When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. There is nothing better on a hot day than a cool tangy glass of lemonade. But I refuse to buy the ever so popular blue lemonade that is sold on the streets of Korea. I don’t know why but it really annoys me for some reason, what’s wrong with yellow I ask you? However a life without lemonade is not worth living, so I figured it was about time I made my own, sans food coloring.

Ingredients

2 cups of sugar

2 cups of water

7 lemons juiced and zested

1 lemon cut up for decoration

A few sprigs of mint

Directions

1. Zest and juice 7 of the lemons into separate bowls.  In a saucepan put the sugar, water, and zest and bring to the boil on a low heat, stirring occasionally until the sugar has dissolved. As soon as it starts to boil you can turn off the heat.

2. Mix the lemon juice with the syrup and allow to cool. You can now strain the syrup if you want to remove the zest and store in a bottle in a fridge. It should keep for at least a week.

3. To make the lemonade, mix the syrup with water in equal ratios, although feel free to add more water if it’s too strong for you. Serve over ice and garnish with slices of lemon and sprigs of mint.

4. For a twist you can make this fruity strawberry and watermelon version, which you can add rum or vodka to after a hard day at work. Blend a handful of strawberries and a wedge of watermelon with a shot of lemonade syrup and a shot of sparkling water (or vodka). Then serve over ice and enjoy. Voilà, Fat Girl’s traditional lemonade.

If you like pina coladas, getting caught in the rain. I do indeed. Which is why when I received a box of coconut water from the fab people at Pure, one of my first thoughts was a Pina colada smoothie. I whipped this one up this morning in about 5 minutes and was instantly transported to a desert island delightfulness. Plus I had the pina colada song stuck in my head all day and that always makes me smile. If this is a weekend morning drink then feel free to throw in some rum too.

Ingredients 

330ml of coconut water

2 bananas

2 rings of pineapple

1 tablespoon of chia seeds (i-Herb)

Directions

1. Soak the chia seeds in about 50ml of the coconut water. After about five minutes they should become gel like and a little like frog spawn. But don’t be scared, that’s their magic power. You could also just throw them into the smoothie but it wont be quite as thick.

2. Put the bananas, pineapple, chia seeds and coconut water into the blender and blend. Serve over ice. You should get 2 large smoothies out of this.

OK, so it’s happened, since the opening of Flower Gin, I have become a bit of a Gin slag. I’ve had more gin in the past 2 weeks than I have had in a lifetime. When having a browse of some gin based cocktails I came across Heston Blumenthal’s cucumber infused gin. I wanted it immediately, so I rushed right out to buy all the ingredients. Heston used his own lovely Waitrose earl grey gin to make it, but sadly we can’t buy it here. I would have used a bottle of Bombay Sapphire or some lovely Hendrick’s but it’s still 5 days until pay day so I used a bottom of the barrel bottle of cheap Combo gin. After a little more research though, I found this could be a plus as the cucumber will have more of a presence due to the lack of flavour the gin has. After consuming copious amounts, I can say without  a shadow of a doubt that cheap gin is the way forward, it was bloody gorgeous and as soon as I finish this bottle I shall be making another. Happy Ginning!

Ingredients

1 bottle of gin

3 cucumbers

Directions

Peel your cucumbers then roughly chop them. Put them into a jug with the gin and blend them until pulverized. Cover and refrigerate for about 24 hours. When the gin has infused strain off the cucumber though a sieve.

To make the gin and tonic, fill a tall glass with ice. you may notice from my picture that my ice cubes are nice and fancy. I chopped up some pieces of lemon and cucumber and form them into the ice cubes to make them extra pretty. Top with 50ml of gin and 150ml-200ml of tonic. Serve with a wedge of lemon and enjoy. Voilà cucumber infused gin!

Flower Gin is an awesome new bar in my area that unsurprisingly, sells flowers and gin. Now we all know that fat girl is a lover of vodka, but I don’t mind having a gin or two once in a while. I was a thrilled about this lovely new bar because my best friend Matt (gin connoisseur and out and out  lush) is absolutely mad for Hendricks gin. It’s always been his fave so we were very excited to go and have a couple of cocktails.

Although the bar is small, there were already a few people inside. You can get your cocktails to stay or to go. The gin and tonic (6,600) comes with a slice of cucumber, just like it should .There is also a small flower in every glass, what could be more perfect?

I had the gin and ginger (6,900) , which is a little bit milder than the tonic. It was served with lemon, cucumber ,and a flower and was absolutely divine.

They even have the famed Hendricks teacups and teapots, although they are just used for display. You can even pick up a bunch of flowers while you are here. There are also two adorable patio chairs outside as a little smoking area.

Flower Gin is located in Kyungnidan at 684 Itaewon-dong, Yongsan -Gu, Seoul. To get there come out of Noksapyeong station (line 6) exit 2 and walk straight down past the entrance leading to Hae bang chon and go over the pedestrian bridge  above the road. You will see Flower Gin as you exit the left hand set of stairs on the other side.

This weekend I shall be celebrating my 19th  29th birthday. My first thought was to have a good old cry about the fact that I shall no longer be young and hot and that all my party days are behind me. However, I decided that instead I should celebrate the last year of my twenties by getting really drunk and having as much fun as possible. Enter the strawberry lemonade. It’s so good I have decided it shall be my signature party cocktail. It tastes just heavenly without being too sweet and it’s just perfect now the sunshine is well and truly out. I made mine with fresh strawberries since they are in season but you can always make it with frozen ones in the winter months to come.

