Bacardi Cocktail

Only one cocktail this evening, and it was a good one! Here is the recipe:

1 1/2 ounces Bacardi light rum

Juice of 1/2 a lime

Dash of grenadine

-Mix in a cocktail shaker over cracked ice and pour into chilled glass.

Now, since I couldn't really taste the grenadine, this pretty much tasted like the daiquiri I had awhile ago. Delicious, but pretty basic. Thinking about the better drinks I've had, I guess I just like lime with about any alcohol. Good to know. I should say that this is really supposed to have Bacardi rum in it, but I don't think it's that big a deal. I made it with Bacardi because that's what I had.

In other news, vote in my poll! Please? It's up there in the corner waiting for you to click on it.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Business Time

First of all, I went through and counted the recipes in the book, and there are 182 in 7 categories. So far the numbers I've completed in each category are such-

Classiques: 2

Martinis: 4

Urban: 6

Punches: 0

Tropical: 4

Naughty: 2

Dessert: 0

That's a total of 18. I need to average a drink every 2.005494505 days in order to make my goal. So far so good!

You may have also noticed that I added a poll to the blog. I think I need to invest in one of three new base alcohols: whiskey, gin, or tequila, but I can't decide which one. Help me please ;-)

I'm also trying to figure out what to do about the couple of drinks in the book that call for eggs. I'm vegan, so it's a bit of a problem. The egg nog I can just buy Silk's soy nog and add some rum. No big deal. But there are a couple others that are less cut and dry. Do I look to see if there are vegan recipes online? Do I suck it up and have the eggs and just make sure they are local and organic? Suggestions would be appreciated.

Hemingway's Floridita Daiquiri/Blue Velvet Martini/Wild Blue Yonder/Extra Dry Martini

Yes, all of those were from last night in a relatively short period of time. I am currently in bed recovering, eating the crumbs of my tortilla chips since I have no food in the house. I actually ended up writing notes to my future sober self in order to remember what to blog like a less riveting version of Memento. The notes are, however, surprisingly coherent and very helpful.

Hemingway's Floridita Daiquiri:

2 ounces light rum

2 ounces grapefruit juice

1 ounce fresh lime juice

1 ounce simple syrup

-Mix in cocktail shaker, pour over crushed ice.

Pretty girly drink, eh? Not really that surprising: his books doth protest a little much in the masculinity department. Despite my distaste for grapefruit juice, this was really yummy! I actually juiced my own lime as well, so that was fun and delicious. I didn't have crushed ice though, so mine was with cracked ice. I drank this while chatting with one of my besties from NY on the phone, which made the drink that much sweeter ;-)

Blue Velvet Martini:

1 1/2 ounces vodka

1/4 ounce blue Curacao

Dash of Rose's lime juice

-Stir over cracked ice and strain into cold cocktail glass.

To be honest, this drink and the next one have blended together in my mind and I don't really remember it that much. My notes tell me that I am learning to appreciate the burn of vodka when it's not mixed with much. Maybe I will start enjoying martinis. This drink should have been my last of the evening. I really hadn't eaten enough to have four drinks in quick succession while sitting down.

Wild Blue Yonder:

1 1/2 ounces vodka

1/4 ounce peach schnapps

1/4 ounce blue Curacao

-Shake with cracked ice in cocktail shaker and strain into rocks glass over ice.

This drink was hindered by my terrible peach schnapps. I'm going to say that no one should buy Potter's Peach Schnapps. You will regret it. This and the previous drink were about the color that my blue Hawaiians were supposed to be, so I think I get points for presentation. Still, even with good peach schnapps, I don't think this one is anything particularly special.

Extra Dry Martini:

2 3/4 ounces gin (or vodka)

1/4 ounce dry vermouth

-Stir with ice cubes and strain into chilled glass.

So I don't think I could have tolerated this without the previous 3 drinks. Talk about the burn of vodka...It was really intense and not very enjoyable. Good if you want to get drunk fast and don't mind the pain. Unfortunately, I was already pretty drunk at this point, talking to myself while watching Project Runway. Complete disaster. I think this is the point when I started looking up strictly platonics on craigslist. Yikes.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Blue Hawaiian/Purple Haze

So these are both from a couple days ago...I'm getting to be a bit of a lazy blogger already! Thursday night El and I decided to sit around the apartment drinking cocktails and watching Top Chef, which is a pretty magic combination if you ask me.

Since El isn't a big drinker, I thought I would go for something tropical and girly. Blue Hawaiians seemed to fit the bill:

1 ounce light rum

1 ounce blue curacao

1 ounce cream of coconut

2 ounces pineapple juice

-Mix in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice and strain into an iced highball glass.

