Strawberry Margarita

Last post for today! Hopefully I'll have more for you soon though.

The strawberry margarita was my cocktail entertainment just last night so I actually remember it (surprising considering tequila's reputation). I didn't buy enough limes at the Kiva and the grocery store across the street didn't have limes (serious problem), so I had to use mostly lemon juice (not ideal). However, the berries we really delicious and I felt happy and refreshed playing Sorry! with Mahala in my backyard on what felt like the first real day of summer in Oregon. In the future, I might also puree some of the fresh strawberries to put into the mix as well as have some floating slices.

Unfortunately, the effect tequila seems to have on me is not crazy party drunkness, but lame party slumber. After 3 of these babies, I was falling asleep on the couch while watching Arrested Development. Poor Mahala who came over expecting fun! I promise to be a more fun drunk in the future.

The tequila sleeps are not an unknown phenomenon with me: at the end of my 2nd year of college, Lesley and I decided to have Tequila Friday and make margaritas in our place. This turned into a total disaster of terrible tasting drinks and a huge mess in the kitchen. If only I knew then what I know now about making cocktails. We each had one drink, took a nap for an hour or so, then tried to come back and drink more, which still did not get any kind of party started. We'd been hyping it up all week, but nothing popped off.

1 ounce tequila

1/2 ounce triple sec

1/2 ounce strawberry liqueur

juice of 1/2 fresh lemon or lime (go with lime)

1 ounce frozen strawberries (but actually go with fresh if available)

-Salt the rim of a glass, shake ingredients in shaker, and pour with ice into the glass.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Long Island Iced Tea

I was really expecting to be completely shit faced after drinking this one -- it's known for having a much higher alcohol concentration than most highballs. I planned this one out so that I wouldn't be hungover at work, which turned out to be completely unnecessary. I wasn't even that buzzed, let alone drunk. But I wouldn't take my experience to heart: proceed with caution when ordering this one.

As to the actual taste, it was like the booze version of a graveyard. You know, when you mix all the sodas together at the soda fountain. I used to love, love that circa middle school and I'm not really sure why. Really bizarre, inexplicable taste. I don't really even know whether to recommend or not because I was left very confused.

3/4 ounce rum

3/4 ounce gin

3/4 ounce vodka

3/4 ounce tequila

3/4 ounce triple sec

1 ounce lemon juice

Cola

-Mix all ingredients in cocktail shaker except cola. Strain into iced highball glass and fill with cola.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Tequini

Do you want to do shots of tequila while pretending to be classy? Have a tequini. There's a little bit of vermouth (that is almost completely overshadowed by the tequila), but otherwise there's not much difference between this drink and taking a swig from the bottle.

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing...I've certainly had much much much worse drinks throughout this project. The downside: I had one tequini and a glass of wine and woke up with a legit hangover the next day. I'm not one to be felled by only two drinks, but I didn't get out of bed until 11 and felt like crap for several more hours. Beware is all I'm saying. Here at LYJIA, we (I) promote functional alcoholism ;-)

1 1/2 ounce tequila

1/2 ounce dry vermouth

-Stir with cracked ice and strain into cocktail glass.

Also thanks to a new blog by my lovely friend Alex (read it!), and a potential new blog from El (who's still working out the details), I've been reinvigorated with drink project enthusiasm! (Also I had enough money to actually go to the liquor store and buy some new stuff). Get ready to hear about some fantastic new drinks, and hopefully the halfway point in the project!

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Cranberry Margarita

Unsurprisingly, cranberry juice works well as a mixer with tequila. Cranberry margaritas are good, but not exactly a revelation. If you prefer tequila to vodka, then get this instead of a vodka cran, otherwise don't bother.

1 ounce tequila

1/3 ounce triple sec

3/4 ounce lime juice

1 1/4 ounce cranberry juice

splash of simple syrup

-Shake in a cocktail shaker and strain into iced rocks glass.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Matador

We have a winner! The matador is one glass of complete delicious and gets four thumbs way up (I shared this one with an amiga)! It's definitely tropical and girly, but why does that have to be a diss? 'This drink actually tastes good, must be for light weights!' Bah, I like it.

I have to admit that I've been a very bad blogger of late, but I've still been doing the drinking, so I'll catch up eventually. I've had some friends back in town, some of my friends who actually drink, so I've had a chance to re-make some drinks of the past, and even did a bit (very small bit) of mixology. Masha was adorably impressed with my cocktail shaker, a I love her for it ;-)

Now I'll spend the next couple days immersed in Christmas prep at my parents' house, and hopefully catching up on a couple drinks I've yet to post about. Hope everyone's having a great holiday!

2 ounces tequila

1 ounce lime juice

4 ounces pineapple juice

splash of simple syrup

-Shake ingredients in cocktail shaker and strain into iced highball glass.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Tequila Sunrise

I've not been writing here for the past couple of days because I've been S-I-C-K. I actually drank the tequila sunrise quite a bit ago, right as I was heading down for the count (and not on account of the tequila). I don't even remember very well what it tasted like, just that my throat was sore so I didn't want to swallow it.

On the cocktail project more generally, 1) I'm a little unenthused these days which is leading to 2) bad bartending. I've become such a poor pour that I often end up with a significant portion of the booze on the counter. I'm also a little tired of just making drinks for just myself, so hopefully having people back during the break will reinvigorate me!

Well, the roomie and I are putting up the Christmas tree tonight finally, so that should be yay! Happy holidays!

1 1/2 ounce tequila

6 ounces orange juice

1/2 ounce grenadine

-add tequila and orange juice to iced highball glass. Float grenadine.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Frozen Margarita

Boo, this was a blending failure for me. I've really had mixed results with my blended drinks (the strawberry daiquiri being my highest achievement), and I can't figure out what I do wrong sometimes. I guess I'll have to have people over during break and practice a bit more ;-)

I actually had this one two nights ago after doing who knows what. I can't remember back a whole 48 hours! Last night I stayed at my parents' house and helped them host a party for my mom's work. Basically, I made a pizza that I couldn't eat (salami and roasted peppers with goat cheese) and mulled wine. I was kind of hoping my parents would offer the rum to me after the party (they're not big hard liquor drinkers), but no. I've just got a little bit left too, and I'm getting rather low on gin and whiskey as well. Yikes!

ANYWAY, the frozen marg is the same as the basic marg except you add 4-5 ice cubes and blend it. Have fun with that: I hope you do better than I.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Blue Margarita

The blue margarita is kind of a silly drink. It basically tastes like a margarita except that it's blue. Does what it says on the tin? Warning: will leave your tongue stained!

1 1/2 ounce tequila

1/2 ounce blue curacao

3/4 ounce lime juice

-Shake over cracked ice in a cocktail shaker and strain into an iced highball 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!