Shirley Temples and Shirley Temple-Blacks

As we all remember from our childhood Shirley Temples are a the perfect cocktail to make children feel all grown up and part of the party especially around the holidays.

Recently, I had friends over for dinner and drinks. They were bringing their adorable 3 year-old with them so I thought I would make him a Shirley Temple. As it turns out, 3 is still too young to understand the joy that is a Fake Cocktail. Now that I think back to it, I mostly loved Shirley Temples from around age 7-11.

However, it turned out to be a hit cocktail at dinner anyway, because we made Shirley Temple-Blacks. (Black was Shirley's married name). Shirley Temple-Blacks are the same great faux cocktail you remember from your pre-teens spiked with vodka! My friend Jessie told me about spiking Shirley's months ago but this was the first time I tried it. (BTW Jessie has a great blog about crafting etc. check it out at: chartreuseluna.wordpress.com)

There are several different versions of Shirley Temples out there. For a brief history check out the wikipedia entry on the drink.

I fussed around for about a week and find the recipe below to be the recipe that worked for me.

Shirley Temple

8 oz. Ginger Ale
1 splash Grenadine
Garnished with a twist of an orange and a maraschino cherry

Serve over ice

I found that if you squeeze the twist of Orange in the drink before using it as garnish it gave it a nice citrus flavor. Some recipes call for adding O.J. or up to an ounce of grenadine, I found this to make the drink to heavy and syrupy. I remember a Shirley Temple being light and bubbly so add the juice or extra grenadine at your own risk.

Shirley Temple-Black

Same recipe as above just add Vodka to taste!

This Holiday if you're having adults and children over to your party add a Fake Cocktail to your menu for the Cocktail Moms in training.