and I recently shared a date night at a kitschy fondue restaurant, complete with life-size pirate ship, watery moat, and live alligators. It seemed like a fun way to ring in the cold weather. Leave it to me to order a milkshake in the middle of winter…We stuffed ourselves with copious amounts of cheese, a giant sampler of self-cooked meat, and the mandatory bottle of red wine. When the waiter hastily brought our check, however, I must have looked at him like he was crazy.

I love chai. I love making homemade chai. And I really love bourbon. So when I saw this recipe on Saveur’s website last week, I knew it would be on the weekend agenda.If you’ve never mixed your own chai tea blend at home, you’re in for a treat. I’ve talked about it on my own blog last year, and the cool thing that will happen once you start mixing your own teas is that you’ll become quite a pro.

A Hurricane is a bit like a Long Island Iced Tea — you can order one almost anywhere, but you never know quite what you’re going to get. This year, for Mardi Gras, do yourself a favor and sample the original (and, in my opinion, best) version of this classic New Orleans cocktail. A true hurricane does not contain grenadine, pineapple juice, or vodka. It is not made from a mix. It is not served in a giant plastic cup.

If you don’t drink alcohol or are simply looking to drink a little less of it, there’s no reason to fret: you can still enjoy the sweet pleasures of a cocktail by embracing the mocktail. Loose the booze and instead, indulge in one of the myriad drink combinations made with sparkling water, flavored soda, fresh juices, and simple herb- and- fruit-distilled syrups. These drinks are simple to make and feel just as fun and festive as any alcoholic drink.

After many years waiting tables and working in restaurants my only brush with bitters was as the staff cure all for hangovers. After a late night we’d all belly up to bar for our daily drink of bitters and soda. It cured everything from a headache to indigestion. Then it was only Angostura but now with the cocktail craze comes the bitters boom, and yes a book dedicated solely to this aromatic flavoring agent.

Do you drink before 11am? No? Me neither. But did you know that there used to be an entire subsection of cocktails devoted to morning drinking? Drinks designed to get you up and going? Indeed — and an excellent expression of these morning cocktails is the tart, sweet, summery sipper the Corpse Reviver #2. This cocktail has come up before at The Kitchn, when Nora mentioned in it her post on top 5 intriguing cocktail names.

Next time you visit the farmers’ market, don’t just think about eating the seasonal abundance – the rainbow of summer fruits is delicious for drinking, too! Here are five of our favorite non-alcoholic, colorful, and cooling beverages featuring ripe watermelon, blackberries, strawberries, cucumbers, and even jalapeño peppers.

All week we’re sharing Asian food recipes and inspiration here at The Kitchn. Here are some refreshing drinks to sip alongside your East, South, and Southeast Asian meals – or just to cool down on a hot summer day.

The idea of using raw eggs in cocktails might freak you out, or maybe you’re more of an adventurous imbiber. It’s a given that eggnog has egg in it but there are whole categories of drinks containing this lovely little protein.Along with the Nogs there’re Fizzs — like the Sloe Gin Fizz, Sours and Flips. Sours and Fizz’s can be made with or without the egg and typically they call for just the egg whites. With Nogs and Flips you get the whole egg.

I had a forehead-slapping moment at the grocery store this week. It’s finally turned a bit blustery and rainy in Seattle, and so many of us have been welcoming the fall weather with open arms. So I found myself gravitating towards the bulk tea aisle, where I picked up a jug of apple cider and got sucked into buying an over-priced satchel of mulling spices. When I returned home, my boyfriend chided me for falling into the “mulling spice trap.

Recently I’ve been spatially challenged by the plethora of beautiful bottles on my bar, each with only a smidgen missing. My goal this week was to make some room and use some of these space savers in a more practical and tasty manner. I’ve baked Chambord into cakes, made Midori into sorbet and mixed up more than a few drinks. And my two bottles of elderflower mixers set me to taste-testing as well as seeking a suitable cool weather sip for them.

In my household we firmly believe a hot toddy will make you feel better than any cold or flu medicine you can buy. I’ve experimented with many versions and varieties and this simple soothing concoction always does the trick. It’s also excellent alongside all sorts of holiday treats from cookies to cakes making it your perfect pick me up for this week’s 10-Minute Happy Hour.You may wonder what is Rye Whiskey anyway?

