Sangria

Sangria is such a memory drink for me. It was one of the first things I ever drank out: I went with my roommate freshman year to Little Italy for dinner. We had heard that they didn't really card at those restaurants, so we should be fine to order wine, but throughout the meal neither of us could quite get up the courage to ask for fear of being embarrassed. We kept going back and forth, should we or shouldn't we, when finally the waiter comes and gives us each a glass of sangria for free without asking for ID. It worked out, but how chicken were we?

But more than anything, I associate sangria with Sam & Lesley and Mexican restaurants. Sangria is a Spanish drink, but they serve it by the pitcher in quite a few New York Mexican restaurants and nothing goes better with anything than chips and salsa. I just think of walking around Gramercy in the spring of senior year looking for a spot to get sangria after seeing the cinematic masterpiece that is "Confessions of a Shopaholic." Being cut off by the waiter (in chips and salsa that is). Wine hangovers in the morning. I'm feeling a bit nostalgic for the city these days and this is the perfect drink to bring it out.

Here's to making more (hazy) memories this summer with sangria by my side:

1 bottle full-bodied red wine

2 ounces brandy

2 ounces simple syrup

sliced fruit

1 cup soda water/ginger ale/lemon-lime

-Stir ingredients in a pitcher with ice cubes and add soda just before serving (so it doesn't go flat).

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Slow Comfortable Screw and Sloe Gin Fizz

My most recent trip to the liquor store (the one downtown that is kind of shady but easiest to get to) resulted in the purchase of two new items: Southern Comfort and Sloe Gin. SoCo I've had before, mostly in the form of SoCo and Lime shots over the summer. Is alright. Sloe gin, however, is a completely new experience. Despite the name, it's actually not gin at all but rather a liqueur made from slow berries. It looks all purply in the bottle but makes most drinks look pink. The bottle I have looks something like this:

As for the taste, it wasn't bad when I just had a tiny taste by itself. Pretty sweet and syrupy but I could imagine it tasting good when mixed with other things. Kind of like a naughty Italian Soda.

The first drink I had, the Slow Comfortable Screw, is first of all a ridiculous name for a drink and a member of that completely unhelpful category of drinks in my book: drinks with naughty names. I still don't understand how that is a useful category to a bartender. Anyway, the drink is so named because it is basically a screwdriver with Southern Comfort and sloe gin added. Cute, eh?

1 ounce vodka

3/4 ounce Southern Comfort

3/4 ounce sloe gin

4 ounces fresh orange juice

-Shake with cracked ice and strain into iced highball glass.

I found this similar to a Sex on the Beach - very fruity and girly. However, since the fruity flavor is achieved more through booze than juice in this drink, it doesn't have that freshness and lightness of SotB. It's almost too sweet like strawberry and grape soda.

The sloe gin fizz is basically another version of a collins, and is one of the few that actually tastes substantially different than the original. I found it okay, but again the sloe gin is a little too sweet for me and left me feeling that my drinking palate had developed a bit beyond sweet pink drinks with fizz.

2 ounces sloe gin

1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice

splash of simple syrup

soda water

-shake all ingredients well in cocktail shaker and strain into iced highball glass. Fill with soda water.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Highland Cooler

I didn't necessarily do it on purpose, but the Scotch & Soda ---> Stone Fence ---> Highland Cooler progression has been very nice, especially since I wasn't all that thrilled with the first. Like the Stone Fence, the Highland Cooler adds an extra flavor to give back what the soda water dilutes. In this case, add sugar to gives back some pow to your mouth. A lovely drink for sitting and (re)-watching some TV featuring my favorite Scot. I think I might prefer the Stone Fence though. Further investigation required.

Splash of simple syrup

2 ounces Scotch

Soda water

-Add Scotch and simple syrup to an iced highball glass and fill with soda water.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Stone Fence

Okay, this is the way to to do a Scotch and soda: just add bitters. You may remember that my scotch and soda experience was less flavorful than I had hoped. Problem solved with just a dash of bitters, giving back some of the pizzazz that the soda waters down.

1 1/2 ounces Scotch

Soda water

Dash of bitters

-Add Scotch to an iced highball glass and add soda water. Add bitters and stir.

