Christmas Martini

Even though my bar-tending days are behind me I still love mixing up alcoholic concoctions, and Christmas is the perfect time to get experimenting - you'll have lots of willing test subjects too! 

I've always been a fan of the classic gin martini. I love the balance of flavours plus the punch of the alcohol. But, I've never been very keen on vodka - any vodka, its just not my bag. That is until I discovered the art of making my own flavoured vodkas. With this I have transformed what I see as liquefied hair spray into delicious beverages and bases for many a cocktail. 

This is how I made my spiced cranberry vodka, plus how to put it to good use in a Christmas Martini

The Vodka:

1 750ml bottle of vodka (I used Absolut because it has the cleanest flavour in my opinion)

300g fresh cranberries

200g sugar (use caster sugar if possible)

2 tbsp water

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cardamom (if you can ground it yourself from the pods even better!)

• In a large saucepan combine the sugar, the cranberries and the water together. Sprinkle in the spices and stir through.
• Leave on a low to medium heat and occasionally stir to make sure its not sticking to the bottle of the pan.
• Once most of the berries have split your syrup is ready. Take it off the heat and leave to cool slightly but not completely as it will be too thick.
• In a large airtight container pour all the vodka and syrup mixture, and stir together.
• Leave in a cool, dark place for 7-10 days. Stir once a day or when necessary to shake up the sediment.
• Strain into a bowl/large jug. I found that I could still get more juice from the berries so I gave them a little mash and pushed the liquid through the sieve.
• Pour into a sterilised bottle (I saved the Absolut bottle and just washed out with boiling water).

The vodka should be sweet enough from the syrup to just serve over ice, but if not add a splash of lemonade or tonic water.

The Martini:

50ml of spiced cranberry vodka

20ml of dry vermouth

1 dash of Angostura Bitters.

• Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker
• Add a good amount of cubed ice (about twice as much as the liquid or half the shaker)
• Stir until diluted (depending on the heat of your surroundings this could take 10 seconds, it could take a minute. It always does well to test a little as you go along using a straw to pinch some up)
• Strain through a fine strainer or sieve into a traditional martini glass or coupette.
• Optional garnish of a slither of orange peel to really boost the Christmas scents.

A Mid Century Marvellous Market!

So, you may remember that I mentioned Bettina Scarlett's Mid Century Christmas Market in a previous post? Well this is what I thought of it! (Hint: I thought it was swell!)

After a little journey to London, a long walk down the wrong road and many confused looks at my map, I found the location. Stepping inside I was greeted by Bettina, who was looking like a swan in water gliding around in a gorgeous Bernie Dexter dress, and I signed up the raffle - sadly I did not win, boo!

But, I did certainly come away with some bargains anyway! I had had my eye on a hair ornament (I say ornament because they are far more than just a flower!) from Rosie Alia, so when I saw a trio of silver glittery poinsettias I had to have it! It was pride of place in my hair on Christmas day. Sticking with the sparkly things I got my hands on a late 1950s/early 1960s gold top from Miss Turnstiles. I picked it up off the hanger and immediately fell in love, never did I think it would fit me, but alas it was perfect! I wore it with a pencil skirt to my parents friends' soiree and everyone admired the sparkles like little magpies! My last buy was a pair of bauble earrings; sadly no photos of those, but I loved the novelty of them!

Look at it's beauty!!

It was perfect with my poodle!

It was such a lovely excuse to go to London, and I spent the entire day with friends from all over the south who I didn't think I would get to see again until at least the springtime. Bettina had put so much work and effort into the day, and I'm so happy that it came off swimmingly for her. As London's only Mid Century market it is a refreshing take on the vintage fair that is often plagued with what I think of as charity shop fodder.

Catch Bettina Scarlett presenting her next market on 12th April, at Hammersmith Club, W6 9DH - just in time for Easter!

Festive Frolics.

What a lovely few days I have had! I am absolutely stuffed full of food, alcohol and merriment. 

I kick started the season off with nibbles and rum with my parents' friends (and my adoptive family) the Mears' which was utterly delightful. Christmas Eve was spent at my cousins' house, who were, as you can imagine, bouncing off the walls with excitement for the forthcoming visit from a jolly bearded fellow.

