I may be from the South, but I never was a bourbon drinker. Actually, I don’t drink a lot of liquor because I’m a relative lightweight when it comes to alcohol. I’m a sipper — a serial sipper, and if I get drunk too fast, then I have to stop drinking long before everyone else does. I will then start to demand to go home because I’ll be getting sleepy and also why continue to stay out when you could be at home in your pajamas?
And you know, that’s annoying.
However, a few years ago after Christmas, I began to go through eggnog withdrawal. I started searching for other recipes like the Tom and Jerry or the flip, sort of ur-nogs. After trying them, I realized that what I liked about eggnog wasn’t the nutmeggy milkiness I expected, but the bourbon — which was missing in the drinks I'd found.
With that realization, I became a convert. Much to the astonishment of my husband, who thinks bourbon is moderately vile (although he drinks his share of eggnog) and unnecessary. From his perspective, throughout most of our marriage I've been a person who didn't drink brown liquors, and now, without warning, I’ve become a bourbon drinker. He sees it as an affectation, I think.
Summer decided to make it's second appearance this spring and although the temperatures in Virginia are supposed to slide back into the normal range, that's no excuse not to whip out the Aperol and Prosecco and try to speak in an amusing-only-to-you Italian accent. It's a dry, light, and slightly bitter drink that goes down effortlessly as the humidity goes up.
When I was graciously invited to Pizza Club (here's a link if you'd like to read more about it), the lovely Victoria Deroche introduced me to my new favorite cocktail. She said that during the summer, all over Italy, an Aperol spritz is thrust into your hands wherever you go. Over here, sadly, if you don't know Victoria, you'll have to thrust a spritz into your own hand.
Gallons — unfortunately, it's easy to drink gallons of this spritz. On the flipside, however, it's very low in alcohol, so, for at least a little while, larger than normal quantities can be consumed with few ill effects.This is key, I think, to summer drinking. At least for me. Too much wine and I have to go home when I'd much rather last through the sunset and into the moonrise, gazing at the stars, cocktail in hand, while I languidly and in a cliché-ridden Southern way, slowly fan myself while I slap away the mosquitoes.
Here you go (with one caveat: this is probably the dumbest recipe you'll ever read, but you know, someone had to tell you about it):
The Perfect Summer Drink (otherwise know as a Spritz)
Prosecco (I confess I buy the cheap stuff when I know I'm not going to drink it straight)
Aperol
Soda water
Orange slice
Fill a glass with ice, add Prosecco until it's about 3/4 of the way up, splash in some soda water, and pour in the Aperol until you like the orange-y shade, and you've achieved sufficient bitterness to your taste. Drop in an orange slice. Drink and then drink some more. Share generously.
I've been dragging my feet about a proposed post about Spoon, because I just haven't been able to come up with a good cocktail for them. I tinkered around with some grapefruit vodka, pineapple juice, and Cointreau, but it just wasn't quite right. I wanted something sweet but a little astringent, something well-crafted but seemingly effortless. Then I had some people over for dinner and they drank up all the vodka. I haven't bought any more because sometimes cocktail experimentation seems like an inherently bad idea (even though oddly, at other times, it seems like a flash of brilliance).
So Spoon's alcoholic tribute has foundered. When I went to see them at the NorVa, my biggest fear was that I'd be the oldest person there. I wasn't. Not by a long shot (thank god). This was reinforced later when I went to see the B-52s, where I was, on average, a good ten years younger than most of the audience and musicians onstage. Now, these people were seriously old (again, thank god). I'd forgotten that in my youth, New Wave-y worship of the B-52's was practiced by the cool, older crowd I knew. I'd also forgotten until I heard "Planet Claire" live that I had a very annoying older boyfriend who'd spent a summer in Athens, GA, and endlessly tried to impress me with his sophistication, spiky hair, and tales of underground insiderness. But didn't we all? Sometimes it really is better to just forget.
Kind of bittersweet, you know? I really wanted to be at a live B-52's show in the eighties (early eighties), but instead I didn't make until last month--a couple of decades late. Fortunately, the band played a truly amazing version of "Love Shack" (who knew I liked that song?) that almost made up for the crippling nostalgia I was experiencing. Later, I realized it would have helped me, when the regret and long-suppressed pettiness surfaced, to have quickly applied a cocktail I drank a lot of in those days: the Kamikaze.
I've been out and about lately, seeing bands, hanging out at shows, and generally doing the whole music thing. Except for the big Style Weekly music event--I couldn't go to that. But that's okay. I'm down with the scene, you know? I don't have to go to every single show. I wear my hipster cool inside, where it counts, if you know what I mean.
So, I haven't really been thinking as much about food as I have about drinking. Bars and bands seem to go together like seared foie gras on toast points, and cocktails are more germane to this particular discussion re: my fabulously cool night life.
The first cocktail up for assessment is the humble rum and coke. I chose this particular drink in honor of the Jonas Brothers, the first band I found myself seeing. I was accompanied by my awesomely hip daughters, age twelve and nine, and because I love them (my daughters, that it) very, very, very, very, very, very, very,very, very much, I was able to withstand nearly two hours of nine thousand girls' constant, high-pitched screaming, despite the fact that NO rum was available. I fortunately recognized most of the songs because the CD has been on shuffle and repeat in the car for months, and because the Jonas Brothers, in a seriously smart marketing move, like to sing covers of songs mothers remember from when they were young (you should have heard the collective sigh and seen the significant glances among the older set when they launched into A-Ha's "Take on Me."
