Cocktail Confessions

Well, here it is, Episode 15.  I wish I could say I’m really happy with the outcome, but in my own humble opinion, it’s “meh” at best.  Why you ask?  Originally, I had sat down last weekend with my friend Brian Liles (yet again) and had made a sweet recording that was a good solid hour plus.  It could have easily been broken into two seperate Podcasts, and I think it was one of our best yet.  There was a myriad of interesting topics on the table as well as we had at least three to four craft beers in us each as we made it.

However, due to the fact that I hadn’t take the time to reboot my computer after some auto-installed patches from Microsoft prior to our recording, it seems that Audacity (my podcast recording software) somehow corrupted the data.  No matter how many times I tried to recover the orphan files after a failed save attempt, I just couldn’t resurect it.  As I say in this podcast, let that be a lesson to all you tech heads out there.  Always reboot your PC after critical patches are downloaded and installed.  I clearly should have known better, so I have no one to blame but myself.

Feeling somewhat pressed to have a new episode ready, I took my portable Zoom to work and made this recording on my lunch break while sitting in my car.  I’m happy with the audio quality, but as you’ll hear, there was really no set agenda for this one.  It’s about 40 minutes of me ranting on some of my political views, Howard Stern, and my upcoming business trip to Atlanta, GA.  Also, I was able to throw in a cocktail recipe, the ‘original’ Texas-tini (not my version from a few weeks back in which I thought I was so clever with the name), and a recipe for grilling artichokes.  Hence the title ‘Smorgasbord’.

In other news, I’m rapidly approaching my 40th birthday (8 days from this writing) and I am clearly having a mild midlife crisis.  I hope its not too evident in my recording, but I’ve been feeling a bit under pressure lately in various personal aspects: financial, work, trying to be a father to a teenage girl, etc. So perhaps that lends to my somewhat dour attitude in if you pick up on it.  Hopefully I’ll snap out of it soon because it really just doesn’t feel like me and I’m very aware of it.

I’ll work on the show notes and recipes contained within later if I get a chance, but suffice to say I will be out on business the next week (starting tomorrow) so I most likely won’t be making any updates here for at least a week. 

As I usually do, I try an pick an intro song that encapsulates either my mood or something that somehow pertains to the audio content of the episode.  Here, I chose “Take this Job and Shove it” by Johnny Paycheck.  I have two comments about this: 1) Yeah, I’m not gonna be quitting my job anytime soon, but the last few weeks, I really feel as if I’ve been holding back my frustration on various career related issues and I’m just not that happy overall, and 2) I really thought Johnny ‘Paycheck’ was a fake name and he was trying to cash in on the name Johnny Cash, especially when you have a song about a job and then shoving it.  Turns out, I was partially correct, as his real name was Donald Eugene Lytle.

Texas-Tini II

• 3 oz whisky (try a sweet or smooth blend like Crown Royal or Canadian Mist)
• 1.5 oz sweet vermouth
• 1/2 oz Blue Curacao (orange flavored liquer, but blue in color)
• Shake all three ingrediants over ice and pour in sugar rimmed martini glass, or mix all three in lowball glass over ice and skip sugar.

Grilled Artichoke

• 2 fresh artichokes, stems cut at least 1 inch from base.
• Place artichokes in pot of boiling water with the freshly squeezed juice of 1/2 lemon to reduce oxidation of leaves (prevents leaves from turning brown). (Optional: zest some of the lemon peel and add zest (to taste) to fresh mayo.  Mix, and chill in advance for dipping.  Lemon zest adds a nice fresh, flavorful kick to the mayo).
• Remove after 25-28 minutes of cooking, drain excess water, and let cool enough to handle.
• Preheat grill to medium-low heat/flame.
• With sharp knife, cut artichoke in half, lengthwise and remove choke/heart (purpleish center with bristles) with spoon.
• Brush halves with olive oil and season with kosher or sea salt and fresh ground pepper.
• Place flat side down on grill, cooking approx 2-3 minutes, then turn 45 degrees and cook additional 2-3 minutes or until nice grill marks appear.  In the last few minutes, ‘drizzle’ some quality balsamic vinegar over artichokes for additional flavor and color.
• Serve with fresh lemon zest mayo (above), and/or melted butter and garlic combo.