It’s 2013. It’s time to start another year. It’s time to get back into the routine of our daily lives. And if you’re like me, it’s time to figure out a way shed the extra pounds gained from all those holiday treats. Oh, but aren’t they’re always worth it? From smoked turkey to ham, from sweet potatoes and broccoli cheese casserole to fudge and gingerbread men, I’ve indulged in just about every culinary delight over the past couple months.

Whether you’re sensitive to the caffeine in tea and coffee or simply looking for something different, there’s a wide world of alternatives. Some are delicate, like “white coffee” made from orange blossom water, while others are earthy and robust, like rooibos or roasted barley tea. Here are a few of our recommendations for caffeine-free hot drinks. What are your favorites?

Once a year, usually late December or early January, we receive a case of the sweetest pink grapefruits delivered to our doorstep. At first we love them. For breakfast, in salads, in cake and juiced. Then our citrus enthusiasm slowly begins to wane. There’s no avoiding the mound of softball- sized fruits each time I step into the kitchen. As with anything abundant in our culinary arsenal over to the bar they went. I decided it was time for them to have a go at the shaker.

Smoothies made with protein powder are a great post-workout snack or breakfast on the go, but many commercial powders are loaded with artificial flavorings and other weird additives. Here’s an economical and less processed alternative: make your own tasty, vegan protein powder!There are high-quality plant-based protein powders with straightforward ingredient lists out there, but they are often quite expensive, and plant protein powder can be hard to choke to down plain.

What makes green juice, well, green? Adding kale, spinach, celery or parsley adds that green hue and a multitude of health benefits. Throw in a sweet element to keep the juice palatable, but going too sweet may result in crafting a dessert rather than a drinkable vitamin. Personally, I steer clear of adding parsley and celery (only because I don’t love the flavors) and focus on kale and cucumber along with an apple or ripe nectarine. Add chia seeds for a fun crunch and instant snack!

In cooking and baking, I refer to certain dishes as “bridge recipes.” You know the ones: food that gives you a peek into the new season without fully committing to the produce or the feeling of the days ahead. Right now, an asparagus tart would be considered a bridge recipe for brunch. If you’re in California (sigh), strawberry shortcakes are your early peek into spring.

There’s nothing more refreshing than a glass of cool lemonade on a warm day. Sure, there are those cartons of premade stuff and cans of concentrate, but if you’d like to avoid preservatives and flavor enhancers, then there’s nothing easier than making your own. It’s really not that hard, and if you keep a supply of simple syrup in the refrigerator, it’s actually quite fast. Here is our classic lemonade recipe, plus five easy and delicious variations!

Want to jazz up your non-alcoholic drinks like sparkling water, iced tea, and lemonade? Add a sprig or two of aromatic rosemary. These five beverages are a little bit herbal, a little bit sweet, and very refreshing. 1. Sparkling Rosemary Limeade: A punchy drink with an herbal note from rosemary, and just enough sugar to keep it from being mouth-puckering. 2. Rosemary Citrus Spritzer: Serve this soda as an alternative to mimosas at brunch, or sip outside on a warm afternoon. 3.

The deep love of a G&T continually proves strong, not just in the summer and most definitely not just stateside — the New York Times called 2013 the Year of the Gin and Tonic and Europeans love this little cocktail just as much as we do. Yet, on a recent trip to Portugal, I found their G&Ts to be quite different than what I was used to sipping. That’s when a local bartender dropped some knowledge on me.

The last two weeks at our CSA we got to PYO (Pick Your Own) blackberries. After we ate enough to give us belly aches, we put them aside for a couple of days. Unfortunately, when I went to grab a handful, some were too soft and squishy for snacking. I wasn’t up for making jam or baking so into this week’s cocktail they went.As I was muddling a few, I said to my kids, “Look how lucky we are to have all of this food from our garden and the farm.

Before last week, I may have thought convincing a non-Cognac drinker to choose a Cognac-based cocktail for happy hour to be a difficult task. Au contraire, mon frère! A recent visit to Courvoisier poured up a perfect fall drink that leaves even skeptics thirsty for more. This week’s happy hour has a rich French flair you can enjoy right at home. Being a cocktail writer has some advantages including my recent trek to France’s fabulous Cognac region.

