Freshly Pressed Focus — Cocktail Hour: Apples to Apples

Today we are featuring “Cocktail Hour: Apples to Apples” on the homepage of WordPress.com, from the blog Shallot’s Web. What makes this post worthy of such fame and fortune?

First, ’tis the season for apples, at least in the Northern hemisphere. Farmer’s markets, grocery stores and roadside stands are brimming with barrels of apples for sale. So, lots of people are wondering what they can make with all those apples. And this recipe from Shallot’s Web is not your ordinary apple pie or apple sauce recipe, this one is putting a great spin on a cocktail, just in time for the weekend. So the post is timely in two ways — it’s apple season, and the weekend is approaching. The post was written on Monday, but we waited until today to feature it, just for that reason.

Instead of just slapping up a recipe, and nothing else, the blog’s author has taken the time to include photos – so anyone who wants to give this recipe a shot has an idea of what the finished product should look like, *and* the author explains why they wanted to try this recipe. They were tired of fake-tasting, toxic-green “apple-tinis” that somehow neither really taste nor smell like fresh apples. So they made their own unique recipe. Awesome! It’s easy to use someone else’s recipe and blog about it, but it takes true passion to invent a new recipe too. Kudos to Shallot’s Web and keep creating — you’ve got our attention.

I admit that I’ve tried a few “apple-tinis.” You know, those unnaturally green cocktails made with artificially flavored sour apple schnapps and vodka, garnished with a maraschino cherry?  Any time I’ve tried one, I’ve always thought, “why am I not just eating a sour apple Jolly Rancher candy instead?”  I didn’t set out to make a better, more natural version of this cocktail, but I think I ended up doing so. When the weather turns chilly in late … Read More

via Shallots Web