Show Notes

• Coming soon

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Yesterday was a little more hectic than usual at work and I was really looking forward to getting the hell out of Dodge and head home.  It was also raining, as it has been for the better part of a whole week now, and I was also looking to make something hearty for dinner, like chili.  Well, I knew I has some flank steak in the fridge, some mexican cheese, a whole pantry full of southwest spices, and some dry gourmet chili mix by ‘Bear’. 

So in the midst of making a really good home doctored up chili with some fresh diced peppers and such, I opted to make myself a drink.  A gin martini sounded pretty good, but since I was in this south western them and I came across some jalepeno stuffed olives in my pantry that I forgot I had, I decided to concoct my own ’spicy’ libation.

Now I don’t claim that I invented this drink by any means, but the recipe just kind of came together in my head at that moment in time and I did come up with the name ‘Texas-tini’, so here we go:

Texas-tini

• 5 parts gin
• 1 part dry vermouth
• 2 jalepeno stuffed olives
• Favorite pepper sauce
• Jalepeno slice for garnish (optional)
• In a tumbler with ice, combine gin, vermouth, and olives.  Add a dash of your favoite pepper sauce (Tabasco, Frank’s, Kryptonite or whatever floats your boat).  Add jalepeno slice to rim or float on top as garnish.

As an option, if you don’t like gin, then go ahead and try vodka.  For this I recommend ‘Absolute Pepper’ since it has a little spice already infused into the vodka.  Also, if you want a liitle more or less zing, change the garnish to a mild chili or something a little hotter, like a wedge of habenero, but be careful and wash your hands if you come into direct skin contact with habenero oil and warn your guests.  As far as sauces go, Tabasco may prove to be a bit too vinegary for some, so maybe try Tapatio or Chulula for a nice spicy yet mellower taste.

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.

Well, against better financial judgement I broke down and finally upgraded my cell phone after almost 3 years of using my sturdy and reliable LG. 

I went ahead and purchased myself a Smartphone, and a new Motorola “Droid” at that.  I went with the Droid as it comes pre-installed with Android OS 2.0 (Eclair) by those nifty tech heads over at Google.  Also, being my first smart phone required me to get my very first data plan as well.  Thank goodness the company I work for has a corporate account with Verizon as it affords me a nice monthly discount as well on both voice and data.

I’m still getting used to the phone.  It’s much bigger than my LG workhorse, and of course more expensive, and most likely more fragile.  So far, I love it.  It has a lot of nifty features and I’m really digging the GPS with turn-by-turn instructions and live traffic reports.  The way it handles contacts is pretty cool tool, either via the phone interface or a gmail account, and updates pretty much on the fly.  I also enabled Latitudewhich will allow me to track and locate my friends if they so choose.  I can also update my Facebook and have access to a lot of apps, although I suspect most are junk or duplicates and up to this point I’ve never used any, so I can’t really think of too much of a need to start going app crazy now like Apple-heads do.

However, one cool app that of course made it to my Droid is ‘10001 Cocktails’.  As the app describes itself: “Put the bartender in your pocket!  Browse and search thousands of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink recipes on the shot-cocktail-recipe.com website!  Add fresh drink ideas and drink reviews and save your favorite drinks to your personal list.”  Don’t think I won’t!

As far as using my new phone as my MP3 player and viewing YouTube videos….well, not yet.  I’m still hoping to get a new Zune HD in the coming months.

The only drawbacks so far to my new toy is that battery life (when in use and not in standby mode) seems to get sucked dry faster then Motorola would like you to believe it does.  Also, the Bluetooth cannot sync with my Ford Sync yet…that may be a firmware issue on Ford’s part though.  The last 3 attempts at updating my Sync at the dealership, the machine has been ‘down’.  Ugh.  I mean the phone’s Bluetooth works great…I already paired it with my old Motorola headset just fine…I just can’t get it working with my car stereo yet.

