Cocktail Confessions

Through the miracle of digital crack addiction phenom known as Facebook, I was able to recently reconnect with an associate I knew back in highschool some 20 years ago.  I learned that he has his own podcast over at teh website: SkurvyMonkeys.  A variety show chock full of music, comedy, and random musings between two dudes. 

I’m currently listening to the episode entitled ‘A Christmas to Drink by (part 2)’, and am very impressed.  This episode has some particularly funny holiday themeds music ranging from Disney to The Kinks.  A nice change from the ever so predictable Howard Stern crapola.

Production sounds a helluva lot better than my own futile attempts (Erik, don’t mind if I hit you up on some podcasting questions at a later date).  You can find their podcast on iTunes and I’ve included the links (skurvymonkeys.com and blendedmonkeys.com) in the right margin right here.  Anyway, go check them out!

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Hey folks, it’s been a few weeks since an update and what better way than to introduce some new cocktail recipes for the holiday season.  I am listing two versions for a Gingerbread martini, an easy version and a slightly more involved version, depending on how fast you want to pour this down your gullet and how fickle you are with taste quality.  I guess you can classify them as the college dorm recipe and the impressive high-fallutin’ party.  Of course, I recommened having either one of these under the mistletoe…you can’t go wrong.

Ginger Bread Martini (easy version)

• 1 - 1.5 oz Monin Gingerbread syrup (preferred brand)
• 3+ oz of quality Spiced Rum or Crown Royal.
• Sugar rimmed martini glass.
• Place both components in shaker with ice and shake well.  Syrup is a bit sweet, so experiment ratios to your preferred taste.  Pour in glass and garnish with a gingersnap cookie.

Gingerbread Cocktail (quality version)

• 1 oz vanilla vodka
• 1 oz hazelnut flavored liqueur
• 1/2 oz butterscotch schnapps
• ice cubes
• 4 oz ginger beer (such as Reed’s Ginger Brew)
• Dark rum
• Gingerbread cookie for garnish.
• Pour the vanilla vodka, hazlenut liquer, and schnapps in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake well.  Strain into a highball glass (8 oz) with ice.  Top with ginger beer.  Pour a little dark rum over the back of a spoon and float on top of the ginger beer.  Garnish with a gingerbread cookie.

Today is December 18th, 2009….and I’m bored out of my skull.  I stare at the clock and realize that I have just under four hours before my shift ends, and it days like this that seem like time stands still.  The four hours will feel like six and in a two hours from now it will feel like eight.

It’s Friday and I have other things on my mind right now…like finishing some last minute Christmas shopping, going to the grocery store to buy for a Christmas Eve meal I am preparing for my family, wrapping the last few presents, a load or two of laundry, and of course a final cleaning of the house before my relatives arrive.

It’s hard to look busy at work when the phone is silent and the whole staff is here and your boss sits only a few feet away.  I tap furiously here at the keyboard taking a break every few minutes to see if there is any ‘breaking’ news on CNN or FoxNews.  It’s more or less the same crap as it was an hour ago, and pretty much the same crap as this morning.  You know you’re bored when as a guy you start reading the ‘Living’ sections as I seem to muse that I am discovering some feminine side of my psyche buried deep within the recess of my mind.

As of today I haven’t had a drink in 2 weeks.  Yup, not once of alcohol in 13 days.  Oh, I haven’t stopped drinking by any means, it’s just I wanted to try a small experiment on myself.  See I went to the gym two weeks ago and I was very forlorn to learn that I gained all the weight back I had recently lost, most likely due to a few recent hop and barley induced binges.  So, I wanted to see how much weight I would actually lose naturally if I cut out all alcohol until Christmas Eve, or a total of 19 days.  Today is day 13, and while I have yet to weigh myself (most likely tomorrow), I actually do feel better and do feel ’skinnier’.  Now since I haven’t actually weighed myself, I really don’t know if I lost anything or not, but it ‘feels’ like I did.  There have been a few days (okay, at least two that I can recall) that I really was jonseing a stiff drink or a beer, but I didn’t cave.  Hopefully I won’t cave tonight, but I have a feeling I may have at least 1 or two beers with my friend Jon.  After work we may go to a wine bar that serves craft beers and the only way I can avoid his mocking scorn and my own temptation is if I do not actually go.

Oh, last week I went to a bar with a bunch of my friends and I got a healthy dose of razzing for not imbibing in at least one drink.  I don’t blame them or am mad at all…I’m usually the first to have a drink and a decent tolerance.  It should be interesting to see how I do if I hold out until Christmas Eve.

In other things….I am loving my new Motorola Droid.  It really is a fun phone and I get a chance to Face Book and chat with a few friends throughout the day.  The Google map and GPS feature is really fun and interesting, especially since I added an account with FourSquare.com.

Lastly, as I type this, I am using my Droid to listen to LastFM.com and streaming Daft Punk radio.  This thing is awesome in that respect that I have a 24 hour, real time DJ to any type of music genre I can think of, commercial free.  Dare I say it’s even better than my Sirius satellite radio?  Yes, it is.  It’s pretty awesome that I also have this as an app on my XBox 360, so I can stream the same radio content through my home stereo that is hooked up to my game console.

$150 and 27% baby!!

Holy shnikeys..

Priced at approx. $150 a bottle, this limited release run brandy-colored ‘beer’ sure packs a punch.  Known as an ‘extreme beer’, this beverage has been banned in at least 13 states.  Why?  Oh, maybe because it packs a whopping 27% alcohol by volume!!

First introduced in the 90’s, Boston Beer Co. (aka Sam Adams) has really been pushing the envelope of science.  The extreme brews are indeed still considered beer, because the law states they must be based on fermented grain, and the Utopias are.

A little history and trivia: In ‘93 brewer Koch introduced Trible Bock with a 17.5% alcohol by voulme.  Dogfish Head responded in the early 2000’s with brews containing upwards of 20%.  But Adams 15 year aging process which is finished in wooden casks now reigns supreme.  And the run is limited to about 10,000 bottles.

According to tasters. it sips like a cognac combined with vanilla, honey, and maple flavors.

Hmmmm…..If I’m feeling a little squirrly this winter, I may buy a bottle myself and share with a few of my friends as a real treat.  I’ll have to look online later…