September 25, 2005

• Mine's a Snake Bite which is basically just Yukon Jack and lime juice. I guess that's more of a shot then a mixed drink, but it's a great mix of sweet and sour.
• I really like a properly made Old Fashioned. An improperly made one sucks, though, and you're very likely to get an improperly made one unless you make it yourself. There is no soda water in an Old Fashioned, those bastards. I find Drinksmixer.com to be a fun place to spend time, and the My Cabinet area is real cool. You can specify what liquor and other ingredients you have on-hand and it'll show you a list of drink recipes you can make. Oh, BTW, the linked-to recipe for an Old Fashioned is almost correct. Never muddle the cherry -- add it in after the burbon but before the ice. While not in the linked-to recipe, remember not to add any of that cherry juice. Just don't.
• Are you folks deliberately courting sputtle?
• Sputtle? I hardly even know 'er!
• Amaretto hot chocolate. The perfect thing to drive those winter blues away. (Instructions: Pour slug of Amaretto into mug. Make hot chocolate. Add to mug. Add dash of cinnamon if feeling posh.)
• /sputtle
• My drink of choice is the Massacre, which is painfully easy to manufacture at home: 1 shot o' tequila some ginger ale splash of bitters A great way to treat even cheap tequila.
• heh heh, sputtle A really good sangria variation uses sparkling wine; the Freixenet spumante is a good base. To that add Licor 43 Cuarenta y Tres, maybe a little brandy, and strawberries and mint (optional). Drink Then make again, dropping the fruit. Drink again. And what's this brandy for anyway? A splash of 43, top up with fizzy stuff and...and how did this glass get empty anyhow? Damned evaporation.
• There's this really, really yummy drink called tequila rose which is a strawberry cream and tequila liquer. The problem is it's pretty expensive for what you get. The solution? Strawberry quick and tequila! Delish! Chocolate quick and tequila is pretty tasty too. I'm also a big fan of half pear cider and half Guiness. I'm not a huge dark beer fan, but the pear cider makes it super tasty.
• I adore Sex on the Beach. Only the drink, though - the pysical act chafes a bit. There's a load of different recipes for it, but mine is as follows: Equal quantities of Vodka, Malibu and Peach Schnapps. Mix these with a bit of Orange Juice in a glass, and then add a shot of Grenadine in the top. This is key, as the Grenadine sinks to the bottom of the cocktail and makes it fade from red to orange to yellow like a sunset.
• There's a big difference (in my mind anyway) between mixed drinks and cocktails. Mixed drinks are alcohol cut with juice or soda so that you can't really taste the booze. Cocktails are combinations of different alcoholic beverages, the juice or fruit component is minimal and intended to play up the flavors of the booze. As if you couldn't tell from my very biased definition, I prefer cocktails. My favorites are the Manhattan and the Aviation. My Manhattan starts with a good slug of Maker's Mark (anything cheaper won't taste as good, anything more expensive should be drunk straight), splashes of both sweet and dry vermouth, a dash of bitters and just a drop of maraschino cherry juice. Shake well with ice, pour into a martini glass, drop a cherry in and serve. The Aviation requires real Maraschino, which is a dry cherry liqueur from somewhere in the Balkans I think. It's kind of hard to find but can be ordered online, I like the Luxardo the best. For this cocktail, take a good slug of gin (I like Bombay Sapphire, but some people find it too herbal), add a healthy splash of Maraschino and the juice of 1/4 lemon. Shake well with ice and serve in a cocktail glass. When in season, a fresh cherry is a nice garnish (NOT maraschino cherries, which will ironically throw the flavor off). Okay, that was waaaaay too long. Sorry.
• OK, most people think I'm fucking crazy, but this is the best dessert drink in the world. Are you ready? Guiness Float It's just like a Root Beer Float, but with Guiness. And really high-quality vanilla ice cream, like Dryers or Haagan-Daz. The flavors mellow each other out, and it´s really nice on a hot day. The last inch or so in the glass is like a Guiness milk shake. Mmmm, good. I know this was supposed to be just about teh likkers, but I just had to pimp my favorite drink.