I drank this while watching Inglorious Basterds, which was fantastic. Like way better than I thought it was going to be: I've always avoided Tarantino movies because of how violent they are, but I didn't even mind the violence. The movie was 2.5 hours and I didn't even notice despite my usual distaste for long movies.

Also, sidenote: I added an app on my computer that makes it sound like a typewriter when I type. It's only for macs, but you can get it here. I got it via the fug girls!

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Scotch and Soda

It's amazing, I'm so on top of my blogging that I'm writing this as I take my last few sips of the drink I'm posting about. A major miracle! Of course, I haven't really been drinking cocktails for over a week, so not really as impressive.

The scotch and soda is a classic, the kind of thing I would order at a bar, having never tried it, just to sound like I know what I'm talking about. But frankly, it tasted a little watered down to me, but I may have put too much ice in it. I wanted it to taste more like whiskey or else replace the lack of booze flavor with either sugar or lemon. The carbonation was nice, but the flavor just seemed a little less than the punch I've come to expect. Maybe a more expensive Scotch would've held its own against the soda? Things to consider for the rest of my drinking life.

1 1/2 ounces Scotch

Soda water

-Add Scotch to an iced highball glass and fill with soda water.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

John Collins

Two posts in one day! How amazing am I? Please, in lieu of flowers and gifts, just make a donation to the charity of your choice ;-)

I have to draw your attention to the John Collins photo. Let me tell you, if there were John Collinses sitting elegantly in mountain streams, I would spend a lot more time hiking. I feel like someone took a Coors commercial and photoshop a cocktail in -- taste of the Rockies and all. Ridiculous.

As to the quality of the actual drink, my ability to judge is diminished because I did some sketchy substitution. My soda water was flat, so I borrowed some of my roommate's (sorry B). Would've been fine except that hers was Pomegranate flavored, which didn't mix with the bourbon at all. For other types of Collins, I think the pom would have been fine, but the stronger flavor of whiskey was just really odd and off-putting. If not for my blunder, I'm sure this would've been a good drink just like other Collins.

2 ounces bourbon

splash of simple syrup

juice of 1/2 fresh lemon

soda water

-Add to an iced highball glass, soda water last. Stir and serve.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Mind Eraser

Confession: I've been drinking and not blogging. I barely remember the drinks I'm going to be writing about in the near future. Here's what I do know:

1. I still can't do floats, despite reading about them on the internet. Need more practice.

2. This drink tasted rancid until I added a bit of grenadine to it...I'm sure simple syrup would work as well.

3. That's pretty much it.

1 1/2 ounce vodka

1 1/2 ounce Kahlúa

Soda water

-Pour Kahlúa into an iced old fashioned glass. Add vodka slowly to create a float. Fill with soda water but don't mix.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Vodka Collins

Pretty much just see any other collins because they more or less taste the same. Or, at least, I have the same general reaction: simple, refreshing. Make or order at your local bar to find out.

I don't have my book with me now, so for the recipe, look at another collins entry and sub vodka for the alcohol.

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!

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!

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!

Pedro Collins

I will admit that the above picture is actually a TOM Collins, but they look exactly the same. Expect to see the same photo again when I make a Tom Collins, haha.

His friend, Pedro:

2 ounces light rum

1/3 ounce simple syrup

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Soda water

-Put lemon, syrup, and rum into iced highball glass. Fill with soda water and garnish with lemon wedge.

This drink is so nice and refreshing! It would be great in the summer: light and crisp and bubbly. I highly recommend. There are many different versions of Collins, which I will make my way through. You can really substitute almost any liquor for the rum and it will be a delicious version of a Collins. Do it!

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Mojito

Mojitos! Yay! Something I've had at a bar before so I have a frame of reference! And I have to say, I think mine was pretty damn good. Very traditional, but definitely did the job. Here's the recipe:

1 1/2 ounces light rum

1/2 ounce simple syrup

1 ounce lime juice

soda water

mint leaves

-Muddle mint leaves with simple syrup in the bottom of the glass. Add cracked ice, rum, and lime. Fill glass with soda water and garnish with more mint.

This was really refreshing and delicious and definitely recommended. However, you should learn to know and love this recipe as it is something bartenders don't like to make: takes too long when there's a group of people waiting for drinks. At least according to this article: Making friends with your bartender.

That's all for now. Enjoy and bottoms up!