Talking of Santa, I thought at the age of 22 I would not be on his list anymore, but alas! I was wrong! I awoke on Christmas Day to a little pile of pressies at the end of my bed, including a lovely wooden pineapple bowl, cocktail shaker and Soap & Glory smellies. Dad's family came over for day for the enormous feast my mum (with help) prepared. All in all it was a lovely day but did include some dubious hats...

We were up bright and early for Boxing Day to go to Romsey's 12th Annual Classic Car & Bike Meet. This really is a fabulous event for a great cause - Prostate Cancer UK - so if you're on the south coast, you should certainly head down to it next year for a brisk wake up after a heavy Christmas Day. The rest of the day was spent with the cousins again, trying to eat up more of the food. I  think we have enough cheese to last us until Easter...

Today, the day after Boxing Day, was another family day with Dad's side at his parents' house. Well...there was even more food that needed eating,  obviously!

So that was my festive season, but how did you spend your's? However it was, I hope it was a jolly nice one!

If you have enjoyed this post, please check out my Facebook page for more updates and insights

Have A Cool Yule!

Good mornin' my lovelies! Are we all set? Are all the pressies wrapped? Is the bubbly on ice? Or is it all chaos in your household as the turkey won't cook, the sprouts argument is raging and there is sellotape stuck to everything?

Well whatever your situation I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! I hope everything is beautiful in your world for the festivities! Have a wonderful day and I shall see you on the other side!

And The Winner Is....

My giveaway ended earlier today and it is time to announce the winner of the Marilyn Monroe book, festive hair flower and nail varnish.

So without further ado, the winner is...

Chrissie Curtis!!!

Congratulations! Please email me with your details so I can send you prize off within 7 days!

roxieroulette@outlook.com

Festive GIVEAWAY!

If you hadn't already noticed, Christmas is just around the corner! So, in celebration of this I thought I would do a giveaway for all my lovely readers. There is another reason, or three, for this giveaway. Earlier this year I reached 100 followers on here, I also reached 200 followers on my Facebook and my blog also turned three! So, all in all, this is a big ol' thank you for your support!

So what can you win? There is a Marilyn Monroe package including a book on her fame and life, plus 6 mini posters to do with as you wish; I specially made a festive hair flower with lots of glitter thrown in for good measure; finally there is more glitter in a lush sparkly red nail varnish from Barry M.

Because I am extra nice I am giving you six chances to win these goodies! All you need to do is like my Facebook, follow me on Twitter and leave a lovely message of festive cheer below!

The competition is running until Sunday 15th December!

GOOD LUCK!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Betting Scarlett Present: The Mid Century Christmas Market

You have no idea how excited I am about this event! In just two weeks time on the 14th December, Bettina Scarlett will be hosting London's best vintage Christmas market to date at the Hammersmith Club. There will be many stalls selling many pretty, sparkly and shiny things for the festive season, including Lady K Loves, Pip Jolley Jewellery, Rosie Alia Hair Accessories, Oh Sew Vintage and many more! Plus there will be lots of festive tunes being spun from the disco jockeys over at Get Hot Or Go Home!

Check out the Facebook page for more details!

I've been a friend of the lovely lady behind this event since this summer, having modelled with her at the Hotrod Hayride and been a chalet buddy with her this Rhythm Riot, so I'm super excited about seeing her again, as well as lots of other friends from all over the country who I haven't seen since the summer!

Hopefully, depending on trains and finding somewhere to crash, I will be dancing the night away at The Boom Boom Room after the event too! Cannae wait!

If you've liked this post, why not head over to my Facebook for more updates?

Christmas Tag!

Ria over at Wishing for Chanel was tagged to do this Christmas Tag by Amy at PaintPotted and she went and tagged me to do the same.

1. What's your favourite thing about Christmas?
Being home. Living so far from home it's so nice to come home, sit by the fire and drink lots of mulled wine surrounded by family and old friends.

2. What is your favourite make up look for the festive season?
It's got to be red lips, hasn't it? Or glitter? I love a bit (read as: a lot) of glitter at Christmas!

3. Real tree or fake tree?
I love the smell of real Christmas trees but they're just not practical any more. Maybe someone could invent a fake Christmas tree that smells like a real one?

4. Giving presents or receiving presents?
This year I've really enjoyed buying and wrapping my presents for people so I think it's got to be giving this year. Unless I receive, I don't know, a nice chap all wrapped up? Keep dreaming...