Ice cream floats get a full-on adult makeover for this week’s 10-Minute Happy Hour. Grab a spoon and join in on the fun. Making beer floats for happy hour is super easy, indulgent and delicious. It’s as simple as choosing two high-quality ingredients and joining them together for spoonful after spoonful of cold, soothing goodness.

Every week I write the 10-Minute Happy Hour to allow each of us permission to make a moment. No overly involved dinner party or stress-filled gatherings touted here. Just 10 minutes and you get to take a beat and toast the week behind or the weekend to come. Following suit, the newly released book Storied Sips, page after page, highlights how a simple cocktail can “strip away the mundane, gild an evening … and add a little flair.

Some happy hours, like this week’s, aren’t conducted in a standard bar or kitchen. Here in the northeast, the fall foliage is at its peak. It sounds geeky but truly, the images are of the kind that inspire great artists, poets and philosophers. Seeking an infusion of inspiration and some fresh air, my family packed up our gear — including some suitable fall libations — and hit the trail for a weekend in the wilderness. Camping isn’t for everyone.

Don’t feel like drinking your candy corns or sipping on a snickers bar? Me either, so this Halloween, I gave one of my favorite cocktails a holiday makeover that makes drinking something spooky a little easier to swallow. If you still have a Halloween party or two in your weekend plans, make sure this cocktail is on the menu. I’m a sucker for picture perfect drinks that capture the spirit of Halloween, but I find looking at them much more fun than actually drinking them.

A friend of mine recently dined at Tashan, this killer upscale Indian spot in Philadelphia, and she said I must go and order a particular whiskey cocktail. She described it as an Indian Old-Fashioned. So I ventured downtown only to find that the cocktail my friend thought she was describing was something else entirely. What she thought was a whiskey cocktail was in fact made with an aged tequila, a trace of blood orange liqueur and a hint of bitters.

This time of year I do love the heavier, spicy, whiskey-based cocktails. But if we all go hardcore comfort food and heavy hitter cocktails, we’ll be in a food-and-drink coma before Christmas gets here! For many of us, we’ve got a long winter ahead, and while it’s dark at 5 o’clock, there’s no need to hibernate already. The idea for the 10-Minute Happy Hour was born of lack of time and need of good drink.

One of the best parts of winter is a snow day. Whether you make a snowman or get in a snowball fight or stay in your pajamas all day to watch the snow fall, snow days are especially awesome when you can cozy up with a delicious hot cocktail. Right now this is what it looks like outside our window, so on goes the kettle for cocoa.

It’s tough to make a drink that can please both those who abstain from and those who imbibe alcohol. Many mocktails are no more than sugary juices with a bit of soda water added. For Cambria’s winter glam cocktail party I was tasked with coming up with something a little more interesting — a mocktail that had the edgy notes of a grown-up drink without any of the alcohol. But it had to accommodate a splash of stronger stuff, too, for those who wanted a boozy punch. My solution?

You, me and millions of others just got our Downton Abbey fix last Sunday. After what seemed like years, we once again filled our homes with that indelible theme song. Sunday’s premiere proved that Season Four is sure to bring many magnificent moments — and of course a few more one liners from the fantastic Maggie Smith’s portrayal of the Dowager Countess. For this happy hour, we’re stirring up a toast in honor of the undeniably cheeky Violet Crawley.

In the winter I crave two things: juicy Florida grapefruit and rye whiskey. Until the Blinker, I had no idea how good they could be together. Typically, I rave over the case of grapefruit that arrives each January, and this year is no different. This is some of the sweetest, juiciest and most delicious grapefruit and I eat at least one a day. I fancy other grapefruit cocktails, like the Paloma, but this week I was looking for a way to incorporate my favorite winter liquor — rye whiskey.

Another day, another snowstorm. A winter storm is about to envelop the East Coast, and you are probably planning to skip work tomorrow and avoid the wintry mix of unplowed roads and slushy sidewalks. Our strategy: stay in, stay warm, and mix up a cocktail instead of hitting the bar. But of course, if we’re all staying indoors we can’t be running out for some esoteric cocktail ingredient.

For many of us around the country, it’s been a very trying winter. A friend of mine today said, “I’m beyond the winter blues at this point. I’m fully in the black.” For her and any others out there needing a little pick-me-up, here’s a sure-fire cure for the winter blues that will have you happy in no time. This cocktail, the Nor’easter, was served to me in a bourbon-centric bar in Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill neighborhood, Char No. 4.

