If someone asks what to serve on St. Patrick’s Day, the answer will most likely be “corned beef and cabbage.”

Corning means curing or pickling the meat in a seasoned brine. The word refers to the “corns” or grains of kosher (or other coarse) salt that are mixed with water to make the brine. Typically, corned beef is made from brisket. The dish has many regional variations and seasonings.

Historical note: Irish immigrants adapted corned beef from their Jewish neighbors on New York’s Lower East Side as a cheaper alternative to Irish bacon. This led to the development of corned beef and cabbage, the now-traditional Irish-American dish. Smoking a corned beef, and adding extra spices, produces pastrami.

Also try this Potato, Cabbage & Cheddar Casserole.

Melon liqueur creates a cocktail as green
as the Emerald Isle. Photo courtesy
Hornitos tequila.

Why drink inferior green beer on St. Patrick’s Day when you can have an emerald green cocktail instead? There’s no reason you have to limit St. Patrick’s Day libations to traditional celebratory drinks. Just stick to the green theme.

The Shamrocker cocktail, created by Hornitos tequila, is fun, fruity and as green as the Emerald Isle.

THE SHAMROCKER
Ingredients

Preparation
1. Combine ingredients in cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake and strain into a rocks glass.
2. Garnish with an orange slice—or go edgy with shamrock-shaped microgreens.

Find more of our favorite cocktail recipes.

If you need a lift today, click on over to CupcakeCuties.com.

You’ll find a parade of cupcakes dressed up with clever wrappers and toppings, sold in kits that enable you to quickly transform a plain cupcake into a dazzler.

The St. Patrick’s Day kit in the photo is one of 30+ different designs on offer, some of which are quite elaborate. Cupcake Cuties enable you to easily create just about anything your celebration calls for:

Make St. Patrick’s Day cupcakes—or 30+
other designs—in minutes. Photo by
River Soma | THE NIBBLE.

Each Cupcake Cuties kit contains 24 easy-to-use, self-adhesive wrappers and the toppings that complete the cupcake design. Bake or buy frosted cupcakes. It takes just minutes to create your designer cupcake.

The kits are $23.99, which might sound expensive — until you realize that your designer cupcakes are at least half the price and twice the fun as buying them off the shelf.

The cheeseburger and sushi cupcakes were a huge hit chez nous. Next, we’ll be making the St. Patrick’s Day cupcakes. Sure, we could hunt down a jar of shamrock sprinkles and cut cupcake wrappers from green paper…but with the Cupcake Cuties kit, we know we’ll finish the task on time.

Cupcake Cuties are a fun project for family members. They may even motivate those who have no great interest in cooking and baking to do more of it. The kits themselves are very giftable. Add a couple of boxes of Sprinkles cupcake mix and the recipient is guaranteed to have a memorable day.

March 5th is National Absinthe Day, celebrating a green-colored spirit made from the flowers and leaves of the wormwood herb (Artemisia absinthium). Green anise and fennel seed give absinthe its distinctive flavor.

Absinthe has an anise-like flavor and a controversial past. Hey, isn’t absinthe the stuff that made Parisian writers and artists go mad in the 19th century? Wasn’t it banned in America?

Yes and no.

Read all about absinthe, and why it’s had a resurgence in America since 2007.

In honor of the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day holiday, here’s a special absinthe cocktail from Lucid Absinthe:

The Spicy Irishman

A glass of absinthe with the slotted spoon
used to add sugar water. Photo by Eric
Litton | Wikimedia.

Get your own absinthe glass and spoon.

But watch out: absinthe is typically 124-proof—much stronger than any other spirits you’ve had lately.

Bourbon, gin, scotch, tequila, vodka: You may have enjoyed one or more of these spirits lately.

But what about Irish whiskey?

Lighter than its cousin, scotch, Irish whiskey is triple-distilled for extra smoothness. The use of unmalted barley in Irish whiskey’s production offers a very different flavor profile from scotch: no smokiness, but a perfumed, slightly sweet character.

Finesse is the word for Irish whiskey. Its mellow yet flavorful character made it the world’s favorite whiskey in the late Victorian era. We love it, and wonder why it isn’t a more visible drink in America.

Some popular brands of Irish whiskey include Bushmill’s, Connemara, Jameson and Tullamore Dew.

We drink our whiskey straight, but here are some delicious Irish whiskey cocktails.

Enjoy Irish whiskey on St. Patrick’s
Day. Photo courtesy Jameson.