5. Do you open presents Christmas morning or eve/evening?
We used to do our Santa stockings in the morning, but now we're all grown up and St. Nick doesn't visit us we do our presents from under the tree in the early afternoon, just before Christmas lunch.

6. Handmade cards or bought?

Oh hand made cards are so lovely and if I was one of those women that had 32 hours in her day I would definitely make some of my own. But alas, I do not, and so I try and find the most unusual Christmas cards to send to loved ones (Pennychoo have the best selection!)

7. What is your favourite Christmas film?
Oh I have to many! I love Home Alone but I also love Meet Me In St. Louis - I can't decide!

8. What's your favourite Christmas food?
The cheese. My parents always have the most wonderful selection of cheese at Christmas - they're kinda famous for it amongst friends and family!

9. What's your favourite Christmas song?
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas by Judy Garland

10. What's your favourite Christmas memory?
Ooh this is a toughy! I would have to say either spending it in Pakistan with my cousins in 2007 or the Christmases I had as a young child when it was all still so magical.

That's it! My Christmas tag is done, and now it's your turn! Go on! Do it! Spread a little Christmas cheer! Don't be a Scrooge!

Dear Santa...

I think Christmas has been coming since mid October, but I haven't really given it much thought until recently - the mother's been nagging me to get a list to the family so I thought I should get it sorted. So, here is my little list of goodies that I hope to get in my stocking this festive season :)

Utility Jeans from Freddies of Pinewood

Glamour Girdle from What Katie Did

Gold Seamed Stockings from What Katie Did

Saddle Shoes from Rocket Originals

Naked Basics Palette by Urban Decay

And then to top it off I'd love tickets to three weekenders I really want to go:

Hotrod Hayride (obviously!)

The Rockabilly Rave

The Trip Out

That's my list, what's on your's?

I Hear Those Sleigh Bells Ring-A-Ling!

As I will be too busy stuffing my face full of scrumptious food tomorrow I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very



Merry Christmas!

I have already been to church like a good girl, eaten plates full of cheese, and watched countless movies! Tomorrow my grandparents will have all seven of their grandchildren at my parents' house, ranging in age from twenty (aka, me) to just seven months. Boxing Day will be spent at the annual Romsey Classic Car & Bike Meet and then eating the last of the food - although I bet you there will be much more left over!

Whatever you are doing I hope you have a very wonderful day! Eat, drink and be merry! God bless you all!

Christmas Pudding Muffins with Brandy Butter Icing

This recipe is courtesy of Rachel Allen

My family always have left over Christmas pudding so my mum wanted to find a recipe to use it up rather than chuck it out when it got a bit dry. She trawled through the net until she found this one and so I thought I'd share it with you guys :)

This recipe makes 6 muffins, although we found we had too much icing

Ingredients

For the Muffins:

• 1 egg
• 75ml milk
• 30g salted butter
• 2 tsp of sherry, whisky or brandy (We used brandy in our's)
• 125g of leftover Christmas Pudding
• 125g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder (not 1 tbsp like the original recipe said!)
• 1/2 tsp mixed spice
• 75g caster sugar

For the Butter Icing:

• 125g sifted icing sugar
• 50g salted butter, softened
• 1-2 tbsp sherry, whisky or brandy (We used brandy in our's to match what we'd put in the muffin mix)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350F, 180C or gas mark 4. Line the muffin tins with paper cases.
2. Whisk the egg in a bowl. Add the milk, melted butter and alcohol of choice.
3. Sift the flour, backing powder and mixed spice into another bowl. Add the caster sugar and mix well before adding the cut up leftover Christmas Pudding. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients.
4. Add the wet ingredients and mix well together until a soft batter forms.
5. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes.
6. Whilst allowing the muffins to cool prepare the butter icing. Mix together the icing sugar and the butter. Add enough alcohol, about 1 tbsp, to just soften the mixture and make it spreadable.
7. Once the muffins are cooled, spread the icing on top and serve.

They are so yummy! Here's a picture of our's:

Christmas Time, Pickled Eggs and Ale!

Christmas has come and gone - it never has the same spark as when you were a child, does it? Oh well! I received some lovely things, gave some gorgeous gifts and drank way too much. You know it's the festive period when you don't go a day without a copious amount of alcohol!

