Spring and summer is on the horizon, and you'll want to impress all your girls with some handcrafted Black and Brown Girl Magic Cocktails, created by yours truly!
After 10 years of working in bars and restaurants, I love a drink with personality! In 2016, after struggling to find a bar gig in my rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, I opened my own donation-based Speakeasy in Bedstuy, Brooklyn called "Snugstation."
Instead of following the crowd, I created my own Mixology Menu of Melanin-Inspired Drinks! Check out 5 of my favorite Signature Handcrafted Cocktails that'll have you feeling tipsy and emanating black girl magic.
BEYCHELLA LEMONADE™️
Mixology by @famoustaine
Beyonce created shockwaves through the internet with her history-making Coachella performance this past weekend, and she took it back to the Black sorority college campus - looking cool as a cucumber! In honor of her, I've conjured up this rosemary cucumber gin Lemonade, aka the Beychella Lemonade.
Recipe
Ingredients:
2 oz Gin
1 oz Fresh Lemon Juice
¾ oz Triple Sec
1 oz Rosemary Simple
Rosemary Garnish
Cucumber Garnish
Honey
Directions:
First, we have to make your Rosemary simple syrup. Take 1 cup of sugar, a handful of Rosemary Sprigs, 2 cups of water, and boil everything down to a syrup in a small pot. Remove the syrup off the heat for a cool down.
Grab your shaker, combine your citrus, spirits, and cooled simple syrup in the tin. Then add ice cubes and shake that thing like Beyonce!
Strain over ice in a Tom Collins Glass, garnish, and drizzle a little honey for the BeyHive!
SUBWAY CAR™️
Mixology by @famoustaine
Growing up in Bedstuy, two things you grow accustomed to are running in-between train cars, and that good ole' EJ Brandy that no one from BK is too proud to sip! Try this sweet and spicy spin on a Sidecar that's Brooklyn AF!
Recipe
Ingredients:
2 oz EJ Brandy or Hennessy
1 oz Fresh Lemon Juice
1 oz Triple Sec
1 oz Honey-Ginger Syrup
Tabasco Sauce
Smoked Paprika
Granulated Sugar
Lemon Peel
Directions:
Make your Honey-Ginger simple syrup. Take ½ cup of sugar, 1 cup of wild honey, a finely diced chunk of fresh ginger, 2 cups of water, and boil everything down to a syrup in a small pot. Take the syrup off the heat for a cool down. Feel free to adjust amount of sweeteners to your personal preference.
First, prep your cocktail garnish. Pour the smoked paprika and sugar on a flat plate. Grab a lemon wedge that is cut down the middle, and wet the rim of a chilled glass. Dab the rim in the paprika and sugar blend, generously coating it.
In your shaker, combine your citrus, spirits, and simple syrup in the tin. Drop in a couple splashes of Tabasco Sauce. Add ice cubes and shake it!
Strain the chilled cocktail into a martini glass. Lastly, grab a lemon peel, give it a little char under a flame, and float it in the drink.
LA NEGRA KIWI MARGARITA™️
Mixology by @famoustaine
This delicious brown sugar kiwi margarita cocktail is inspired by Amara La Negra, a beautiful Afro-Latina artist shining light on, and breaking through the chains of colorism.
Recipe
Ingredients:
2 oz of Tequila
1 ½ of Brown Sugar-Kiwi Base
1 oz of Fresh Lime Juice
¾ oz of Triple Sec
½ oz OJ
Directions:
Make your brown sugar-kiwi base by taking 1 cup of raw brown sugar, 2 to 3 chopped fresh kiwis, a couple dollops of agave, 2 cups of water, and boil everything down to a syrup in a small pot. Take the base off the heat for a cool down. It should be of a thick juice consistency. Feel free to adjust amount of sweeteners and water based on your preferences.
Prep your rocks glass by rimming your glass with sugar.
Grab your shaker. Combine your citrus, juice, spirits, and base in the tin. Add ice cubes and shake it!