WHISKEY vs. WHISKY
Whisky is the Scottish spelling of whiskey. The alternative spelling was chosen to differentiate the national product from Irish whiskey.

The “whisky” spelling is used in Canada, Japan and Wales, as well as Scotland.

In the United States, a 1968 directive from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms specifies “whisky” as the official U.S. spelling. However, it allows the alternative spelling, “whiskey.” Most U.S. producers prefer to include the “e,” as do we. Without it, it looks like something is missing.

And another reason to keep the “e”: Irish whiskey predates Scotch whisky. Check out this brief history of whiskey. Ironically, distillation was discovered in the 8th century in Persia—a country that has not permitted the sale and consumption of spirits since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

On St. Patrick’s Day, many of us will be wearin’ the green. But how about eatin’ the green?

Celebrate by trying some new leafy green vegetable recipes; specifically, bok choy, collards and kale.

Bok choy and collard greens may not sound Irish, but kale was one of the most popular vegetables in Europe, through the Middle Ages. The ancient Romans enjoyed both collards and kale. And all three are cousins!

 
Here’s a video that will inspire you to head to the nearest produce market:

Cahill’s Farm Cheddars get our vote for
best-looking Irish cheese. Photo
courtesy iGourmet.com.

If you don’t have the time or inclination to cook up traditional Irish dishes, set out an Irish cheese board and some Irish beers.

You’ll have to hunt for the cheeses (or you can buy them online).

 
Serve the cheeses as a munch with apéritifs, a cheese course or as a dessert course with fruit.

Or, snack on Irish cheese and beer as you watch Celtic Thunder, Celtic Woman or your own Irish film festival (start with The Secret Of Kells).

For a special drink on St. Patrick’s Day, use a green slice of kiwi as a garnish.

You can also muddle a kiwi and then add the spirits. Here’s a suggestion from Corzo Tequila:

Ingredients Per Cocktail

 
Preparation

1. Muddle kiwi in a cocktail shaker. Add other ingredients and shake well with ice.
2. Strain into a Collins glass. Garnish with a kiwi slice.

If you want the cocktail to be as green as the kiwi, add a sparse drop of food coloring. A little goes a long way.

Find more of our favorite cocktail recipes.

Beyond cocktails, think green garnishes for St. Patrick’s Day: herbs, green veggies, green condiments (gherkins, herb or wasabi mayo, wasabi mustard).

Use green garnishes for St. Patrick’s Day.
Photo courtesy Corzo Tequila.

You can make these clever shamrock cupcakes for St. Patrick’s Day.

Using Jelly Belly jelly beans in six different green colors and flavors provides lots of variety.

Each large shamrock pulls apart into three mini cupcakes. If you don’t have time to bake the cupcakes, you can purchase them and focus your time on decorating.

SHAMROCK CUPCAKES FOR ST. PATRICK’S DAY

Ingredients

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with green jelly
bean shamrock cupcakes. Photo from the
book Hello Cupcake by Karen Tack and Alan
Richardson.

 
Preparation
1. Trim the chocolate cookies with a serrated knife into fifteen 1/2-inch- by 2-inch-long strips for the stems. Spoon 1/4 cup of the chocolate frosting into a small zipper bag. Press out the excess air and seal.
2. Working on one shamrock at a time, arrange 3 mini cupcakes close together in the shape of a shamrock.
3. Spread the tops of the cupcakes with some of the chocolate frosting. Add a piece of chocolate cookie in between 2 of the cookies allowing it to overhang about 1 inch to make the stem.
4. Starting on the outer edge of the cupcakes, press like colored green Jelly Belly beans, lengthwise around the cupcakes to make the shamrock shape. Fill in with more jelly beans as close together as possible.
5. Snip a small corner from the bag with the chocolate frosting and pipe a line on the top of the cookie piece. Add 2 like colored jelly beans on top to make the stem. Repeat with the remaining cupcakes, jelly beans and frosting.

You don’t have to wait until St. Patrick’s Day to make Irish soda bread. Start now and see how quickly those delicious loaves disappear.

Soda bread is a chemically-leavened quick bread, using baking soda instead of yeast. Baking soda produces a lighter, airy crumb. Soda bread dates back to approximately 1840, when bicarbonate of soda was introduced to Ireland. It reacted better with the soft wheat grown in Ireland’s climate, and replaced yeast as the leavening agent.

While the traditional ingredients of soda bread are flour (white or brown), baking soda, salt and buttermilk, soda breads are often sweet breads. Raisins and nuts can be added—and in fact, make soda bread the delight that it is.