I wanted to share with you what I had brought my family before Christmas, but you never know who's reading...So I'll share now!

For my mum I bought her a vintage handbag from Geek Vintage who have their shop just down the road from where I live in Liverpool; sadly I have no pictures of the bag as I left my camera at uni! Dong! For my dad I got him a cheerful t-shirt, which of course his best friend Mark had to get as well! I swear those two plan their wardrobes for when we go away! Kinda freaky really...For both the parents, my sister and I got them some Flying Ducks from Notorious Kitsch which will look splendid in their new kitchen whenever it gets done, aha! For my sister, I said I wouldn't get her much but she really needed a new web cam so she got one of those, and also a brilliant hat from Topshop which has ears when you wear it! I thought it was a bit different from the other bear beanies you see around, and so far she hasn't taken it off, along with her onesie haha!

As for my I got a lovely new pair of Freddie's of Pinewood dungarees to go with the top Chloe bought me from them as well. I love Freddie's jeans and judging by the women of the rockabilly community they are the best 1940s style jeans around. I have a pair of their jeans already and they are a must for when I go to shows, but I have always admired their dungarees. The trouble is that being 6' tall with long legs, dungarees never seem to sit right with me, but this isn't a problem with my Freddie's pair!

Me in my Freddie's jeans, photo courtesy of Steve Biddlecombe Photography



What else did I get? Well of course I got my annual restock of Soap & Glory products which was previously running dangerously low; this year I received a tub of 'Righteous Butter' moisturiser, 'Scrub Your Nose In It' facial exfoliating mask,  'Off Your Face' facial wipes, and 'Hand Food' hand cream all from my aunt who had cleverly done a lucky dip of twelve products for me, my sister and my mum to share out, and also 'a Butter Suite' which is a selection of Soap & Glory's best body butters. This reminds me that I need to do a review for the selection of Soap & Glory products that I own!

As for the Christmas period itself it's been none stop visiting and being visited, but having been away from home so long its great to see everyone again! On Christmas Eve I spent the afternoon watching ITV's pantomime's with my cousins, eating plenty of food with mum's side of the family and finally going to sleep past midnight after watching the tradition that is Gavin & Stacey: The Christmas Special. Christmas Day went unbelievably fast with my grandparents (from dad's side) staying at our house. Boxing Day was supposed to start by going to Steve Biddlecombe's annual meet up at Romsey for the car owners (which I heard raised an amazing £1,100 for Prostate Cancer Charity), but dad's car froze over so that was out of the question. Instead we went to dad's youngest brother's house where I ate pickled eggs and drank plenty of ale. Oh so feminine! My godparents came over that evening and yes, you guessed it, we ate some more! How the fridge is still full of Christmas food I'll never know!

So that's it, that was my Christmas! I have one and a half days left of 2010, what shall I do with it? Hmmm...

See you then!

So this is Christmas...

Woah! I have not written a blog in what, nearly a month? Maybe more? Shocking! I have the regular excuses of a busy schedule and plainly nothing exciting to write about.

So what has happened? Well my first semester at university is over and what a trip it has been! Okay so the uni experience isn't as wild as I thought, riddled with sex and drugs, but it certainly is an experience. I've met so many new people that when I came home I immediately missed them and felt like I was leading two lives. I think it's because you live with these people 24/7 that you feel like you've known them forever and they become such an important part of your life. There was one weekend where there was no one on my floor, so what did I do? What does any student supposedly do? That's right, get steaming drunk and do stupid stuff like proclaiming love in a chip shop!





Rosie, Me, Rachel, Anna



As you may have noticed from that picture...my hair is brown! The verdict is still out for the colour really, some people telling me they love it, other's begging me to go back to blonde. So, hmmm, who knows really? I think I'll be blonde again in the summer though.

What else to tell you about? Well I'm trying to get my hair accessories business up and going (HannaLuLu Hair Accessories) and I have all my stock, one stockist at The Vintage Hair Lounge, but really need to get a good logo going so I can have a stall at a few vintage fairs maybe, and some sort of selling website thing.

So this is Christmas at last! In fact I'm typing this opening my advent calender, eating a mince pie and listening to 'Fairytale of New York' (Ahhh the festive line "You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap, lousy faggot!" is so loving).

Hopefully you'll hear from me in the next couple of days with an update of pressies, over eating and general good tidings!