Cocktails & Canapes for Women's World Cup 2015: Germany

Tonight's featured game is Thailand vs Germany and Germany is the chosen theme. I'm cheating a little with my choice of cocktail and canape mind. The Cocktail will be a Zombie, and the only connection I can give you is that I had my first Zombie cocktail a couple of years ago in Berlin. It was quite memorable not only for being rather strong but for the rather eccentric bar lady that served us and made the evening even more entertaining.

 I'm serving this with some German cold meats and a plate of saute potatoes accompanied by quark cheese and chives.

While in Alsace many years ago at a restaurant called Chez Yvonne I had an amazing plate of saute potatoes served with 'white cheese' and sprinkles of chives and finely chopped onion/garlic. I cannot cook saute potatoes anything like as gorgeous as theirs but I doubt I am starting with as good quality potatoes. England may have a long history of eating meat and potatoes but the quality of the potatoes for sale in this country is pretty dire. They seem to have so little flavour and all to quickly fall apart.

The combination of fried potatoes and low fat white cheese is rather good and I could consume a huge amount of this; and that might be a good idea when downing Zombies as you need something to slow down the alcohol absorption.

The Zombie is a bit of a kitchen sink cocktail all be it heavy on rum. Recipes seem to vary with how many 'extras' are added but the base always seems to be white rum, golden rum, dark rum and overproof rum. The juice is most commonly orange, pineapple and lime and quite a few recipes include grenadine.

This is the Zombie mix I used:
22 ml Bacardi
22ml dark rum
22 ml golden rum
15 ml apricot brandy
15 ml Grand Marnier
75 ml freshly squeezed orange juice
75 ml pineapple juice
30 ml freshly squeezed lime juice
15 ml grenadine/pomegranate syrup
15 ml overproof rum

Shake over ice and serve with a fruit garnish in a Hurricane glass (if you have one!)