Strain the cocktail over ice into a rocks glass. Lastly, garnish with a lime wedge and sugar cane.
GODDESS GLOW CUP™️
Mixology by @famoustaine
This coconut pomegranate daiquiri cocktail is inspired by the favorite fruits of African Orishas like Oya, Oshun, and Ogun. It is packed with all the Goddess goodness, an elixir of the divine feminine.
Recipe
Ingredients:
2 ½ oz Coconut Rum
½ oz Maraschino Liqueur
¼ oz Pomegranate Liqueur
1 oz Fresh Lime Juice
¾ oz Pineapple Juice
Angostura or Orange Bitters
Directions:
Grab your shaker. Combine your citrus, juice, and spirits in the tin. Add ice cubes and shake it! You want to give it a nice shake so that the pineapple juice forms a fluffy head.
Strain the chilled cocktail into a chilled coupe glass. Lastly, drip a couple drops of bitters and then swirl it into the cocktail.
MELANADE PUNCH™️
Mixology by @famoustaine
I saved the best for last, plus you can make large batches for a popping summer party! This punch is addictive, and the unofficial BLM Cocktail!
Recipe
Ingredients:
1 ½ oz Black Spiced Bacardi
1 oz Silver Rum
3 oz Melanade Mix
2 Blackberries
1 Pineapple Chunk
Mint Sprig
Directions:
Make your punch base. Grab a pack of fresh blackberries, black cherries, a bottle of pomegranate juice, dark plum juice, OJ and Pineapple juice.
Make a blackberry and black cherry reduction by adding brown sugar and a dollop of honey to a large saucepan or pot. Combine your juices and let it simmer for 5 mins. Set aside, then pour into plastic containers when cooled. Taste for sweetness.
You can build this cocktail in a punch glass over ice and adding your spirits. Garnish your glass, using a skewer for the blackberries, pineapple and mint sprig.
Show Us Your Mixology Chops! Make sure to repost or tag @xoNecole and @famoustaine with photos of you enjoying your melanin-inspired drinks or creating your own with the pretty gang!
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"Sure of what she wanted in life and okay to sacrifice her moments right now, to get what she knew she deserved later. And that is me. I'm not an instant gratification kind of a person. I am a long game. I'm not a sprinter, I'm a marathon.
America first fell in love with Eva when she graced our screens on cycle 3 of America’s Next Top Model in 2004, which she emerged as the winner. Since then, she's ventured into different avenues, from acting on various TV series like House of Payne to starring on Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Je-Caryous Johnson Entertainment
Eva praises her castmates and the play’s producer, Je’Caryous for her positive experience. “You know what? Je’Caryous fuels my audacity car daily, ‘cause I consider myself an extremely audacious woman, and I believe in what I know, even if no one else knows it, because God gave it to me. So I know what I know. That is who Je’Caryous is.”
But the mom of three isn’t the only one in the family who enjoys acting. Eva reveals her daughter Marley has also caught the acting bug.
“It is the most adorable thing you can ever see. She’s got a part in her school play. She's in her chorus, and she loves it,” she says. “I don't know if she loves it, because it's like, mommy does it, so maybe I should do it, but there is something about her.”
Overall, Eva hopes that her contribution to the role and the play as a whole serves as motivation for others to reach for the stars.
“I want them to walk out with hope. I want them to re-vision their dreams. Whatever they were. Whatever they are. To re-see them and then have that thing inside of them say, ‘You know what? I'm going to do that. Whatever dream you put on the back burner, go pick it up.
"Whatever dream you've accomplished, make a new dream, but continue to reach for the stars. Continue to reach for what is beyond what people say we can do, especially as [a] Black collective but especially as Black women. When it comes to us and who we are and what we accept and what we're worth, it's not about having seen it before. It's about knowing that I deserve it.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Fortunately, five simple words have simplified my dating process and ushered in clarity faster: “Would my husband do this?”