Okay, seems like it should be pretty delicious, yeah? NOPE! This was the first drink that I didn't finish. I gave it several sips and poured it down the drain. Mine did not resemble the above photo AT ALL. For those of you who have seen Bridget Jones' Diary, it was pretty much like the blue soup she makes for her birthday dinner. To make this drink better, I would go with coconut milk or water instead of cream of coconut. I even went with the more expensive version and it was still awful. Yuck.

The purple haze, however, was pretty decent. It's not one that I would go out of my way to order, but it was pretty good. Decidedly bluish in color and not purple, it still satisfied nicely:

1 ounce vodka

1 ounce blue curacao

cranberry juice

-Mix vodka and curacao in cocktail shaker with cracked ice and strain into iced glass. Fill with cranberry juice.

Curacao is a liqueur with an orange flavor. It can be blue or white and, as far as I can tell, is only blue when you want the drink to be blue. Kind of cheesy, but there you go.

I'm also taking the week off from cocktails so I can get some legit work on grad apps and GRE studying done. Also, I overindulged in wine Friday night and now alcohol is less than appealing. Should be updating by Friday or Saturday though.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Basic Daiquiri/Sea Breeze

Well, I'm certainly making progress on this project. I don't know how I should feel about being ahead of schedule: proud for sticking with the project or afraid for my waste line that I'm drinking so much more than usual. I will say that it's been more than 6 weeks since I made a drunken fool of myself, so that seems promising.

The basic daiquiri actually came to fruition last night, and it was a minor success. Here's the recipe:

1 1/2 ounces light rum

1 ounce lime juice

1 tsp sugar

-Shake well with cracked ice and strain into glass.

The drink was generally good, but there was a problem with the sugar. I don't think I took the "shake well" instruction seriously enough so I ended up with a bunch of sugar that wasn't properly incorporated into the drink. By the end of the drink I had a sludge of sugar at the bottom that was not at all like the milk at the end of the cereal bowl. Next time I would shake more or use simple syrup.

So the above picture is more conceptual than literal: I'm vegan so I would never drink a bird no matter what my cocktail book told me to do. Here is the recipe for a sea breeze:

1 1/2 ounces vodka

2 ounces cranberry juice

2 ounces grapefruit juice

-Shake in cocktail shaker and add to iced glass.

This is a case where I bought the quality mixer and it turns out that I just don't like grapefruit juice. This drink was overall okay as in, I think it was made properly, but I didn't particularly care for it. If you like grapefruit, then you'll probably like this drink since that's all it tastes like.

When I'm not drinking cocktails for this project, I am mostly drinking wine. Tonight, post sea breeze, I had a glass of pinot gris from A to Z in Newberg, Oregon. Very nice. I am no wine expert (another project for another year), but I am enjoying this one.

Also, while I'm reviewing things, I'll put in a plug for No Logo by Naomi Klein. Yes, it's 10 years old and a little out of date at times. Yes, if you've spent enough time with Maria B or in Eugene in generally, you probably know a lot of the information in there. However, I still think it's a really good and important read, especially the first three sections. I've dedicated most of my summer to reading this and Alex Ross's "The Rest is Noise," and both were worth the time commitment.

Not to end the post on a down note, but I have to give my movie choice for the evening, the 2002 version of The Importance of Being Earnest, a thumbs down. I thought this movie adaptation didn't play to the play's strengths at all. I know that English people in the countryside saying clever things isn't always movie magic, but trying to infuse the movie with additional locations and fantasy scenes was unnecessary. Boo.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Classic Martini/Sex on the Beach/Cape Codder

Okay, so this the drunkest blog so far by a mile. There will likely be typos and droning on and other forms of confusing nonsense. A predictable flaw when blogging about drinking.

My first cocktail began when I realized that vermouth is a type of wine and can therefore be purchased in Oregon grocery stores, forgoing the annoying trip to the liquor store. I should mention that I do not have a driver's license and the liquor store is not exactly walking distance. I consider it simply another challenge to be overcome along my road to cocktail glory.

I was at local grocery store MoC when I spotted the vermouth for a price I could afford and decided it was time to put a check mark in the chapter dedicated to martinis. I will give you a condensed version of what said chapter has in its introduction: gin or vodka blah blah lounge lizards blah blah purists blah blah 1960s blah blah cold cold COLD COLD! Yep.

The moral of the story is that the traditional martini is made of gin and vermouth, but vodka is often substituted for gin, which is what I did since I haven't purchased gin yet. Also, I hate gin. The less vermouth (or more gin/vodka) a martini has, the drier it is. Over the years, the zeitgeist has moved toward a drier martini. Also, everything involved in a martini, from the glassware to the alcohol to the utensils should be cold...from the freezer where appropriate.