• Not much of a mixed drink fellow. My standard going out combo is a shot of Jameson and a pint of Guiness. (side by side, not mixed together.)
• Scotch and ice.
• squidranch, 's better without the ice.
• Aye, but you need a little water to take away the bite.
• Cali, (Maker's Mark) manhattans are my drink of choice as well, but it's been hard to get a good one in SF. I think the bars I like going to aren't really the bars where one orders cocktails. The Tunnel Top does a really nice one with real cherries, which I like. I saw for the first time last night two people drinking a carbomb--which is half a pint of Guinness, into which you drop a shotglass of Bailey's & Jameson's, and then slam, or suffer the messy consequences. (This doesn't seem like a drink you should be ordering if you're over 20.)
• Rusty Nail (best drank while listening to krupa and rich.) 1 1/2 oz scotch 1/2 oz drambuie
• The Rusty Nail is a splendid, but dangerous, drink Argh! Drambuie takes the edge off the scotch and the scotch tempers the sweetness of the drambuie. But I'm not much of a mixed drink drinker. I'll settle for dark rum with a little water and a squeeze of lime, good scotch or a dry gin martini (vodka does not a martini make). Daniel's carbomb reminds me of a less refined version, popular logging camp fare: Case of beer Bottle of rye Open a beer Drink a good swig Top up with rye Repeat until arrested or unconcious.
• Another Manhattan fan chiming in here. I used to like them quite dry, on the theory that bourbon is quite sweet enough without help from the vermouth, but have since developed a taste for the classic, sweeter cocktail. Also fun: the rye manhattan. Makes me feel very Farewell, My Lovely.
• Carbombs (the drink) are awesome, but beware one important fact: after a few seconds the bailey's begins to curdle and . . well, let's just say there's a reason for drinking it quickly once the shot is dropped in. Thanks for the tips / stories, all. Can anyone corroborate a little dispute I'm having with a friend of mine; Is Gin one of the more poisonous liquors? I say vodka is one of the "purest" but I can't find any evidence.
• Well, the week before my wedding, some friends took me out for some celebration. We started at the Redwood Room in SF. At the time, the Redwood Room was an old established institution famous for it's martinis. This also happened to be its last night before closing for major renovation as new owners took over -- much of the waitstaff had worked there for decades, and faced unemployemnt as the new ownership intended to replace them with young hipsters. They were bitter, and many of the drinks were free -- and strong with Bombay gin. Many martinis later, we headed down to the Edinburgh Castle (local pub) and finished the night off with scotch and beer. Afterward, my buddies shoved me in a cab and made sure I was headed home. After stumbling up the stairs to our flat, I proceeded to smilingly recall the nights events to my fiance. Mid-sentence, my face turned sour and I lurched to the toilet, barely making it in time. My poor wife-to-be had to babysit me until I fell asleep cheek against the toilet. Let me say that it was the first and last time in years that I had drunk to that level of excess. Nowdays, all it takes is a glass of wine for me to "relax". The point of the story is, that I still can't touch gin. The mere smell of it is enough to make me squirm and conjure up bad memories of cold porcelain. Now, gin is not the only thing that I drank that night, but is the only one that I still can't tolerate. So yes, it's toxic. Bad.
• Warning: The following recipe caused various acts of nudity, poor judgement, damaged furniture, and mysterious bruises that appear the morning after consumption. I have not consumed this drink since college. Flaming Dr. Pepper Pour a light-ish beer into a mug. Fill a shot glass 3/4 full of amaretto and the rest with 151. Set fire to the shot. Drop it into the beer mug and slug it down FAST. It really does taste like Dr. Pepper. If you don't slug it down fast, it tastes like beer with yucky stuff floating in it.
