Wine Wednesday | Radiant Orchid Granita

July 16, 2014

Happy #WineWednesday! You know those projects that come across your desk and you just cringe at the thought of having to tackle them? This one was it for me. I honestly can not remember being so stuck creatively – ever. When Pantone announced its color of the year for 2014, a part of me died inside. To go from Emerald Green (hello, best color EVER), to a bright purple hue inspired by my least favorite flower on the planet, seriously bummed me out. Fast forward a few weeks into 2014 and our PR firm was asking for us to whip up some sort of Radiant Orchid concoction. WHY.

I spent forever trying to figure out a way to make this happen. I knew whatever wine we used needed to be virtually colorless (Sparkling) and that there needed to be some sort of mixer that was a borderline unnatural shade of purple to make the entire look come together. I can’t say I’ve ever tested, tried and mixed so many ingredients in my life to make it happen, but it finally worked and I was floored with the results. Of course the primary ingredient ended up being one simple, pretty natural thing – Blueberry Lemonade. Seriously? After all of that?!

You know how they say your greatest challenges often wind up being your biggest rewards? This one was it. I could not be happier with how it turned out. Thank you, amazing PR firm for challenging me to think outside of the box… you girls absolutely rock 🙂

Check out a few of my favorite outtakes from the shoot and the full recipe below. Cheers!!!

Prep: 5 minutes
Total time: 3-6 hours

Serves: 8-10 (depending on glass size)

Ingredients
1 (750ml) bottle of ONEHOPE Sparkling Wine
1 liter blueberry lemonade

Directions
1) Pour blueberry lemonade into an 8″ x 8″ glass baking dish and freeze for 1-2 hours.
2) Carefully remove freezing lemonade from freezer. Using a fork, scrape the mixture until the consistency is slushy throughout (lemonade will be more frozen toward the outside edges of the dish when you start).
3) Put the mixture back in the freezer for 1-2 hours and repeat two more times. Scraping the mixture prevents it from freezing into a solid brick of ice and maintains the slushy, icy consistency that is so delicious about a granita 🙂
4) Scoop granita mixture into glasses (we used champagne coups) and top with ONEHOPE Sparkling wine. Cheers!

Blair Bear Turns ONE!

June 30, 2014

Happy, happy Monday! I hope you had a lovely weekend and are ready for the short 4th of July week we have ahead! Woohoo!

S0… I’ve been dying to share this party! It’s as cute as can be and was featured on Style Me Pretty Living – pinch me! The last time I posted, I ran through the steps to create your own tissue paper fringe backdrop that we used for Blair Bear’s Birthday Bash. It’s one of my favorite DIY’s to date so if you haven’t checked it out yet, head on over here to see 🙂 Our EVP of Sales at ONEHOPE is a dear friend (you might remember her from here) and just over a year ago, she welcomed the cutest little girl into the world. Blair seriously has the absolute biggest personality and I could not wait to help her momma out with her first birthday party. Tiffany found a Panda Bear print that she loved at the Land of Nod, so we used that for inspiration for the color palate (mint, coral, pink, gold and white) and went from there. AND, since it happened to be around the same time we were launching our ONEHOPE Mimosa Bar, we decided to use it that day for the adults and set up an almost identical version (minus the bubbly of course) for the little ones. We created the tissue paper fringe backdrop for the Mimosa Bar and a fun tissue paper pouf version for the juice bar 🙂 In all, we had so much fun putting this together and not a single detail was overlooked. Check it out and view all of the vendors at the end! Xo

PS: The Mimosa Bar + Bubbly for the party provided over 50 meals to children fighting hunger. Cheers to that!

{The happy family! Yay to turning ONE!}

{The ONEHOPE Mimosa Bar in use with our hand crafted tissue paper fringe backdrop}

{Every case of ONEHOPE’s Sparkling wine provides 25 meals to children fighting hunger – so perfect for the adults to enjoy during a kid’s party}

{Guests mixed and muddled their own mimosas with fruits and juices they loved}

{BFF mommas with their BFF babes}

{Florals were a mixture of peach garden roses, bright pink ranunculus and tulips, and dusty miller}

{The juice and snack bar area was a replica of the adult’s Mimosa Bar (minus the champagne). Kids were able to mix their own fruit juices and grab their favorite sweets and snacks}

{Twelve months of Blair Bear!}

{YAY! You’re ONE!!!}

{Oh so thirsty! Birthdays are hard work :-)}

{The girls behind the scenes – Me, Beth, Tiffany and Sabrina}

Vendors/Sources

Mimosa Bar – ONEHOPE Wine

Sparkling – ONEHOPE Wine

Event Design and Florals –

Invitations – Five Two Eight

Photography – Kylie Chevalier

Desserts – Take Two Etc.

