The Tiki Bar

I recently joined a co-op with a friend. (This is the part where the Captain calls me a hippie.) It’s been a great experience. Last week we got some mint. The first word out of my friend’s mouth? “Mojitos!” I keep good company.

So here it is, a recipe for my drink of choice for this weekend.

Mojitos

Ingredients:
2-4 mint sprigs
2 tsp sugar
Soda water
Juice of 1 Lime (1 oz)
2-3 oz light rum

Directions:
Muddle the mint and sugar with a splash of soda water in a mixing glass until the sugar dissolves and you can smell the mint. Squeeze the lime into the mixing glass, add rum and shake with ice. Strain over ice in a highball glass. Top with soda water, garnish with mint sprig and serve.

Coquito is a Puerto Rican drink traditionally served around Christmastime. This year it seems half the Tropical Mile residents have picked Coquito as their holiday drink of choice. As we’ve been comparing notes, I’ve gotten some mighty disturbing recipes for Coquito that include egg yolks and egg nog. Below is the recipe for the Coquito that I drank (and drank) this week.

Coquito

Ingredients:
2 15-oz cans cream of coconut
2 14-oz cans condensed milk
2 12-oz cans evaporated milk
white rum to taste
cinnamon to taste

Directions:
Blend ingredients in blender, keep refrigerated and serve cold.

Holiday calories be damned.

There’s nothing like a trip to Key West for creative inspiration. This creation was a group effort between a quartet of drunkards on a boat. It’s a creepy shot, just in time for Halloween.

Kevorkian
1 oz. Haitian rum
1/2 oz. tomato juice
A shot best served in a plastic syringe like the ones pictured here.

The macabre works of Edgar Allan Poe are a great source for Halloween inspiration. As a kid my parents stopped celebrating the holiday for religious reasons. For years, we didn’t dress up, eat Halloween candy, or give away candy to trick-or-treaters. Often, however, I would spend All Hallows Eve in my room reading stories like “The Masque of the Red Death” to capture a mood that was deemed illicit by my elders. Now giving candy to kids is my favorite part of Halloween. If it’s yours, too, the recipe below is for a drink that is delicious but complicated to make, so you’ll be entertained in between gentle rappings at your chamber door.

Vampire Blood

2 oz. raspberry vodka
4 fresh raspberries
1 oz. black plum puree
3 fresh lime wedges
1/4 oz. simple syrup

Muddle fresh raspberries, lime wedges, plum puree and simple syrup in pint glass with ice. Add vodka and shake vigorously. Strain into a pewter chalice. Leer at the mortals.

One thousand years after the supposed first documentation of the word “vampire,” and the undead bloodsuckers still seem to be all the rage. I wonder what other terms will have similar fates. “Backseat drivers,” perhaps?

“There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine.”

Drinking with family members can be a bonding or a dissolving experience. I was recently getting drunk with an in-law for the first time when he said to me, “you’re like the daughter I never had.” I’m not sure if he said that because of my ability to down two bottles of chardonnay on my own, or because the more I drank the more I challenged his ideas. It was funny either way and the night ended well.

Sometimes, though, you’re with family working hard to get pissed drunk, because you can’t stand some of these people when you’re sober. Then you’re sitting there with glazed eyes, and it becomes clear that even alcohol can’t make these people likeable to you. In that case, may you have the good sense to have someone drive you home, and steer clear from conversation that might lead to you telling your family how you really feel.

Making moonshine can lead to some real quality time with family. Just drag the steel bathtub to the backyard and get cracking. Even the kids can help stir! OK, I admit, I haven’t yet gotten around to making real moonshine from scratch, but here’s a recipe for a moonshine cocktail.

Moonshine Cocktail

1/2 oz brandy
1/2 oz peach Schnapps
1/2 oz Dubonnet
splash of Pernod

Fill a mixing glass with ice. Add all ingredients. Shake and strain into a chilled martini glass.

Oktoberfest started in 1810, when a couple of fancy pants people in Munich, Germany held a horse race in honor of their own recent nuptials. What does this have to do with the beer-guzzling bonanza we know as Oktoberfest in the States? Very little.

But this is a great holiday, because it is so simple to celebrate. In Munich this festival goes on for an average of 16 days. I know it as a good excuse to go on a 6-hour drinking spree. If you don’t like beer, you won’t like Oktoberfest. The best way to keep the Okto in this fest is to drink German beer. German breweries follow Reinheitsgebot, a purity law, which mean they can only use four ingredients to make beer (i.e., malt, yeast, hops, and water). Despite this restriction, there is a large selection of beers to choose from when going German. The differences come from brewing techniques.

The following is a very, very basic explanation of German beer labels:

Pilsner: lager, most common
Helles: light in color, not necessarily low in calorie or alcohol content
Eisbock: made for sipping, not chugging
Ungespundent: smooth
Spezial: special, sometimes seasonal
Edel: good quality hops

That doesn’t even begin to cover the complexity of German beer, but hopefully it helps. I’m a Boddington girl myself, but as Oktoberfest comes to an end this weekend, I’m going to treat myself to a Löwenbräu and a couple of soy sausages.