If you go about constructing a versatile at-home cocktail bar with a limit of just nine bottles, an initial impulse might urge you toward filling those nine precious slots with as many types of liquor and spirits as you can. That ought to cover your bases for the largest number of cocktails, right? With a vodka, a gin, a whiskey, a tequila, and so on, you probably think that suddenly you’re able to mix up practically anything. Wrong.

The Ward Eight, as drinks historian David Wondrich has written, is one of the City of Boston’s few contributions to the classic-cocktail pantheon. It came into being sometime around the turn of the 20th century and riffs on a Whiskey Sour with the inclusion of a special, somewhat mysterious ingredient: grenadine.

After a long winter, we often feel sluggish from heavy foods and hibernation. But now spring is in the air and it’s time to wake up the body and the senses! Here’s an herbal tea to renew and nourish as we shift seasons. This tea has a refreshingly clean, bright flavor and herbs that gently support the body’s ability to carry away waste, break down fats, and clear the blood.

In a time when snow in the southern states isn’t unheard of and power outages have become the norm, the arrival of spring has been suspect. So today when something woke me up and it wasn’t a snow plow, a generator, or even a chainsaw, I blinked my eyes open and thought, Sunshine? Birds chirping? Could it really be spring? Bursting with excitement like a child on Christmas morning, I bound from my bed and threw open the curtains. What was this bright light that seared my eyes?

I was born and brought up in India. I moved away when I was twenty-one, but as most expatriates will know, India never leaves you. Which is why the major inspiration for my own website The Tiffin Box is my childhood memories of growing up in this amazing, crazy, unpredictable country. We lived in a century-old red-tiled house, surrounded by coconut trees and a tropical fruit tree orchard.

This drink, which supposedly originated at the bar of a British private club in the Burmese capital of Rangoon sometime in the 1920s, is squarely in the wheelhouse of the 9-Bottle Bar. It calls for four of the nine bottles, with lime juice as a fifth, acidity-adding ingredient. Being a British invention by way of a steamy ex-colony, the Pegu Club starts with London dry gin and then goes long on both citrus and bitters. In fact, the build is pretty darn close to that of the Margarita.

Even if all we did was admire it from afar, the Clover Club — with its colorful palette of pale pink, crisp Naval white, and ruby red — would be a winning drink. To its credit, it tastes mighty fine, too. This classic cocktail is an upgrade to the basic build of a sour cocktail (the Pisco Sour and the Whiskey Sour are two examples) thanks to a hit of sweet, tangy raspberry syrup.

For some reason, with the warm weather also comes a plethora of sweet cocktails. But if you like your drinks dry — which is to say, the opposite of sweet — then you’re going to love my new must-have mixer behind the bar, not to mention this sparkling cucumber cocktail. I recently discovered Dry Soda when grocery shopping and was intrigued by the low calories.

While the Cosmopolitan Cocktail (Cosmo for short) may be pink, it is anything but a frilly drink. When made correctly, the Cosmo delivers a delicious sip of cold smooth vodka flavored with a splash of cranberry juice, orange-flavored Cointreau, and a squeeze of fresh lime to finish. Like many cocktails, this one is often made incorrectly with way too much cranberry juice, so I wanted to make sure readers of The Cocktail Club get to taste what a great Cosmo is.

Combine killer spicy Thai food with the first few hot days of summer, and all you need to cool down is this simply delightful, little cocktail. Pok Pok is a very popular Thai restaurant with spots in Portland, Oregon, and Brooklyn, New York. Both locations serve up fantastic flavors from Thailand with that mix of chile, garlicky, herb and sour flavors that just work perfectly together. Sticky rice, lots of pork dishes and dried fish make numerous appearances on the menu.

Fourth of July recipes can be so fussy, instructing you to carve watermelon baskets, make precise stripes of fruit on flag-shaped desserts, and whip up elaborate, food coloring-tinted layer cakes. Yeah, definitely not my thing! Enter these spritzers…er, sparklers. (See what I did there?) A cocktail with two ingredients, made right in the serving pitcher, with a cute fruit garnish for a little patriotic flair? I’ll take it!