Like heartthrobs since time immemorial, the boys are all androgynously adorable (except for that one with the creepy sideburns), and even better, during one of the three costume changes they made, the cutest one of all strutted out in what looked like a Shaun Cassidy-esque skintight white suit. I know, because I was there with my sister when sweet Shaun catapulted through a paper drum-type thing, lo these many years ago, on the very same stage! The only difference was that while back in the seventies my mother (as did every other mother in town) dropped my sister and me off for the show, I was forced was happy to attend with my daughters.
Compare and contrast, people, compare and contrast.
Although I wasn't drinking yet when I saw the lovely Shaun, I did have a hankering, after the Jonas Bros. show-- possibly as I was leaving the parking lot--for something from that decade of my life. When I finally got my first taste of alcohol back in the old days, my friends and I had a preference for rum, particularly the rum my friend Jackie stole from her parents. In order to disguise it, she stored it in a rinsed-out Vidal Sassoon shampoo bottle. If any of you have used this shampoo, you might recall that it has (or had) a vague, almond-y fragrance. Therefore, all of the cocktails we would drink (underage, in a plastic school cup), would also taste faintly of almonds (and soap). The coke mixer couldn't quite kill the flavor, although it came mighty close.
I like that little extra almond kick, however, so in what I laughably call a recipe below, I recommend splashing a little amaretto in the glass first, swirling it around, and then dumping it out, like you would if you were making a dryish martini. I also advocate a strong rum to coke ratio, because sometimes you just have to be true to your past. Even though the thought of your own daughter doing the same thing at the same age chills you to the very depths of your soul.
Blast from the Past Rum and Coke
Splash of amaretto
ice
2 to 2 1/2 ounces white rum
Coca-Cola, to taste
Coat the inside of your glass with the amaretto and dump the excess into the sink. Add ice, rum, and coke. Wax nostalgic. Repeat.
NEXT TIME: Spoon and the joy of hanging out with people my own age (sort of) . . .
Some recipes are so tied to a particular holiday, they simply bear repeating. Here's one from December 11, 2006.
Remember how Col. Klink on Hogan's Heroes was always knocking back schnapps whenever any SS officials showed up at the camp? They didn't ever explain and I always wondered what schnapps were when I was a kid (although I was down with the Geneva Conventions) but my parents had no idea either.
Klink was probably drinking Rumple Minze, a particularly lethal form of peppermint schnapps from Germany that makes all that off-brand stuff taste like an old candy cane run over by a bunch of reindeer. It also forms the foundation of one of my favorite holiday cocktails that I like to call:
Sleigh Ride to Hell
1 1/2 oz. 100 proof vodka 1 1/2 oz. Rumple Minze Smashed-up candy canes
Now this cocktail is nothing fancy but it's big and really, really strong.
First: Smash (with manic glee) a few candy canes to powder. Lightly rim the glass with a little Rumple Minze and then dip the glass into the candy cane powder you've conveniently spread out onto a small plate.
Secondly: Shake vodka and Rumple Minze with ice and strain into the prepared glass (yes, this is a recipe for one but you've got a calculator, don't you?).
And finally: Do NOT garnish with one of the cute, little candy canes that escaped the hammer. It's not that kind of cocktail.
Hand over your car keys and soon you'll be racing through the dark, snow-heavy Bavarian woods at Winter's Solstice in a sleigh with the horses running full out as the wolves snap behind your frozen ears. Just don't toss your bride out to placate those slavering wolves; they're going to eat you anyway. Time for another drink.
Remember how Col. Klink on Hogan's Heroes was always knocking back schnapps whenever any SS officials showed up at the camp? They didn't ever explain and I always wondered what schnapps were when I was a kid (although I was down with the Geneva Conventions) but my parents had no idea either.
Klink was probably drinking Rumple Minze, a particularly lethal form of peppermint schnapps from Germany that makes all that off-brand stuff taste like an old candy cane run over by a bunch of reindeer. It also forms the foundation of one of my favorite holiday cocktails that I like to call:
Sleigh Ride to Hell
1 1/2 oz. 100 proof vodka 1 1/2 oz. Rumple Minze Smashed-up candy canes
Now this cocktail is nothing fancy but it's big and really, really strong.
First: Smash (with manic glee) a few candy canes to powder. Lightly rim the glass with a little Rumple Minze (this can be done with your finger, thank you very much) and then dip the glass into the candy cane powder you've conveniently spread out onto a small plate.
Secondly: Shake vodka and Rumple Minze with ice and strain into the prepared glass (yes, this is a recipe for one but you've got a calculator, don't you?).
And finally: Do NOT garnish with one of the cute, little candy canes that escaped the hammer. It's not that kind of cocktail.
Hand over your car keys and soon you'll be racing through the dark, snow-heavy Bavarian woods at Winter's Solstice in a sleigh with the horses running full out as the wolves snap behind your frozen ears. Just don't toss your bride out to placate those slavering wolves; they're going to eat you anyway. Time for another drink.
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