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!

Quickie

The drink in which I discover that I really like bourbon, a fact I'm quite pleased about for no better reason than that drinking bourbon sounds cool. Compared to other whiskey I've had, bourbon is smoother, a little less spicy, but not because it seems watered down. I'll report more when I have further experience.

I introduce bourbon because that's the dominating flavor of a quickie, a drink whose name is pretty to the point. This is one to down only if you want to be buzzed in the most immediate of futures.

1 ounce bourbon

1 ounce light rum

1/4 ounce triple sec

-Mix 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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

Pegu Club Cocktail

A cocktail that surprised me! The first two sips, I was very unsure: I was leaning toward dislike. With the third sip, I was sold. Because it contains lime, I was expected that flavor to be stronger, but it was really the gin and bitters that I tasted. The triple sec just made it a little smoother I think. I will say that this is definitely a strong drink -- I felt it after only a few sips --not for the faint of heart.

1 1/2 ounce gin

3/4 ounce triple sec (curacao works too and cointreau is great if you can get it)

1/3 ounce lime juice

2 dashes of bitters

-Stir w/cracked ice and strain into cocktail glass.

Enjoy and bottoms up!

Champagne Punch

Yay! I got my first punch out of the way! I really feel like the punch chapter has the potential to ruin this whole project for me, unless I manage to get a full time job. Sad.

Anyway, I should say that the above picture is just A champagne punch and not THE champagne punch that I made. Mine being much less beautiful but probably just as tasty. Here's what you do:

4 ounces lemon juice

4 ounces pineapple juice

3 ounces grenadine

1 cup brandy

3 ounces triple sec

1 bottle white wine

2 bottles chilled champagne

-Combine everything except champagne over ice and stir. Add champagne just before serving.

In general this was good, but wasn't nearly as flavorful as I was expecting. I really thought there would be multiple layers of delicious, complex and surprising. I think it would have tasted pretty similar with just the wine, champagne, and triple sec.

I should say that I didn't drink all this punch alone: I brought it to a house warming party for El, and I am told people drank it completely. I wouldn't know because I'm an old lady who left at 9:00 to go home and sleep.

I did some more imbibing tonight, but I'm super super tired now, so I'll save that post for tomorrow.

Enjoy and bottoms up!