Happy hour in the summer is just a little bit happier. Combine an artisanal gin made from wine along with that dose of sunshine and we’re off to a delicious start for the weekend. Tasting all sorts of spirits is part of my job. While many spirits in the same respective category can tend to present themselves as almost identical, gin is a category that continues to be exciting.

We’re closing out the 9-Bottle Bar’s month-long look at rum with the recipe for a drink aptly named for the occasion. The alphabet-ending XYZ Cocktail appeared in the famous Savoy Cocktail Book, by bartender Harry Craddock, first published in 1930.

When it’s too hot to cook and you want something quick and satisfying, homemade smoothies are always the answer. They’re so simple and refreshing, especially now with great summer fruits and vegetables to sip through your straw. Looking for some fun smoothie ideas? We’ve got your recipe situation covered with a smoothie chock-full of greens, and another that tastes like blueberry pie.

When it comes to cocktails, by no means does “frozen” necessarily translate to “frilly.” In fact, one hot spot in the Midwest has a menu of high-end, rock-star cocktails all served frozen. Inspired by the heat and in a toast to the 4th of July, this week we decided to follow suit and take the gin and tonic, that most sublime summertime sip, to the frozen side of cocktails. I took some tips from the pros, Kansas City’s Snow & Co.

Common knowledge: watermelon and July go together like sunshine and sunscreen — can’t have one without the other. Similarly, on the savory side of things, basil and July go together like blue skies and pool days — together, bliss. So by simple deduction, watermelon and basil served together in a glass of lime and sugar over ice in the middle of July is nothing short of perfection. Agua fresca is a Spanish term that translates literally as “fresh water.

The devilishly named Satan’s Whiskers cocktail is a longstanding classic, catalogued in the Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) and likely of even older vintage. It’s a “perfect” drink, meaning that it contains equals parts of sweet and dry vermouth. The base spirit is gin, and many versions of the recipe call for orange liqueur, orange juice, and orange bitters, resulting in a rounded, layered exploration of the citrus fruit in all its bitter-juicy-sweet complexity.

Soccer fans across the globe are still spinning from the Germany smack down on Brazil a few weeks ago. If you’re among the mourners, cheer up. This Brazilian-inspired sip is sure to score a win this weekend. You may know cachaça from its appearance in the caipirinha (which is much like the mojito but with cachaça in place of rum and without mint).

Blackberries conjure up lots of summer memories for me. If I close my eyes, I can still remember all of the dusky hot evenings spent cleaning out the blackberry bushes on the side of my parents’ property. We’d put most of them into a container to bring back to the house, but a couple would always make their way to our lips straight off the vine — still warm from the day and bursting with juices. This is what summer should taste like.

It’s July, outdoor drinking is in full swing, and orange liqueur is our muse of the month here at The 9-Bottle Bar. Based on those three facts, we seem practically duty-bound to mine our cocktail-recipe resources for a drink that suits these summery climes. So let’s get busy mixing up the Beachcomber. This cocktail, which appears in the famous 1947 Bartender’s Guide by tiki legend Trader Vic (Victor Bergeron, Jr.

Drinking a really good dry martini is a sublime experience…tinged by disappointment. Sublime because you suddenly realize what dazzling magic gin, vermouth, bitters, and lemon peel can make; disappointing because you also realize that you’ve suffered through a sad, shuffling parade of subpar, thoroughly ungifted-with-magic martinis over your drinking years. Let’s vow never to drink bad martinis again.

I’ve never met a Bloody Mary I didn’t like, but thick tomato juice in the dead of summer isn’t exactly something I crave. Take a quick trip to farmers market, and you can have this fresh Bloody Mary makeover instead, perfect for summer sipping. The secret? Tomato water. Savory and cool, tomato water is a far more refreshing base for a breakfast cocktail. What’s tomato water, you say? You really should find out.

These days, any brunch place worth its salt serves a michelada alongside the requisite Bloody Mary, and my beer-loving heart thrills to see it on menus. But when I’m out at picnics or tailgates and don’t have a full spice cabinet on hand — or when I’m feeling a little lazy on a summer afternoon — I like to go the old-timers’ route with my tomato cocktails and mix up a Bloody Beer instead.