Tissue Paper for fringe, garlands and poms – Koyal

Lanterns – Koyal

Linens – La Tavola

A Sangria Summer

June 17, 2014

One of my biggest jobs for ONEHOPE in addition to overseeing all of our Art Direction is Product Development. Long story short, my job is a lot of trend spotting and then creating gift packages and products that are beautifully crafted, unique, super high quality and that give back to a wide range of causes. After seeing the Mimosa Bar concept pop up a few times on the internet, I reached out to Bri Emery over at Design Love Fest to see if she would be interested in collaborating on a Mimosa Bar for one of her many ridiculously amazing floral workshops and she took us up on the offer. We put together this mimosa bar and once the pictures hit the web, our set-up became the #1 pinned mimosa bar on the internet almost instantaneously in addition to garnering a few thousand likes within a matter of an hour. I knew we had caught on to something. After a bunch of sourcing, back and forth with our operations team, mind numbing numbers conversations (I’m a creative person, y’all!), and maybe a few tears, we finally launched our Mimosa Bar in April and officially became the first wine company to offer such a full service (and amazing!!!) package.

Fast forward to late April and while brainstorming fun ideas for Cinco de Mayo and summer, it hit me. Why not use the Mimosa Bar as a Sangria Bar?! I LOVE me some summer sangria and is there anything better in the summer? Additionally, what a cool way to reuse all of the juice carafes and bowls that already come with the Mimosa Bar! A day or so later, we mixed up a bunch of different sangria recipes (that I’ve been sharing here) and shot our “Sangria Bar” as something fun for summer entertaining.

I figured if you’re a sangria junkie like me, it might be easiest to house everything in one place so they’re easy to find 🙂 All of the recipe links are below! Cheers to kicking off summer the right way! Xo

Blood Orange Sangria

Guava + Sage Sangria

Blackberry Orange Sangria

Grapefruit Sangria

White Peach Sangria

Tropical Sangria

June 16, 2014

When putting together our “Sangria Summer” for work, I was having serious wanderlust for Hawaii and was ready to consume anything that satisfied my Oahu nostalgia in the slightest. The fruit on the Hawaiian islands is insane and I can’t say I’ve had so much pineapple, mango and papaya in my life as I did that week we were away. I decided to throw this one together from scratch using all of my favorite tropical fruits and it was one of our team’s top picks of the week. Aside from being just so darn pretty, it was SO delicious and I can’t wait to make it again soon. Perfect for the hottest months of the year or anytime you’re just needing a mental tropical vacation… if even for a few moments 🙂 Cheers!

Ingredients

1 bottle of ONEHOPE Sauvignon Blanc
1/2 cup guava juice
1/4 cup orange juice
1 cup pineapple (cut into 1″ wedges)
orange slices
blood orange slices (optional)
mango slices
passion fruit (seeds and juice from 1 passion fruit)

*consider additional fruit for garnishing before serving

Directions

1) Combine all ingredients in one of your sangria bar carafes and seal tightly. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours.

2) Fill glasses with crushed ice and garnish with fresh blood orange, pineapple and mango if desired.

Yield: 4-6 servings

White Peach Sangria

June 14, 2014

If there is anything in the entire world that I love about summer, it’s peaches. Growing up, my grandma and grandpa who had retired and moved to Florida, would move to Michigan for the summer to watch my cousin Mike and I during the day while our parents were at work. Since my aunt and uncle had a larger home on the lake, my grandparents would live there and my mom would drop me off every morning to spend my days running through sprinklers, swimming in the lake or having water balloon fights with the neighborhood kids. I remember my grandma always buying peaches and she would heat them up for just a few seconds before putting them over vanilla ice cream. The combination was so simple and heavenly and is one of my favorite memories from growing up.