The version I made tonight is the "Classic Martini." There are many different ratios in my book, and I will explore them in the future. There are also other flavors of martini that I will explore. Blather blather here's the recipe:

1 1/2 ounce vodka

1/2 ounce dry vermouth

-Ignore Bond and stir don't shake. Stir over ice cubes, not cracked ice. Strain into chilled cocktail glass.

I have heard stories about how terrible martinis are, and I don't think I would have enjoyed this at an earlier point in my drinking career. However, tonight it was pretty alright. It's definitely not a yummy yummy I-can't-even-tell-this-is-booze type of drink, but I liked it. I drank it while re-watching "Goodnight and Good Luck" and eating pasta, which I recommend as a mighty fine trio. Fab film. I used Absolute vodka and Boissiere extra dry vermouth.

Sex on the Beach, however, was a delicious experience, and one that I wasn't particularly expecting. As follows:

1 ounce vodka

3 ounce cranberry juice

2 ounce pineapple juice

1 ounce orange juice

1 ounce peach schnapps

This is pretty much the definition of girly drink. I couldn't taste the alcohol at all. You can also do either all pineapple juice or all orange juice if you aren't mixer rich like me. I couldn't even tell how cheap and terrible the peach schnapps were. Also, was watching From Justin to Kelly while drinking this one. I really think the stars aligned for my movie/drink combinations tonight, haha.

My last drink of the evening was a Cape Codder. I mostly made this because I invested in some cranberry juice the other night and this is an easy drink. Now, I'm usually not such a cran fan, but it's a pretty popular mixer so I made the leap. I stood in the aisle having the debate with myself: cran cocktail or proper cran juice. Cran cocktail seems terrible, but it's cheap for a college student. Cran juice doesn't add sugar: who doesn't want sugar? In the end, despite myself, I went home with the real thing: L&A's 100% no sugar added cranberry juice. BEST DECISION EVER. This drink was about 10 million times better than I thought it would be and I think the quality of the mixer had everything to do with that.

2 ounces vodka

4-6 ounces cranberry juice (I went with 5 personally)

-Mix in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice and pour into iced glass. Can add a bit of lime juice if desired (I definitely desired).

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Silk Panties/Cuba Libre/Rum & Coke

Okay, I didn't drink all three of these in one night...I just forgot to post about my experience last night, which was particularly special.

Silk Panties-

1 1/2 ounces vodka

1/2 ounce peach schnapps

-Mix with ice and pour into shot glass.

Well, I don't actually own a shot glass so I just had to use the regular glass I had available. I really doubt the proper glassware would have made this any better though: it was the worst so far. I'm not really that into shots, but SoCo and Lime is okayish. This burned my throat and lungs, which is not the alcohol experience that I'm personally looking for. Worst of all, it was definitely more than one shot's worth, so after I took one painful gulp, I had to go back for seconds. Just please, don't do this to yourself.

Now we go from the worst to some of the best!

Cuba Libre-

2 ounces light rum

Juice and fruit of 1/2 lime

Cola

-Squeeze lime and throw into chilled glass with ice. Add rum, then fill with cola.

Rum and Coke-

1 1/2 ounces rum

Cola

-Add rum to iced glass. Fill with cola and garnish with lime.

Both these drinks were pretty ballin', let me tell you. These were the first that actually tasted better when I made them than when I ordered them at a bar, which is quite the accomplishment I think.

Some info: I bought some pretty basic Bacardi rum...it was clear so I was pretty sure it was "light" rum. I didn't really see anything labeled as light rum, but I mostly just assumed anything that wasn't marked as "dark" must be light. Dark rum has more molasses in it, so it's sweeter, whereas light rum has a drier taste. I can tell you more about the different experiences when I get to some drinks with dark rum.

Also, you'll notice that these two drinks both include lime, so what's the big difference? Well, truthfully, they weren't that different. However, when a recipe calls for a "squeeze" or a "garnish" of lime (or lemon) that generally means 1/8 of said fruit. To do this properly, one cuts of the ends of the fruit and cuts into parts. The bartender should not do the squeeze herself but should cut a slice through the section and stick the lemon/lime on the rim to let the drinker do it him/herself. Therefore, the difference between 1/8 and 1/2 a lime is certainly discernable, even to my novice tongue.