Ingredients

250ml of Absolute citron

500g of Strawberries

6 tablespoons of Country Time lemonade powder (foreign food market/homeplus)

1 litre of Sprite

Ice

Sliced lemon and strawberries

Directions

Put the strawberries, vodka, and lemonade powder in a blender and blend until smooth. Top up with the sprite and stir. Serve over ice with a wedge or two of lemon. Drink until all birthday blues have been banished, but stop before you have difficulty standing up or have vomited all over your new dress. Happy birthday to me!

Anyone that knows me well, or has at least met me in a drunken haze in the pub, knows how much I love a June Bug. So what better post to bring you in honour of St Patrick’s Day than this green goddess of a drink. Sweet and tasty just like me, no one can resist its lime green charm.

Ingredients

50ml of midori

50ml of malibu

25ml of babana liquor

150ml of pinaplle juice

A squeeze of lemon juice (and a wedge for decoration)

Directions 

This makes 2 drinks or one Fat Girl sized one. Put the Midori, Malibu, Banana liquor, pineapple juice, and lemon juice in a cocktail shaker and shake. Pour into a tall glass filled with ice and top with a wedge of lemon. Voilà the perfect St Patrick’s Day themed beverage. Beats green beer any day of the week . Happy hangovers everyone!

I love frappuccinos!. I think you all know about my penchant for vodoffee by now. Which is Vodka added to a frappuccino. But I also enjoy the regular kind. I could drink two of these babies a day, possibly even more. However, allowing myself to get so fat that I would be unable to leave the house would be somewhat restrictive on my life. So I limit myself to one a week. Sometimes two if I have been a very good girl.

These amazingly delicious drinks, along with being calorie filled are also rather expensive. If I was in the habit of having one daily then it would be a very costly affair. I tried making my own at home but despite my wealth of ingredients they just didn’t come out quite right. Luckily for you I have now found the secret ingredient! You add a pinch of xanthan gum which stops the milk and ice separating . This recipe is for my favourite flavour mocha, but play around with flavoured syrups to make different versions. If you use syrup then you can remove the sugar.

Ingredients

A double  shot of espresso (you can also use 2 teaspoons of instant dissolved in a little hot water)

200ml of milk

8-10 ice cubes

1 tablespoon of cocoa powder

2-3 tablespoons of sugar (you could also do sweetener)

A pinch of xanthan gum (buy it on iHERB about $5)

Whipped cream (optional)

Directions

Make the espresso and pour it into your blender. Top with the  ice, milk, cocoa powder, sugar  and xanthan gum. Blend for about 30 seconds or until all the ice has been crushed. Pour the mixture back into your recycled  plastic cup and top with cream if desired. Then go about your day with your super cool and homemade frappuccino.

I think most of you know I enjoy a cheeky morning drink on a weekend morning. There’s nothing like a good old breakfast cocktail to get your weekend started. I am obviously a big fan of the Bloody Mary and also the Vodoffee, my own invention. However sometimes I like something a bit fruity. We all know that its important to get our five portions of fruit and veg a day,  raging alcoholism is no excuse for bad nutrition! So I came up with this fruity delight. You may also drink it at any other time of the day.

Ingredients

50ml Absolut Grapevine (you may substitute with any other fruit infused vodka)

100ml pineapple juice.

frozen raspberries

frozen mango

Directions

Put all of the ingredients into a blender and blend until all the fruit has been pulverized. Pour into a glass and serve. Voilà the perfect way to start your morning right. Warning not recommended on weekday mornings unless you are trying to get fired.

It’s the saturday before halloween and that can only mean one thing, a halloween themed cocktails. I decided I had to go for a blood colored delight. As you may or may not know I am a huge fan of any occasion where I get to dress up and make themed food and drinks. So with that in mind I present to you my blood lust cocktail, not just for vampires.

Ingredients 

50ml Raspberry Absolute

100ml ginger ale

6 strawberries (frozen)

A teaspoon of sugar

A couple drops of red food coloring

Directions

Blend the vodka, sugar and strawberries together in the blender, add the red food coloring if you want the drink to look more blood like. Pour into tumbler and top with the ginger ale. Serve and enjoy, repeat if necessary.

There are tons of recipes out there for skittles vodka, so I decided to try skittles soju! Soju is crazy cheap here in Korea so it just makes sense to use it instead. I have to confess that my previous experience with skittles vodka was not all successful. My housemates and I threw a couple of  bags of skittles into a bottle of vodka and downed it. We went to a houseparty but ten minutes later I suddenly started to feel very sick and spent the remainder of the night throwing up outside in the bushes. I knew it was time to leave when one of my housemates was carried home over the shoulder of a random man. But don’t let my tomfoolery put you off making this delightful drink. I’m convinced our problem lay in not separating the skittles into individual colors.

Ingredients

5 bags of skittles

5 empty bottles

5 bottles of soju

Directions

Separate the skittles into their different colors then put each color in a different bottle.

Top with soju  and leave for 12-24 hours, shaking every now and then.

When the skittles have dissolved they will leave a white kind of scum at the top. You can remove this by pouring the soju through a coffee filter. Refrigerate and serve. Voilà a kickass rainbow themed party drink.