When searching for sangria recipes for the summer, I knew we needed to include one with peaches and this was it! The quintessential summer sangria! Cheers!

PS: If I were to make this again, I would probably omit the apples and the lime to bring out more of that peachy flavor, but that’s just my two cents 🙂 Xo

Ingredients

1 bottle of ONEHOPE Sauvignon Blanc
1 bottle ONEHOPE Sparkling Wine (optional topper just before serving)
1/4 cup Grand Marnier
1 cup raspberries
lime slices (1/2 lime)
orange slices (1/2 large navel orange)
2 ripe peaches (cut into wedges)
2 apples (seeded and cut into slices)
orange juice (from 2nd half of large navel orange or ~1/4 cup)

*Consider extra fruit for garnishing glasses if desired

Directions

1) Combine all ingredients in one of your sangria bar carafes and cover tightly. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours.

2) Fill glasses with crushed ice and garnish with fresh orange slices, raspberries, and peaches. Top with sparkling before serving (if desired).

Yield: 4-6 servings

Recipe adapted from: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/white-sangria-recipe.html

Grapefruit Sangria

June 11, 2014

Happy #WineWednesday!!! I can’t believe the week is halfway over already! Last weekend was complete perfection (you can see it all documented on Insta), but there is SO much to get done before our big catalog shoot at work next week. Cue the anxiety! I will definitely be enjoying a glass of wine tonight to calm the nerves 🙂

Today I’m sharing the Grapefruit Sangria recipe I created/shot for work last month. I was really on the hunt for some unique sangria options and wanted to throw a little grapefruit in there to mix things up a bit. Grapefruit is something I do not get enough of and I realized that with the grapefruity presence in our Sauvignon Blanc (as well as it making mean mimosa!), it would be the perfect fit for a super citrusy sangria.

Ingredients

1 bottle of ONEHOPE Sauvignon Blanc
1 bottle of ONEHOPE Sparkling Wine (optional topper just before serving)
grapefruit slices (from 1 small grapefruit)
3/4 cup sliced ripe strawberries
lime slices (1/2 lime)
orange slices (1 small orange)
3/4 cup pink grapefruit juice
1/4 cup simple syrup, more if desired

Directions

1) Combine all ingredients in one of your sangria bar carafes and cover tightly. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 24 hours.

2) Fill glasses with crushed ice and garnish with fresh grapefruit, strawberries and orange slices. Top with sparkling before serving (if desired).

Yield: 4-6 servings

Recipe adapted from: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/strawberry-pink-grapefruit-rose-sangria-recipe.html

Blackberry Orange Sangria

June 10, 2014

To continue on our ‘Sangria Week’ as we gear up for summer, the next sangria recipe on this list is a Blackberry Orange Sangria that is absolute perfection. I had a really hard time picking a favorite sangria this year because they’re all so unique and have something about them that I truly love, but this one just has to take the cake.

In early April I was poking around the internet for a sangria recipe made with Cabernet. Most sangrias that call for red wines use a Pinot Noir, a Spanish red or Merlot, but we were hosting a lunch at our office for Autism Awareness month and our Cabernet gives back to Autism so Cab it was! Rather than serve Cab at noon, I decided to get a little creative and make a sangria instead. I came across this recipe and decided to replace the Spanish red for our Cab and I was floored with how good it turned out. For a moment, I was the crazy girl at the office asking everyone if it was really that good or if I was just nuts. Everyone agreed that it was awesome – the combination of pomegranate juice, orange and fresh juicy blackberries is simply heavenly – and so it became my favorite 🙂 Bookmark this one for when you’re entertaining this summer or just need a change from your usual drink of choice. I hope you love it! Cheers!

Ingredients

1 bottle ONEHOPE Cabernet Sauvignon
1/4 cup Grand Marnier
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup pomegranate juice
1/4 cup simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water heated until sugar is fully dissolved)
orange slices
apple slices
blackberries
pomegranate seeds (optional)

Directions

1) Combine all ingredients in one of your sangria bar carafes and tightly seal for 24 hours before serving

2) Fill glasses with crushed ice and garnish with fresh orange slices, apple slices, blackberries and pomegranate seeds before serving.

