Comfort Cocktail Hour: Gin & Tonic + Green Olive Tapenade
Everyone’s got their favorite comfort foods. I also have my favorite comfort cocktail snacks. As Covid keeps us confined or you just want to stay indoors because it’s winter weather out there, I’m sharing some of my favorite comfort cocktail snack combos. I like to keep my pairings to items I either already have – or easily could – in my fridge and cupboards.
Gin & Tonic + Green Olive Tapenade
Olives and gin play nicely together in general and the saltiness of the tapenade works well with the tonic. I usually use whatever gin I have on hand, but this pairing works especially well if you use a gin with Mediterranean notes, like Gin Mare.
Gin & Tonic
60 ml gin*
Tonic water (approximately 100 ml)
Lemon slice for garnish
Put the gin in a tall glass
Add lots of ice
Top with tonic water
Tapenade/Green Olive Spread Recipe
Like most of my comfort cocktail hour pairings I keep the work on this to a minimum. The easiest way is to have a few jars of nice tapenade in the pantry. Otherwise, I usually have the necessary on hand to blend up this green olive spread, which I guess technically isn’t tapenade as there are no anchovies or capers, but it is tasty:
Green Olive Spread (faux tapenade)
1 cup/180 grams pitted green olives
2 tbsp cream cheese*
4 tbsp grated parmesan
handful skinless almonds
splash olive oil
Add all ingredients to blender and mix until it is the consistency you like (as long as it’s spreadable anothing from smooth to chunky works)
*I use the St Moret that come in the little individual serving sizes and use 2 of those, but any creamy cheese will work