Here’s a drink for those who like things a little more high-end:

Black Velvet
4 oz chilled stout
3 oz chilled sparkling wine

Pour stout into champagne flute. Add sparkling wine slowly and serve.

Prost!

The Captain of the Mile pointed out that, just maybe, real people have stumbled across, and commented on, this blog. I know that these stops have probably been inspired for the same reason I often do random acts: ALCOHOL. Thank you very much, regardless of your reason for bellying up to the bar. I’ve been inspired to write more for the fun-loving people out there in need of a drink.

Labor Day is just around the corner here in the States. If you live north of paradise, you might be planning a last trip to the beach. Alcohol is prohibited on public park/beach property. Many people completely ignore the rule. The problem then becomes when those park rangers come around and ask to see inside your cooler. Aaah, busted. That’s usually when the deal-making begins. Offer a six-pack to “confiscate” and beg to keep the rest.  Whatever you do, keep your cool and take it as a lesson learned. Park rangers work hard and their great uniforms don’t really make up for the crap they have to do.

But for those who have been there, done that and are now looking for a more ingenious way of sticking it to Beach Patrol, I suggest stainless steel water bottles (the kind where you have to suck hard to get liquid to come out) filled with non-creamy, fruit-based punch. This stuff will taste pretty good even when it gets warm, smells like juice, and if you tighten the lid well enough it’s a real bitch to twist back off. You’ll have to be willing to risk catching mono or insist on BYOB. Park rangers are definitely not interested in sipping from your thermos, and if your crew keeps their cool, you’re set for the trip. Always use a DD (designated driver) and pay for that person’s food, beverages, and gas. It’s best to hand the DD a camera, since he or she is going to want to take pictures of your sorry drunk asses, and they’re less likely than you to leave it behind. I personally love being the DD for my friends, because they are great people and I want to know them for years to come. When I invite people to drink at my home, it is always with the option of spending the night if they’re too drunk/tired/whatever to drive home. If I don’t think I could stand to see your face Sunday morning, you’re not coming over Saturday night.

The following punch recipe is great for parties. The Grandma gives it a terrific orange flavor.

Goodbye to Summer Punch
1 46 oz. can pineapple juice
2 6 oz. can frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed
1 750ml Grand Marnier
1 2 liter bottle of gingerale

Combine pineapple juice, lemonade concentrate and Grand Marnier in punch bowl or pitchers. Add gingerale to taste. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or add ice before serving.

Summer is dead. Long live Summer!

I’ve never been oppressed by an active conscious or guilt inflicted by a religion, group, sect or parental figure. Once in a while I feel caloric guilt when I desire, quite lustfully, a mudslide or another half bottle of wine. But there is a recent guilt that is threatening to rule my life: eco-guilt.

I dread a misprinted sheet of paper or getting thirsty on the road, because I know that I will have to hang on to that piece of trash until I reach a recycling bin. They do not recycle at my current place of employment. I carry home a boxful of recyclables Friday afternoons on the train until I reach the recycling bin at my apartment building—not exactly my ideal carefree way to start a weekend. But the guilt I feel when I toss a glass bottle in the trash is overwhelming. There is no penitence for eco-sins. Lashing myself with glass shards would serve no purpose and would waste a lot of gauze in the aftermath.

I resent that my love of fresh air and blue skies is now clouded with a sense that I have not earned my five feet of sandy beach because I once used a foam cup out of convenience.

Caring about the space I take up in this world is part of my way of being. I like to know the good and bad I leave in my wake. I do not know how to justify my eco-sins, and I feel guilt when I enjoy the slow breeze that makes the palm trees wave and crinkle.

I am unhappy that I care so much, but I go on caring. Of course, drinking (responsibly) helps.

Liquid Sunshine

1/2 oz Vodka

1/2 oz Galliano

1/2 oz Triple Sec

1/2 oz White Crème de Cacao

1/2 oz Crème de Bananes

1/2 oz Orange Juice

Shake with ice and strain into a Collins glass filled with ice.

“Grandma’s hands picked me up each time I fell . . . but I don’t have grandma anymore.”

Grandma’s Cough Syrup

2.0 oz Bourbon
0.5 oz Cola

Having acquired a new job title, I thought a celebration with a bottle of port would be the right thing to try. I bought three different kinds of hard cheeses, french bread, dark chocolate, and a bottle of Sandeman’s Founder’s Reserve. I set up the projector to watch a black and white Sherlock Holmes movie and poured some of the port into an Eisch glass.

The movie portion of the evening was a bust. The movie portrayed Watson as an old bumbling idiot, and the port was much too sweet for my liking. I did drink the bit I served myself and felt quite heady, but with a six-month shelf life, I am forced to find vegetarian recipes that call for port. It is only meant to be sipped at, but being made of varietal grapes, it’s just not my thing.

(In a slightly related topic, Robert Downey, Jr., is going to star in a new Sherlock Holmes film that follows Doyle’s original depiction of Holmes.)

There are several drinks that call for port that I would be willing to try. Here’s one:

Autumnal Equinox
2 oz port
1 oz Grand Marnier orange liqueur
1/2 oz amaretto almond liqueur
“If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.” –Seneca