Yield: 4-6 servings

Recipe adapted from: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/red-wine-sangria-recipe.html

Guava + Sage Sangria

June 6, 2014

TGIF! Is it me or was this week just bananas? I can’t believe how many things are happening at work and how many projects need to be wrapped up before the end of the month – major crunch time for sure! Last weekend we were in Seattle visiting some friends so this weekend is going to be a little catchup, gardening, some housework and of course… sangria. This one was an absolute crowd pleaser at work and I’ve never had a sangria that was quite so unique. The combination of guava, sage and cranberry is one that is truly special and that you will not find on a menu anywhere this summer. Plus… isn’t the color just incredible? Guavas really are one of the prettiest fruits and the flavor is so fresh and sweet… AND, they’re in season right now so go scoop some up before they’re gone and get mixing 🙂 Have a wonderful weekend! Cheers!

Ingredients

1/2 bottle ONEHOPE Sauvignon Blanc
1/2 bottle ONEHOPE Sparkling Wine
1/4 cup cognac
1/4 cup pureed guava (use guava juice if fresh guava isn’t available)
1/4 cup pear juice
1/4 cup cranberry juice
Thinly sliced orange spheres
Strained cranberries (use frozen cranberries if fresh cranberries aren’t available)
Fresh sage

Directions

1) Combine ONEHOPE Sauvignon Blanc, 1 cup of the ONEHOPE Sparkling Wine, all of the cognac, guava, pear juice, cranberry juice, sliced oranges and cranberries into one of your sangria bar carafes, stirring as you go.

2) Let the mixture chill in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours. Serve on the rocks, garnish with fresh sage, cranberries, orange slices and top with a dash of ONEHOPE Sparkling Wine.

Yield: 4-6 servings

Blood Orange Sangria

June 5, 2014

Happy almost Friday! Whew… it’s been a while, y’all! Life has been insane for the most part and I consistently feel like a chicken with my head cut off, but I just couldn’t stay away any longer 😉 With summer rapidly approaching, I created a bunch of sangria recipes for work and this one was one of my favorites. Blood oranges are SO good, their color is incredible and when combined with wine, strawberries and blackberries, the combination is to die for. As a huge lover of Pinot Noir, this recipe, which includes my favorite varietal, allows me to sip on a delicious red without completely overheating on a hot summer day. I can’t wait to make this again! Stay tuned for a few more recipes to add to your list of entertaining ideas for summer 🙂 Cheers!

PS: Huge thanks to The Nest and Inspired By This for featuring this recipe!

Ingredients

1 bottle ONEHOPE Pinot Noir
1 cup ONEHOPE Sparkling Wine (optional if you would like it bubbly)
1/4 cup Grand Marnier
1 cup sliced strawberries
1 cup blackberries
2 blood oranges (sliced)
Lemon slices (optional)
Lime slices (optional)
2 cinnamon sticks
1/4 cup sugar

Directions

1) Combine all ingredients (except Sparkling) into a carafe, cover and refrigerate for 4-24 hours. The longer your sangria mixture sits, the more infused the flavors become 🙂

2) Before serving fill each glass with crushed ice and allow guests to garnish with their own fruits.

3) Top with sparkling if desired

Yield: 4-6 servings

Recipe adapted from: http://fabtasticeats.com/2013/01/29/blood-orange-blackberry-sangria/

Better Than Green Beer

March 17, 2014

As much as I pride myself on being a beer girl, I am just NOT a green beer girl. It seems so processed and food color-y to me. Anyone else feel that way?! We received a request at work from Inspired By This to craft a St. Patrick’s Day drink alternative to green beer and I jumped on it. I envisioned the adult version of a Shamrock Shake (who doesn’t like Shamrock Shakes?!) and decided to tweak a classic Sgroppino recipe to make it as green, delicious and fabulous as possible. Check out the recipe here, as well as some outtakes from my shoot below:

ONEHOPE Pistachio Gelato Sparkling Cocktail
Prep: 10 minutes
Total time: 10 minutes
Serves: 2

Ingredients
1 (750ml) bottle of ONEHOPE Sparkling Wine
1 ounce vodka (optional)
3 large scoops pistachio gelato
1 cup crushed ice

Directions
1) In a mixer, combine all ingredients and 1/4 bottle of Sparkling Wine.
2) Blend until frothy and serve in your favorite glassware. Cheers!

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