Aside from all these technical details, I will tell you that I was not drinking alone tonight! Well, nobody else drank alcohol, but I was in the presence of other people while I was drinking. Betsy, my lovely roommate, and I hosted a game night in our apartment. Sure, it was just the two of us plus Ben and Eleanor, but we had an absolutely splendid time. There were snacks (including some failed chocolate chip cookies) and two new games! We played "In a Pickle", which none of us had ever played before, and we read the instructions incorrectly. We ended up playing the game completely wrong but still having fun. We also played "Oodles of Doodles": a Pictionary-esque game, but easier. This was an event that is sure to be repeated.

Hope everyone had a nice Labor Day Weekend! Bottoms up!

Flirtini/Vodka Gimlet

really wish I could be bothered to make an accurate count of how many recipes are in my book so I could do a countdown, but let's just say that I did #3 & #4 out of about 150 tonight. Here they are-

Pineapple Flirtini:

1.5 ounces vodka
1.5 ounces champagne
Dash of pineapple juice

-Stir gently over cracked ice and strain into chilled glass.

I think I may have put a little more than a "dash" of pineapple juice because that's all I could taste. It was delicious, but I'm getting to the point in my cocktail drinking where I actually want to taste something other than the mixer. Mostly, I would put a little more champagne in, a little less pineapple and vodka. I couldn't really taste the carbonation. Better than the fuzzy/hairy navels though, but I think that's due to the quality of the ingredients this time. I used Absolut vodka, Cristalino champagne, and RW Knudson pineapple juice. For this recipe, I don't think the vodka quality is that important though.

Vodka Gimlet:

2 1/4 ounces Vodka (you can substitute gin for vodka to make a more traditional gin gimlet - but I don't like gin, so I didn't)
3/4 ounce Rose's Lime Juice

-Stir gently over cracked ice. Strain into chilled glass.

Anybody whose been to John Henry's with me probably knows that this is my drink of choice, but this was the first time I had made it for myself. This is a drink where a quality vodka makes a difference, so I'm glad I had one ;-) Market of Choice didn't have Rose's lime juice though, so I had to get a different one. It was fine, but more tart than usual...I think Rose's probably has more sugar and I should compensate for that next time. Also, DON'T DRINK THIS WHILE EATING RAMEN NOODLES!! It will bring out the taste of the vodka too much and taste terrible. Pre or Post ramen is fine.

I drank these while watching Paris, Je t'aime, which was far superior to Donnie Darko, which I watched earlier today and has to be one of the worst cult classics I've ever seen. Paris, Je t'aime was enjoyable but made me cry a couple times. I'm just hoping that isn't a sign that I'm turning into a weepy drunk.

While I'm reviewing things, I might a well say that I finished The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon yesterday. It's only 152 pages long, but it took me the entire month of August to read because it was so crazy and convoluted (I was also reading another book at the same so that didn't help). I wouldn't put this book on the top of my reading list if I were you: it's kind of like a less inspiring version of a Tom Robbins novel.

Okay, that's it. Enjoy and bottoms up!

Fuzzy/Hairy Navels

Entry #1 in my cocktail adventure! I will try to write an entry every time I make a new recipe from my Little Black Book of Cocktails. Today it was Fuzzy Navels and Hairy Navels:

Fuzzy-
2 parts peach schnapps
4 parts orange juice
Serve over ice

Hairy-
Same as above, add 1 part vodka

The important lesson I learned from this boozy adventure is that quality matters when it comes to peach schnapps! There is a difference between the $5 and $10 bottle! I've had these before and they've tasted much better because the peach flavor on this one was not so hot -- sweet in a not good way. Also, I'll put the main ingredients for all the recipes in my tags so if you're every looking for a drink to make with the booze you have sitting around, you can just search for the tag and see the recipe and review.

So not a brilliant start to my project, but a start nonetheless. I guess since pretty much everything else went swimmingly, I can't really complain. I moved in with Betsy today and setting up the furniture was pretty simple (I somehow tricked Betsy and my dad into putting together my complicated desk/shelving unit while my mom and I drank wine/were useless). I really like my space and think I will be happy living here with mi mejor amiga!

One flaw to the whole blogging the drinking plan is that I will likely be either drunk or really really sleepy for every entry I write for the next year. It could be interesting if not coherent. Okay, now to bed with me.

The Mission

Inspired by the Julie & Julia project (both book and movie), I am setting forth to make my gap year one of boozy indulgence. I plan to work my way through the Little Black Book of Cocktails in order to make myself a master bartender, turning my vice into a skill. There are approximately 150 recipes (I couldn't be bothered to count properly) that I will make from September 1st, 2009 to September 1st, 2010. Obviously this process has already begun, and I will transplant my previous entries here.

This blog will also contain tags with the ingredients for each drink so that one could find a recipe based on the alcohol and mixers one has around the house. With no further ado, bottoms up!