Manhattan

Another from the Classiques section of my book. I think I drank it after doing nothing all day, possibly while watching football. More interestingly, yesterday I went over to my parents house, watched White Christmas, basked in the glory of their Christmas decor, ate lots of food, and watched more football all before coming home and playing the roommie's new Wii for a bit (and eating ramen, of course). Today is a productive day though. It pretty much has to be.

The Manhattan was okay, but I liked the Metropolitan better -- maybe I should have the Manhattan with a dash of simple syrup to make it better.

1 1/2 ounce blended whiskey

3/4 ounce sweet vermouth

dash of bitters

-Stir over cracked ice and strain into cocktail glass.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Basic Margarita

I've had this tab open for about 12 hours without actually writing the post. It's bad when your fun project turns into something you can procrastinate from. Yikes!

Margaritas will always remind me of the end of sophomore year when we decided to have Tequila Friday Woohoo! We (my roommates and I) hyped it so much, and it just didn't live up to the expectations at all. We were trying to make blended margs and looked up a recipe online, and they turned out terrible! And we made way too much! After we finally got them to a drinkable point by adding some more lime juice, we each had one before needing to take a nap. We convened a couple hours later and tried for another go of it, but it just wasn't there. Fail.

This margarita was better than those, but still could use some work. Luckily, there are several different types of margarita in my book, so I'll have a chance to get it right.

1 1/2 ounce tequila

3/4 ounce triple sec

3/4 ounce lime juice

-Shake in cocktail shaker and strain into iced glass.

If you are really looking to make this, I would double this recipe. It wasn't very much.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Hot Pants

Yay early morning blog post! I can almost still taste this one from last night, haha. Heading to the parents' house in a bit to make some pie, potatoes, and homemade ice cream. Then to some family friends' house for dinner proper. Also, I'm taking the day off from being vegan = yumyumyumyum!

So this cocktail is really weird but not as disgusting as the ingredients would make it sound. Not exactly the greatest endorsement, but there you go. I think someone was trying to create a peppermint margarita...that's pink? I still don't really get the thought process. Maybe they were having a south of the border themed holiday party? A Feliz Navidad party? And wanted to have a holiday margarita? Still kind of eludes me...

1 1/2 ounce tequila

3/4 ounce peppermint schnapps

3/4 ounce grapefruit juice

splash of grenadine

-Shake all ingredients over ice and stain into cocktail glass.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Enjoy and bottoms up!

Strawberry Daiquiri

Oh how delicious! This one certainly gets the girly drink tag: just tasted like a strawberry smoothie. I used some fresh strawberries leftover from some cupcakes I made, and it was ahmaaaaaaazing!

The daiquiri was part of a pretty epic meal I had last night too: baked pasta and boca chicken nuggets. It felt like such a little kid meal, despite the alcohol. Plus, whoever first thought, "You know what this pasta needs? More carbohydrates. Let's add bread!" was a motherfucking genius. Bread crumbs on baked pasta own my life.

A recipe for regressing to childhood:

1 1/2 ounce rum

3/4 ounce triple sec

3/4 ounce lime juice

splash of simple syrup

6 hulled strawberries

4-5 ice cubes

-Add all ingredients to blender and blend until smooth. Pour into wine glass.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Tom Collins

Taking a break from reading from class ("Inferior temporal neurons show greater sensitivity to nonaccidental than to metric shape differences" don't ask me what that means), I'll write up a drink that has been in the subtext of several other entries. But first, the all important back story ;-)

Yesterday was a day of productivity: I submitted my Penn application and got Columbia ready but couldn't quite press the button yet. I ran and cleaned my room. Go me! On an unrelated gripe that suddenly hit me, what's happened to netflix?! Everything used to always be available, but suddenly quite a few things are on short waits and even a few on long or very long waits. Has anyone else experienced this? Boo.

Okay, so that was more of an outburst than a back story, but I'm a little all over the place right now. To continue my emphasis on pairings, I will tell you that a Tom Collins is alright with ramen, but not great. I should say, I always eat Top Ramen Oriental Flavor because it's vegan, s that's what I will always be referring to when I talk ramen.

The Tom Collins is also a drink that I have frequently when I go out to bars. I first heard of it through lovely Lesley as it was her drink of choice after doing some cocktail research. I didn't like them at first, but now I've come around and they always remind me of her ;-) Here's how you can become nostalgic as well:

2 ounces gin

splash of simple syrup

juice of 1/2 a lemon

soda water

-Combine simple syrup and lemon in an iced highball glass. Add gin and fill with soda water.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Crantini

I can't believe I've found a crantini image that is also a Christmas image. It's going to be a fabulous day!