• The whole "flavored martini" trend really bugs me, but I love messing around with chocolate martinis which I make with vodka and Godiva liqueur. It's always nice to frost the edge of the glass with chocolate. You can change it up by using orange vodka and garnish with an orange, or add Frangelico for a chocolate hazelnut martini. I also love messing around with Midori and have yet to make a bad drink with it. Start off with Midori and vodka, and add a bit of fruit juice. I had great success at a party where there weren't many fruit juices mixing with Capri Suns and Kool-aide and a bit of 7-Up (just a splash of the juices). Sex on the Beach (the drink) is much better if you get it 'top shelf'. World of a difference. And I never knew, until this thread, why all the "sunset" drinks were named as such - thanks, eddybennet.
• Some folks have an allergy to gin as a result of the juniper berries used for its unique flavor. Juniper is itself a diuretic, so drinking gin can cause electrolyte imbalances in the body more readily that other alcohols.
• Manhattan, with quality bourbon.
• w/ 1/2 sweet vermouth and 1/2 dry.
• electrolyte imbalances Ah, so that's what you call it!
• i heard that the clearer the liquor, the cleaner it is. and so i thought that vodka and gin were relatively clean alcohols. but then i discovered korean soju which is as clear as day but as impure as a rapist's fantasies. nevertheless, soju and a light sweet asian plum juice might a great combination.
• make. make a great combination. must be the soju typing.
• zanshin, I miss the Redwood Room. When I lived in SF, I would go there at least two or three times a week.
• To add to the Guinness suggestions, 1 pint Guinness with 1-2 shots of Tia Maria is very pleasant and a nice introduction to Guinness for the non-Guinness drinker. Hot and spicy Gluhwein is the best outdoor winter drink possible, be sure to beef up the basic drink with a bit of schnapps.
• I've come close to seeing a ranking of different liquors in terms of toxicity but I can't actually find one on them Internets.
• Oh, I completely forgot about my other favorite drink, which I haven't had in a while because... I completely forgot about it. Damned alcohol Vodka and plum wine (or plum sake, if you can't get it) in equal proportions, shaken and served straight in a martini glass. Or also nice served with crushed ice, on a hot day.
• re: Midori - add it to a margarita (frozen or rocks) for a lovely change of flavor. A shot of vanilla vodka added to a Coke usually does the trick for me.
• The other way to initiate drinkers to Guinness or other dark beers is a little raspberry syrup poured on top. But I discovered the joys of vanilla vodka last year and second Mickey on that. Midori is horribly, horribly sweet. And green.
• I've got to third the Carbomb (or Irish Carbomb, as I've always referred to it -- even in mixed company). My favorite drink is always the one in front of me, but I do have a few recipes I've whipped up over the years. I like to keep my recipes simple. A few of my favs are (and you are under no obligation to actually use these names; I don't): Ecto-plasm Cooler - kind of like Petebest's Dragonfly, but, as it lacks any sort of fruit juice, a much more honest drink Any sort of melon liquor (i.e. Midori) Vodka Sprite A dash of sweet and sour bar mix if ya got it It should come out a beautiful translucent green. Yes, it was named after the Ghostbusters Hi-C. Root Beer Barrel Ouzo Root Beer So so simple, yet so so delicious this has no name Chai (made yourself, hot, and with milk is best) 151 proof rum Any hot tea with milk would work, but the spice of the chai works so well with the rum. Kind of like a hot toddy.
• The nine-to-five
• Here´s one I can´t find outside of the States, and not done properly outside of Idaho. The Jeager Bomb Half a can of Red Bull in a pint glass (the whole can is too much). A shot of Jeager in a separate shot glass. Drop shot glass into Red Bull, chug like mad. I swear to god, it tastes like a Jolly Rancher. Many bars mix it for you, because they lose pint glasses to poor droppers. Half the point is that it gets all fizzy, making in easy to pound down. Mixed Jeager Bombs are uncool.