Souther Comfort, Lemonade and Lime

It takes a lot to nudge Pimms and Lemonade from our favourite BBQ Drink spot but we think we may have found an even better tasting rival. Step forward Southern Comfort, Lemonade and Lime!

Available for just £5 for 4 cans I will admit that after initial scepticism (I am a SoCo and Coke Man after all) I could have (sensibly) drank this for ever!

We had ours at nearly ice cold temperature and my one regret was that we only bought 4 for testing purposes!

The reason it nudges Pimms off the top spot for my favourite summer drink of 2009 is because it is not only refreshing, but is also not so sickly sweet that you find yourself pulling those funny faces.

Here is the write up from the lovely people Southern Comfort…

“With 35ml Southern Comfort, the sparkle of lemonade and a zing of lime, Southern Comfort, Lemonade & Lime gives you a taste of New Orleans, anytime and anywhere, and is perfect accompaniment to alfresco fun. Whether a summer BBQ with friends, lunch in the park, a festival or a house party, Southern Comfort, Lemonade & Lime adds a touch of New Orleans, crammed into a streamlined can”

Southern Comfort, Lemonade and lime is available from the likes of Threshers, Sainsbury’s and Tesco at the introductory price of £5 for 4 until 18th August. Oh yeah, and if you just want one can, it will only set you back £1.59.

Have you tried the new Southern Comfort, Lemonade and Lime? If so, why not tell us what you thought in the comments section below?

Popularity: unranked [?]

Best Sparkling Wine BBQ Drink

Following on from the post about the drinks which we feel are the best BBQ drinks out there, I wanted to do a further breakdown of which drinks from each category we felt were our Top 5 and today’s blog is about Sparkling Wines and Champagne.

Once again, all of our drinks came from Majestic Wines and were either recommendations from the entire iLoveMyBBQ.com team (apart from Clim Tim, he is a purely Beer man!) or from the great team at Majestic.

I feel I should point out that the obvious thing would be to put the champagnes at the top of the list and they usually would be but we were looking for a combination of affordability and being able to get through a good few bottles without needing a second mortgage

Our Top 5 Sparkling Wines or Champagne for a BBQ (or Barbecue) are as follows:

1. Prosecco Frizzante II Cortigiano NV Veneto – £5.99 – A super affordable, very dry, fizzy Italian wine. The bottle may not look as elegant as some of its rivals but the taste was a winner with everyone and is best served with some pressed strawberry.
2. Cava Calamino NV – £7.99 or £4.99 when you buy 2 or more – A Spanish Cava that is again very reasonably priced and which really surprised me as I am not normally a big fan of Cava. The best BBQ Drink to accompany tough meats like steak and pork and Clim Claire especially liked it (say no more!).
3. Lindauer Brut NV – £9.99 or £7.49 when you but 2 or more -  One sip and you can see why this is one of the most saught after Sparkling Wines from New Zealand. We felt it was maybe a bit pricey compared to the taste of the less expensive rivals but loved it all the same.
4. Taittinger Brut Reserve NV – £39.99 or £23.99 when buying 2 or more – The Grand Daddy of Champagne and you can taste why. Granny BS’s favourite and it went down an absolute storm during the testing. The other great thing about Taittinger, or any of the other great Champagnes for that matter, is that if you stick to just drinking Champagne then you don’t suffer from a hangover! Apparently. A brilliant drink an would be top if it was not so darned expensive!
5. Heidsieck Gold Top Vintage – £33.99 or £16.99 when you buy two or more – My personal favourite and it just beats Veuve Cliquet to the 5th place spot. A nice crisp, dry Champagne that flowed a bit too easily during testing. Best of all, if you get a few bottles it won’t break the bank and is a nice treat if celebrating a special occasion.

Now, if you want to party like P.Diddy and Fiddy Cent then you need some of this: Louis Roederer Cristal Vintage Champagne – at £200 a bottle it is certainly on the more expensive side!!!

Hope you liked our Best BBQ Sparkling Wine and Champagne Drinks Research, we enjoyed doing it!

Popularity: unranked [?]

Pressed Strawberry with Fizzy Wine - Best BBQ Drink

For some time now I have been meaning to write up the results of last years ultimate BBQ drinks research. Yes, hard work I know, but someone has to do these things and we at iLoveMyBBQ.com are all very well qualified!

I should point out that we split the test into BBQ Drinks categories which were beers/lagers and ales, white wine, rose wine, fizzy wine and “others” and then chose an overall Best BBQ drinks winner. In this post I am just going to go over the overall winners.

Oh yeah, we also added our own things to make up some BBQ Drinks Recipes.

To make life a bit easier we got all of our drinks for the testing from Majestic Wines (a great place and very knowledgeable team of people as well).

We also carried out the testing over the entire summer of 2008 (would have been a long and messy event if it was done over just one weekend!).

Anyhow, the list of winners for each category will follow, but before I get onto that, the formal winner (or should I say winners) of the iLoveMyBBQ best drinks of 2008 was a really close call between traditional Pimms and Sparkling Wine with Pressed Strawberry’s in. It was such a close call we decided to name them both as winners.

iLoveMyBBQ.com 2008 Best BBQ Drinks are as follows:

Overall favourites:

Traditional Pimms

Best served with all the usual garnish that makes this drink such a big summer favourite at every Barbecue we have! Just grab yourself a big jug and put just under one quarter Pimms to 3/4 Lemonade and you are halfway there. Cram in a load of ice, some sliced apple, orange, lemon and cucumber hey presto you are ready – ps, some liked it better with a bit of mint in as well.

A great BBQ drink which everyone unanimously liked.

Sparkling Wine with Pressed Strawberry’s

Chillax during your BBQ drink testing!

First up, the Sparkling Wine we chose as the winner was probably the cheapest on offer at Majestic but it certainly tasted much more superior than the likes of the Hardy’s, Jacobs Creek and Montana Sparkling Wines that we also tried. We all loved the Prosecco Frizzante II Cortigiano NV Veneto that costs just £5.99 a bottle. To give it the extra twist, and why it achieved the top spot you need to add some Straweberrys. You don’t need to do anything to them other than cut them in half and drop them in your chilled sparkling wine.

Once in, press the strawberry against the side of the glass and the juices will turn the drink a very light shade of pink.

A wonderful drink, and perfect to relax with when get jiggy with your grilling!

Popularity: unranked [?]