Bohemian

So my financial woes have seriously derailed the progression of this project, and the damage might be fatal. We'll see as summer approaches how much money I have to put toward my efforts, but I might have to ask for an extension past September.

As to the bohemian, I didn't follow the recipe exactly as it stated because I had just gotten back from the store when I realized I didn't have cranberry juice. How do I not have cranberry juice? Talk about bar essentials. I subbed blueberry pomegranate juice that my roommates had in the fridge.

Overall, the drink was fruity and nice, but I think the tartness of the cranberry would've been a good addition.

2 ounces vodka

1 ounce pineapple juice

1/2 ounce passion fruit juice

1/2 ounce cranberry juice

Mix with cracked ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Cosmopolitan

You have no idea how many times I started to write this post but got too bored and gave up. That's kind of where I'm at with the drink itself as well: blah blah Sex and the City blah blah New York blah blah pink yay! The bottom line: it doesn't taste so different than a crantini. Cointreau is really good, so don't waste it on this drink. Go ahead, use triple sec and save the expensive stuff for when it matters.

Honestly, I drank my cosmo easily, in my apartment, while watching some movie or other. Maybe you have to be at some New York hotspot to really appreciate the genius of the cosmo, but somehow I doubt it. Maybe when you're having as much sex as those girls did, the taste : price ratio is irrelevant. Next time, I'll save my 3/4 ounce of cointreau for a different drink and throw this one together for half the price.

2 ounce vodka

2 ounce cran juice

1 ounce lime juice

3/4 ounce cointreau

-Stir with cracked ice and strain into cocktail glass.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Ruby Martini

This is another instance where the picture looks nothing like the actual drink: the real thing is stirred so the blue and red mix and form a very dark blue (a color I wasn't expecting to ever drink in my life), and it's in a cocktail glass with no ice. Google images was being a bitch a giving me martini glasses that were either ruby colored or literally MADE FROM RUBIES. Not helpful.

The drink itself was good, but the most remarkable thing about it was the color. Another in the long line of good but not amazing. In general, I'm a little burnt out on cocktails and really prefer beer and wine right now. Sitting at home, watching Doctor Who, eating potatoes, drinking red wine, reading TFLN is pretty much what I do these days. Theoretically, I should be less poor soon, as I now have three jobs. But somehow I think I will still manage to be broke. Oh well, it's part of being young, right?

1 1/2 ounce vodka

1/2 ounce cranberry juice

1/2 ounce blue Curaçao

-Stir with cracked ice and strain into cocktail glass.

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!

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!

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!

New York Cocktail/Blizzard

So the above picture is not what either of these cocktails looks like at all. I couldn't find a decent looking picture, so I went with a cocktail IN New York as opposed to the cocktail OF New York. Don't be surprised if you order this at a bar and it is pink, on ice, and in a rocks glass. JSYK.

So yesterday was lovely and included a few of my favorite things: talking to a friend from NY, making yummy vegan steak and potatoes for me and the roommie, and watching Top Chef with El whilst drinking. Complete perfection.

The New York Cocktail is what I made for El to drink. Here's how she goes:

1 1/2 ounce blended whiskey

1/2 ounce simple syrup

Few dashes of grenadine

Juice of 1 lime

-Shake in cocktail shaker with cracked ice. Strain and serve over cracked ice.

I only had a sip of this one, so I can't give great detail on its deepest and darkest secrets. Basically, you can put an entire lime in almost anything and I'm happy. It seemed like a very girly way to do whiskey. Maybe I should go through and make a tag for girly drinks. Y/N?

And here's what I was drinking:

Blizzard:

1 1/2 ounce blended whiskey

1/2 ounce simple syrup

1 ounce cranberry juice

Juice of 1/4 fresh lemon

-Shake in cocktail shaker with cracked ice. Strain and serve over cracked ice.

This was an okay drink. I had no problem finishing it, but it was certainly nothing to write the folks at home about. It was about the color of cola dregs when you've let the ice melt down, so not terribly appealing. Not something I would go out of my way to order/make, but not something I would go out of my way to avoid.

Preview for tomorrow's entry: my first drink from the dessert's chapter, which comes from my ancestral land, Ireland, where recovering alcoholics are just quitters.

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!