Someone commented that there should be more back story (hi Alex!), so now you're going to get to hear about the events that led up to the first sip of the drink, at least the events of yesterday.

I mentioned last post that I have been feeling the Christmas spirit, and yesterday I officially did it: I put Christmas music on my ipod. So epic! I took the EmX downtown and walked around listening to carols before meeting Ben and El for some lunch and library before going to the holiday market. We made the rounds there, seeing some nice things but only Ben made purchases (good ones at that).

From there, my mom picked me up and we hit up Tjoes before the game where the Ducks beat Arizona in double OT! These kinds of football games are really exciting but also really upsetting: I get so nervous that I can't even watch the play and just use "it's only football" as my mantra. I watch these kinds of sports games like some people watch horror films: through my fingers.

After all that, I came home and had a cratini to wind down. It is pretty much like a cape codder only not on the rocks. Still, it was more welcome than I expected it to be:

1 1/2 ounces vodka

2 ounces cranberry juice

1/3 ounce lime juice

-Stir over cracked ice and strain into cocktail glass.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Mint Martini

Yay, I'm back! I plan on being on a more regular cocktail making schedule this week. Not because I was productive this week, but because it doesn't seem to matter whether I make cocktails or not, I'm always unproductive. But I always say that it could be worse than unproductive: there's also counterproductive, and I wasn't that.

Anywho, mint martinis are great and should be in your mouth this holiday season. It's pretty easy to imagine what they taste like: just think of how your mouth feels after brushing your teeth. Drop a peppermint candy in for extra effect.

1 1/2 ounce vodka

1 ounce peppermint schnapps

-Stir over cracked ice and strain into cocktail glass.

I hope you've all been well and are getting excited for the holiday season! The Christmas crackhead hit me hard over the head last night and made off with my sanity. I probably won't get it back 'til January.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Salty Dog

SO, I haven't really posted here in a bit and this is the basic story: I had two drinks Thursday night because I didn't think I would make a proper drink on Friday since I was going to a party. I posted about the midnight martini Friday afternoon and planned to post about the salty dog on Saturday. Unfortunately, I got about 1000% more drunk than I planned to at the party Friday (read really embarrassing/don't remember much drunk) and haven't even been able to think about booze since. Until tonight. NGL, a little bit tipsy now. Under much better circumstances.

Anyway, after all that preamble, I don't really like grapefruit juice very much. So I didn't really like this drink. If you like grapefruit juice, then you'll like this. That's a pretty undeniable premise. Here's the recipe:

1 1/2 ounce vodka

6 ounces grapefruit juice

-Mix in cocktail shaker, dust rim of glass with salt, pour drink into glass with cracked ice.

I don't know if there will be another post in the near future. Trying to be a productive member of society and refraining from over indulging for the near future at least. Haven't given up on the project though!

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Midnight Martini

Yum! The first sip is a little strong on this one, but you quickly get used to it and it's a nice twist on a martini. More interesting than the apple martini but not as strong as the classic. Drank this while avoiding work all of yesterday, which I'm continuing to do today. Bah. Here's how you can avoid work too!

1 1/2 ounce vodka

1/4 ounce coffee liqueur

1/4 ounce triple sec

-Stir over cracked ice and strain into cocktail glass.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Horse's Neck

Whiskey and ginger ale = pretty good drink. I think I ended up with a little more ginger ale than is standard issue, but it was just that much easier to drink. It's a nice switch up from the usual highballs, and I enjoyed it. Do it!

1 1/2 ounce blended whiskey

Ginger ale

-Add whiskey to iced highball glass and fill with ginger ale.

Onto more important things: I'm rewatching Ally McBeal now, and I can't tell you how much I hate the Ally/Billy combination. He's just so so lame! SOOOOO annoying! I'm basically just biding my time until Robert Downey, Jr. is on so I can be in love with him. Sigh.

Drink related: I've had 46 drinks now! I'm doing so well! I'm also planning on taking a picture of all the alcohol I have in the house because it's pretty epic.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Metropolitan

A+, 5 Stars, Two thumbs way up! I liked this drink so much! It did what I've been wanting a drink to do: it skirted the line between light, delicious girly drink and heavy, unsubtle manly drink (I'm looking at you, Old Fashioned). I don't know if this would be so good if I weren't the experienced drinker I am at this point (at least in comparison to the lightweights I know), but I'm going to recommend it anyway.

1 1/2 ounce brandy

1 1/2 ounce sweet vermouth

Splash of simple syrup

Dash of bitters

-Stir over cracked ice and strain into cocktail glass.

When I was looking for pictures to put on my post, I noticed that a fair few places on the internet had the metropolitan confused with the cosmopolitan. They share none of the same ingredients! I have yet to try the cosmo, but I think the metro has a lot more intrigue to offer!

