Holidays

Father's Day Tribute!

"The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature." --Gloria Naylor

“A little girl needs Daddy
For many, many things:
Like holding her high off the ground
Where the sunlight sings!

Like being the deep music
That tells her all is right
When she awakens frantic with
The terrors of the night.

Like being the great mountain
That rises in her heart
And shows her how she might get home
When all else falls apart.

Like giving her the love
That is her sea and air,
So diving deep or soaring high
She'll always find him there.”

By Unknown Author

Thanks to all the proud Dads who have graced our historic halls with their love.

 

From all of us at The Old Rancho, we hope all you Fathers feel appreciated and loved on your special day!

Happy Mother's Day!

“It may be possible to gild pure gold, but who can make his mother more beautiful?”

—Mahatma Gandhi

How would we have survived the last year without our Mothers?!

Their positivity and grace got us through the most bizarre and dangerous year in history. Through toilet paper shortages, the elections, and countless brain-probing covid tests, they were always there for us via facetime or Zoom. Without their unfaltering love, our world would have seemed a little more chaotic and uncertain.

This year, it’ll be incredible to spend Mother’s Day in person! We can’t wait for all the flowers, chocolates, and Mother’s Day Brunches to come!

Check out our recipes for our favorite Spring-inspired cocktails perfect for Mom’s big day! We wanted to send our love and appreciation to all the mothers out there that helped make 2020 a little easier from all of us here at The Old Rancho. Remember to give your Mom twice as much this year to make up for last year’s bewildering Mother’s Day experience!

"When you are looking at your mother, you are looking at the purest love you will ever know."

—Charlie Benetto

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Inspiration For A Valentine's Day At Home

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Homey Date Night, Done Right

We love celebrating love!! With the outside world still a little hectic, we foresee many couples keeping their Valentine’s Day dates close to home this year. To help make the holiday still feel special, we collected a little inspiration on decorations, food, and flowers for you!

Bring Out The Kid At Heart

Reach wayyy back to a time when arts and crafts were a socially acceptable way to decorate, and get ready to whip out those safety scissors! This year decorate your home with home-made hearts and paper valentines. We love the idea of making this a pre-holiday date night idea for you and your significant other, or even a Galentine’s night. Check out your local craft store and see what options they have for Valentine’s Day, even if it’s just finding a ream of multi red-hued papers. Cut out hearts to string together or fold each piece of paper into an abstract shape to tape to the wall in a fun heart-shaped collage. Devoting a night to some quality time reveling in artsy nostalgia is sure to warm a few hearts.

A Romantic Dinner For Two

We saw so many people hone their cooking skills during quarantine last year. Personally, we’re still not quite at Master Chef level. When we saw the article titled “24 Romantic Dinners Literally Anyone With an Hour and a Brain Can Make” by Elizabeth Stark and Annabel Iwegbue from Cosmopolitan, we felt a little more confident in ourselves. The recipes they’ve collected encompass multiple cultures, tastes, and dietary restrictions. Save the article and pick a recipe to wow your Valentine’s Day date with your cooking abilities!

Dessert with a Surprising Kick!

Is it just us, or do chocolate-covered strawberries seem played out? Try some “Shots Through the Heart” instead! These deconstructed Strawberry Margaritas are a fun twist on an old favorite and perfect for those in the crowd who might have a darker sense of humor towards this holiday. We got this idea from Personal Touch Dining, and with it being fairly easy to make at home, we felt we had to share it with our readers. We found some adorable heart-shaped pipettes on Amazon that were under $10 and looked perfect for the job. After mixing up our favorite classic margarita, we filled each pipette with our marg and gently skewered each strawberry halfway through into the hollow center. When you’re ready to eat dessert, squeeze the pipette so the liquid fills the hollow center of the strawberry, and enjoy!

Don’t Forget The Flowers!

A lot can be said through some mini blooms and single-bud vases. Decorate your dining table at home using these and a sprinkle of votive candles for the perfect romantic ambiance! Mini bloom flowers like the ones below are easy to find and come in pretty sizable bunches; pair them with a few single roses or peonies for a tasteful arrangement. Start by placing one rose or another flower of your choice in a few vases for the center of your table. Trim the stems of your mini flowers as close to the petals as possible so that they lay flat. Place any number of these directly onto the tabletop around the vases and finish off the look with a few candles. Your table at home will transform into a sweet and dreamy location for your Valentine’s Day date, and you won’t break the bank buying massive bundles of roses!

We hope you have a safe and healthy Valentine’s Day from all of us here at The Old Rancho!

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Boozy Holiday Brunch Cocktails

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Make Your Holiday Brunch Even More Jolly!

This holiday season, we're thankful only to be catching Cabin Fever if all goes well. Here in Carlsbad, California, it looks like we'll be confined to our homes for the holiday, but on a lighter note, that means no need for a designated driver! We figured we could take our time crafting a couple of cocktails while we unwrap gifts this year. By the time you try each of our boozy holiday brunch drinks, being stuck inside for the holidays will never have looked so good.