A couple of years ago, I met an entertainment lawyer who was tonguing down a twenty-something-year-old woman for breakfast while I slurped my green smoothie and chomped on a flatbread sandwich. Okay, Black love, I grinned and thought as I sauntered out of the Joe & The Juice. As soon as I stepped down from the front door, a torrential downpour of Miami summer rain cascaded and throttled me back inside to wait out the storm.
I grabbed a hot green tea and vacillated between peering out the wet door and anxiously checking my watch. My lengthy agenda started with attending the Tabitha Brown and Chance Brown’s “Black Love” panel, and I was already late. That’s when the lawyer introduced himself to me, after he made a joke about neither one of us wanting to get soaked by the rain. His female companion had braved the storm, leaving us to find our commonalities.
We both lived in L.A. and had traveled to the American Black Film Festival to expand our network. He represented various artists, including entertainment writers, while I was working as a writer/creative producer in Hollywood.
While there is no shortage of internet advice on how to strategically meet a prominent man at conferences, if I spend my hard-earned funds on career growth, I have tunnel vision, and that doesn’t include finding Mr. Right. So, I stowed his contact details away as strictly professional.
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I’d been waiting to post a sassy caption and finally had the perfect picture to match: “You not asking for too much, you just asking the wrong MF.”
That’s when the entertainment lawyer swooped into my DMs and asked me to dinner. I was quite confused. Is he asking me on a date? Or is this professional? Common sense would’ve picked the former. Once it clicked that this would in fact be a date, I told my mentor, who’s been happily married for over twenty years and has often been a guiding light and has steered me away from the wrong men.
Upon telling him about how we met, he emphatically stated, “He ain’t it.” He followed up with a simple question, "You have to ask yourself: Would my husband do this? Would you tell others that you met your husband, tonguing down another woman, and later married him?"
Aint It No Way GIF by UFCGiphyOuch. The thought-provoking question cleared any haze. Prior to going out with the lawyer, the first thing I inquired about was the woman.
“You saw that?” He said, taken aback that I’d witnessed his steamy PDA. Surely, anyone with two open eyes peeped him caressing her backside as he kissed her in the middle of the coffee shop.
He brushed her off as a casual someone he’d gone on a couple of dates with but had since stopped talking to. He said he hadn’t been in a serious relationship in over three years. Though I was still doubtful, dating in L.A. is treacherous and ephemeral. Making it past three months is considered a rarity.
With my antennae alert, I dined with him at a cozy beachside steakhouse restaurant where we were serenaded by a live jazz band. I’d emphasized forming a platonic friendship first.
Break Up Friendship GIF by TLCGiphy“I’ll come to you,” he obliged. I liked that he had made me a priority by driving over 50 miles to see me. I also liked the effort he made to check in with me daily. But I still couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that he initiated on a professional pretense and then alley hooped through the back door on a romantic venture, which bombarded me with confusion.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my dating life, God is not the author of confusion; any man who brings confusion, rather than clarity, is simply not The One. It doesn’t matter how many boxes he checks–eventually, that confusion will manifest itself into bigger problems, in time.
After diving into deeper conversations on the phone, post our first dinner date, I quickly realized this man was indeed not The One for me. But I’m grateful for the valuable lesson I learned.
I don’t expect some unattainable fairytale of a husband; we all have our own flaws and conflict is inevitable, but after dating for two decades, through failure and success, I’ve realized that the person I ultimately marry must mirror the values I exert into the world. He must reciprocate kindness, patience, and respect. He must be quick to listen and slow to respond. He needs to be forgiving and trustworthy, practice healthy communication, and be a man of his word at the bare minimum.
If I’d had “Would my husband do this?” in my toolbox when I was dating and floundering in stagnant relationships, in my twenties, it would’ve saved me a lot of precious time. But now that I’m equipped with the reminder, it’s allowed me to ground myself in my non-negotiables and set/maintain the standard for the special person, I’ll one day say, “I do,” to.
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