On another note, I know not many people read this and even fewer comment. So I was hoping you would tell me your favorite cocktail, whether it be a frequent bar order or something you mix up at home! Do it to make me smile inside!

Gin Rickey

If you know what a gin rickey is, and you've been reading my blog, you probably can guess that I would like it. I love lime. I love soda water. I actually even love gin these days. It's another in a line of really refreshing but also really generic cocktails. Not so much different than a collins really, but still good. I can picture drinking this one outside on a hot day. Here's how it goes:

1 1/2 ounce gin

1/2 ounce lime juice

soda water

-Put gin and lime in iced highball glass, fill with soda water.

After having a few sips, I decided to do a bit of very amateur mixology to make it a little more exciting. I add just a splash of peach schnapps, and it was a nice little something extra. Add a little more interest to the situation. If you, like me, only have poor quality peach schnapps, I would be very very careful to only add a splash.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Saketini

This wasn't only my first saketini, it was my first time trying sake! I don't really know that much about sake, only that it's a rice wine from Japan. I went with the one that had the cutest bottle, haha. It went something like this:

The smell of it reminded me of beer at first, like halfway between between white wine and beer. It's really nice actually and am drinking it alone right now. In combination with the gin, it mostly tasted like the gin, but with a little smoother element. The sake takes away some of the alcohol's bite while leaving the spiciness. Pretty good.

1 1/2 ounce gin

1/4 ounce sake

-Stir over cracked ice and strain into cocktail glass.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Orange Blossom

So, do you remember that time I made a screwdriver? Do you remember how I fresh squeezed the orange juice to make it extra spectacular but how it turned out really bland and unremarkable? Well, that didn't happen this time! I squeezed my own orange juice from valencia oranges at Market of Choice and there were fireworks!

This is still a pretty basic drink, but you can never underestimate the power of a simple drink made well, and I think I did it this time! Here's how you can too!

2 ounces gin

1 1/2 ounce orange juice

splash of simple syrup

-Stir with cracked ice and pour into chilled cocktail glass.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Apple Martini

So now we are on drinks that have happened since Halloween. But one last bit of business: I never revealed what my costume was! I was Queen Frostine from Candyland, and El was Princess Lolli while two of our other friends were Mr. Mint and one of the little kids. We're pretty genius, I know.

Anyway, so my apple martini did not have a floating flower in it. A shame really. It was also not nearly so bright green in color. In all honesty, I don't really remember it that well because it's been 5 or 6 days since I drank it, which tells you a bit about how life-changing it was. Here's the recipe:

1 1/2 ounces vodka (regular or apple flavored)

1/2 ounce apple liqueur

Splash of lemon juice

-Stir over cracked ice and strain into cocktail glass.

I seem to remember that this was just a very girly way to pretend to be drinking a martini. If you want to sound cool ordering a martini, but don't want the trouble of actually drinking something that tastes even vaguely like one, go with the apple martini.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Cranberry Collins

Really crazypants busy this week, so here's the gist: thumbs up. Good drink. Recipe:

1 1/2 ounce gin

1/2 ounce cranberry juice

1 ounce lime juice

Club soda

-Mix first three ingredient in highball glass with cracked ice. Fill with soda.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Martini Royale

Part II of my Halloween drinking shenanigans: a martini with gin and champagne. Now, I haven't yet had a classic gin martini (only vodka martinis), so I can't specifically speak to how this version departs from the classic in flavor. I will say that I couldn't taste the champagne too much and it tasted almost entirely of gin for me; however, I have learned to like gin quite a bit making this one a nice experience. Strong though.

2 ounces gin

champagne

-Pour gin in cocktail glass and fill with champagne.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a third installment of Halloween drinking! I will be making the big reveal as to what my costume was! (For those of you who don't know already)

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Champagne Cocktail

I hope everyone had a fab Halloween! I'll be spending the next couple days telling you about the drinks that I had on that spookiest of nights -- all the drinks I made myself that is: I don't think you need an explanation for Bud Light at a college house party. I will say that all of these drinks were consumed while I watched the Oregon Ducks CREAM the USC Trojans! EPIC!

Here's the recipe for the first drink of the late afternoon/early evening (you're allowed to drink before 5:00 on game day, it's a rule):

champagne

sugar

bitters

-place about 1/4 tsp of sugar at the bottom of a champagne flute and saturate with bitters, fill with champagne.

This is a really nice and yummy drink, but not so much different than just drink champagne solo. If you have the other ingredients around, do it. If not, don't spend the extra money because the champagne alone should be fine.

Enjoy and bottoms up!