It’s easy to imagine the circumstances: A social function, gathering that worldly stratum of government officials whose members go by titles such as consul, attaché, and ambassador. The drinks are flowing, the pressures of one’s post are at their most acute, and yet the wisest of the group know well that conducting sensitive state business could be gravely jeopardized by dulled faculties. Enter the Diplomat.

This combination of gin, sweet vermouth, bitters, and maraschino liqueur makes for a complex, brooding libation that scratches the itch for a Manhattan. But instead of foregrounding woody, vanilla notes from whiskey, the use of gin in the Martinez turns up the volume on the herbal aromatics. Far more astute and knowledgeable writers than this one have done a superb job delving into the history of the Martinez.

There’s a cocktail named for each of New York City’s five boroughs, so why not its neighborhoods, too? The Red Hook cocktail shares its moniker with a waterside enclave in south Brooklyn. Recipe-wise, this bold and booze-driven drink is a cross between the Manhattan (rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, bitters) and the Martinez (Old Tom gin, sweet vermouth, maraschino liqueur, bitters), pulling ingredients from both.

Fall festivals are in full swing here in the Northeast. Weekends are full of apple picking, pumpkin patches, corn mazes and hay rides — not to mention insanely gorgeous foliage. Inspired by the season and a childhood game I once adored comes this week’s 10-Minute Happy Hour. Bobbing for apples used to be a fierce competition between me and my siblings.

Were it not for the linguistic ingenuity of one Henry Irving Dale of Andover and one Kate L. Butler of Dorchester, the Scofflaw cocktail might very well go by the name Hooch-Sniper, the Barnacle, or Bottle-Yegger. Indeed, this Prohibition-era cocktail comes with its own story and a nice twist at the end.

Ever since this little cocktail named The Black Lily scored the signature drink spot at San Francisco’s Cocktail Week a few years back, I’ve been dying to share it with you. Three little ingredients and your weekend will be made! Credit goes to Remy Cointreau’s mixologist Kyle Ford for creating this weirdly addictive sip. It’s based on two ingredients we don’t typically see as the stars at the bar: Cointreau and Fernet Branca.

Creating drinks named the “Turf Cocktail” was evidently a popular pastime during the decades hugging the turn of the 20th century. There are no fewer than three distinct drink recipes bearing this name or a slight variation that come to us from old bar books. In today’s cocktail, we focus on a version that starts off like a Dry Martini before galloping in its own direction.

Spirit, sweetener, citrus, bitters. These elements form one of the great quartets of the cocktail canon. So many important drinks boil down to a meditation on this tried-and-true formula. And it works wonders when applied to the Cuba Libre, also known as the Rum and Coke. As Brad Thomas Parsons points out in his book on bitters, the traditional build of a Cuba Libre doesn’t call for the cocktail ingredient he holds so dear.

Steeped in ritual and beautiful in its simplicity, the Old Fashioned is the quintessential (and quite essential) classic cocktail. Even back when cocktails were newly making a home for themselves in beverage culture, the Old Fashioned — as the name suggests — was already the tried-and-true, the throwback, the cool original.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year to put on a pot of hot cocktails and call up some friends for some holiday cheer. This week for our 10-Minute Happy Hour, the classic Buttered Rum cocktail gets nutty with a little browned butter. Butter in your cocktail is a bit odd, but even I can admit that this drink — like anything with a little butter — is delicious.

Complete with toasty marshmallows, of course.

So delicious and simple to make, the Boulevardier is one of those cocktails that seems primed for the spotlight yet never manages to capture our attention. You’d think that, what with the soaring popularity of the Negroni, a drink that differs from it by only one ingredient would enjoy some reflected glory. But this handsome devil has instead kept a relatively low profile. So here’s to giving the Boulevardier its due.

This is the perfect cocktail (or mocktail) to serve with your Thai feast. The flavors are light and delicate, and they perfectly evoke lazy summer evenings, even when it’s cold and dreary outside. This drink is a riff on the classic mojito, but made with very traditional Thai ingredients. I love how the combination of aromatic Thai basil, lime, and lemongrass syrup make for a refreshing, clean drink.

How did I end up with half a dozen astronaut high-ball glasses and a 20-ounce container of Tang powder? It’s a long story that starts last December at my daughter’s school fundraiser where we auctioned off dinner for six at my house. Bidding far exceeded expectations, and the winner ended up being a friend who bought the dinner for her partner’s birthday.