Star Gazer Wine Cocktail

A soft and sweet cocktail flavored with vanilla, pineapple, dark rum, and your choice of white wine. Best served on the rocks!

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About Star Gazer Wine Cocktail

Over the past few years, an old friend of mine has become sort of a wine connoisseur, and I can’t say that I blame him – wine is fun.

It’s always a great conversation piece, the right wine can completely transform a dish, and it’s the perfect drink to sip while socializing with friends.

My wine palate has also grown over the years, but I tend to be more in the sipping category.

I like to enjoy wine by itself, without any other flavors masking or altering it.

This tends to be where an old friend of mine and I disagree, since he likes his bold, punch-you-in-the-face reds to go with his meals while I want something more…  mild.

And while there are plenty of sweet reds I like to supplement our wine stock with, I’ve been trying to branch out to more into milder white wines (and, bonus: whites go great with seafood!).

I still haven’t found my go-to white wine yet, but I’ve found a few interesting wines along the way… and, well, also some not-so great wines.

Now, I know making a wine cocktail isn’t exactly the best way to appreciate a white wine – but it is a great way to use up that bottle of white wine that just didn’t have the taste I’m after.

I mean, this is just like any other cocktail, right?

Sometimes a drink just tastes better with a little help from something else.

The Star Gazer has a soft, sweet taste, thanks to the vanilla and pineapple combination (which I was skeptical about at first, but it’s actually quite good!).

Your choice of rum will also really impact the flavor of this drink, too – I used Goslings because I had it on hand from a cake I made last month and it turned out to be a good compliment.

I also liked squeezing the lime into the drink, but an old friend of mine didn’t – he didn’t care for the sweet & sour combo.

Actually, he would probably prefer to drink the white wine straight, nasty tasting or no, but he humored me with my wine cocktail experiments.

I don’t think I’ll ever graduate to the level of wino he’s obtained, so this is a perfect compromise for me as I (slowly) hunt for that perfect white wine.

How to measure this cocktail

This cocktail is written like a standard drink recipe, meaning that instead of an exact measurement (ex: 1 cup) the recipe will read “1 part.”

This can sometimes be a little confusing, but I’ve found the best way to think of it as this: Recipes that measure in parts usually mean it’s written so that you can adjust the size of the drink to whatever you want and the measurements they give you (1 part, 1/2 part, etc) are so you can keep the ratio of the ingredients correct.

For example, let’s say you wanted to make one drink – this typically means you’re using 1 standard shot glass for measuring. So then when the recipe says “1 part” you would interpret that amount as “1 standard shot glass” full. If the recipe says “1/2 part” you’d fill the shot glass halfway so that it’s “1/2 standard shot glass.” OR, let’s say you wanted to make enough drinks for a few friends. When making the drink you could interpret “1 part” as “1 cup” (or “1/2 part” to “1/2 cup.”)

This way the drink will taste the same no matter what size you make it.

What are the exact measurements for one drink?

In a hurry and want simple measurements for just one drink? No problem! Just use this as a guide:

• 2 oz chardonnay
• 1 oz dark rum
• 1/2 oz vanilla syrup
• 1 oz pineapple juice

You can also select “Metric” measurements in the recipe card below to see these numbers.