Typically, the drinks we offer at our events through Personal Touch Dining are Spring or Summer themed since our event season ends mid-November. We get rave reviews over their Grapefruit Mojito, and they even offer "Logo Cocktails" now! These are the newest way to send a message while delighting your impressed guests! Imagine each of these holiday drinks with your signature logo on top for the perfect viral social media post. Make your friends Grinchy-green with envy over your immaculate custom cocktail presentation this season!

If you're like us, we're looking to take the nostalgia of a perfect Rancho Christmas and mix in a little extra fun. The joy of Christmas morning is something we’ll never forget, and now that we’re a little older, celebrating with an adult beverage sounds incredible. We’ve collected our favorite recipes for every kind of Christmas brunch beverage we could think of, but if we left one out, let us know!

Christmas Coffee

Sleepy Christmas mornings need coffee, no buts about it. So, get ready for our special recipe because this is not your typical holiday Starbucks run. We figured a peppermint mocha might be played out since we’ve all been slurping these down since November 6th this year in hopes that they’d raise our post-election, quarantine-warn spirits. Instead, we went for a chocolate caramel brulee feel that’s like drinking a strong hug!

INGREDIENTS

  • 4 ounces strong coffee

  • 1 1/2 ounces amaretto liqueur

  • 1 1/2 ounces coffee liqueur

  • 1 ounce butterscotch schnapps

  • 1 ounce creme de cocoa

  • fresh whipped cream

  • grated chocolate, for garnish

INSTRUCTIONS:

Combine strong coffee and liqueurs in a glass. Stir to combine and top with fresh whipped cream. Garnish with grated chocolate.

Serve warm or over ice.

Christmas Morning Mimosa

Brunch and mimosas go together like Santa and the color red! This super easy recipe adds depth of flavor to your everyday mimosa as well as a bit of holiday color to your cheeks!

INGREDIENTS

  • 4 ounces of champagne

  • 2 ounces of orange juice

  • 1/2 ounce Amaretto

  • 1/2 ounce grenadine

INSTRUCTIONS:

Pour the orange juice and Amaretto into a wide-mouthed champagne glass. Add champagne to top it off.

Slowly pour in the grenadine until it settles to the bottom of the glass, and serve!

The Grinchy Mary

Ok, we’re pretty obsessed with how light and easy to drink this is! This drink requires a bit more prep than the others we listed, but it’s undeniably worth it. Tomatillos have a slightly more acidic, slightly less sweet flavor than ripe and unripe tomatoes. Overall, the flavor is more vegetal and bright, and the interior texture is denser and less watery. The Grinchy Mary ends up being easier to drink than a traditional bloody, and with some fun bright red garnish, it’ll be a work of art!

(Not a vodka fan? Trade it out for some Blanco tequila and rim the glass with Tajin to transform it into the Grinchy Maria!)

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 cup yellow cherry tomatoes, halved

  • 3 tomatillos, chopped and husked (1½ cups)

  • ½ green apple, chopped

  • 1 jalapeño, stemmed and chopped

  • 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

  • 1 tablespoon prepared horseradish

  • 1 sprig each parsley and cilantro

  • 1 small clove garlic

  • 1 teaspoon each salt and Worcestershire

  • ½ teaspoon green hot sauce

  • ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

  • ⅛ teaspoon celery seed

  • 4 ounces vodka or Blanco tequila

TO SERVE:

  • Garnish with your choice of green and red veggies (such as lime wedges, red cherry tomatoes, miniature pickles, red peppers, spicy pickled green beans, and celery sticks!)

  • Horseradish

  • Hot sauce

  • Salt (or Tajin for extra color and spice, especially if you have it with tequila!)

INSTRUCTIONS:

Add all ingredients, except vodka, to a blender and blend until smooth, scraping down the blender's sides as needed.

Strain mixture through a fine-mesh sieve; * discard solids.

Fill two glasses with ice and pour 2 ounces of vodka into each glass. Divide tomato mixture between glasses and stir to combine—season with additional lime juice, horseradish, Worcestershire, hot sauce, and salt to desired taste.

We love the idea of a topping bar for guests to dress their own Grinchy Marys to their taste!

***Does that seem like too much work for your Christmas Morning?***

(Try making the bloody mix the night before and chilling it overnight in the fridge! Or, better yet, get it premade. Check out The Dirty Mary (Farm-to-Table Bloody Mary Mix) from Food52.com! It’s 32 ounces of deliciousness, and they take care of combining all of the ingredients so that you can relax!)

We hope you enjoy these holiday breakfast cocktails!

All we ask is that you enjoy these drinks responsibly, and please remember to share the love, not our germs, this holiday season!