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!