Now in a completely different and unrelated tech issue, my XBox took a dump on me late last week.  I got the dreaded RROD (Red Ring of Death) which signifies an internal hardware error that is most likely attributed to a faulty design when it comes to dispersing the temperature inside the console.  So the bad news is my XBox has been shipped back to Microsoft and may not have it for the next 3-4 weeks….Awesome, just in time for Christmas and my holiday break where I’ll get all these new games I can’t play.  The good news is that it is still under warranty and Microsoft is supposed to fix it for free.  So it shipped out Monday this week.  I’ll just have to cross my fingers and make sure it gets back new and improved in 3 weeks.

I’ve kinda been having a time crisis or ‘crisis of time’ depending on how you want to look at it in adding fresh content to this site as of late.  Some of my recent Podcast appointments have fallen through due to unforeseen circumstances, but I hope to get some new episodes up soon enough.

So what better way to put a little break in this apparent lull by introducing a new drink I discovered a few months ago and a few recipes I found.  To be honest, as of this writing I haven’t actually tried the included recipes, but more or less have just drank this yummy libation on ice all by it’s southern inspired self.

First of all, I love ice tea.  That is natural ice tea, fresh brewed tea leaves and cold filtered water over a tall glass of ice.  Add a sprig of mint, maybe a slice of lime, orange, or traditional lemon.  I like black Ceylon tea, lemon grass tea, green tea, and a few other distinct concoctions like an Arnold Palmer (1/2 tea, 1/2 lemonade), or Arabic tea (very, very sweet tea with bulk Turkish tea leaves and diced mint).

When I was in high school and even college, I went through a Long Island Ice Tea phase as well (1p gin, 1p tequila, 1p rum, 1p whisky, splash of coke and a bit of sweet & sour liqueur).  I used to drink the pre-mixed Club mixes (not the best), but mostly make my own and loved them.

Anyway, not to long ago at my local BevMo I found this Seagram’s flavored Sweet Tea Vodka drink.  It looked interesting, and it was cheap, so I figured “Why not?”  Needless to say I was hooked my very first sip.  It tastes exactly how you would think a pitcher of down south sweet tea should taste, with of course a little kick.  Not the kinda vodka kick that burns your pipes, but on the contrary it is very smooth and mellow and can sneak up on you quick.  Not to brag or boast, but I’ve been known to polish off a 750ml bottle in a night or over two, and I’ve failed to get a hangover on it so far….I’m sure that’s just luck, and now that I say it, the next time I probably will hurt.

I’ve been a one man Seagram’s spokesperson for this drink and I found that you eaiterh really like it, or it isn’t your cup of tea.  Fortunately, most people like it (especially the gals) and the ones who don’t tend to have an aversion to really sweet things anyway.

Seagram’s brand is actually made by White Rock Distillery based in South Carolina.  I think it pairs really well with southern food, including of course BBQ, and is a very refreshing drink on ice.  But as promised here are a few Sweet Tea recipe’s:

Sweet Tea Lemonade

- 1.5 part Seagram’s Sweet Tea Vodka in high ball glass.

- Fill remainder with Crystal Lite lemonade mix (or for variety, instead of lemonade mix, try cherry limeade or peach mix)

Sweet Tea and Mint

1.5 part Seagram Sweet Tea Vodka in high ball glass

.5 part Peppermint Schnapps

1 part sour mix

- Fill remainder of glass with Sprite

Long Island Sweet Tea

- 1 part Seagram’s Sweet Tea in high ball glass.

- .5 parts: light rum, silver tequila, gin, and Triple Sec

- Splash of ‘Rose of lime’

Not much going on here as I’ve been in a training class all week to get my Network+ certification.  I wish I could say the class was really beneficial, but all the instructor did was basically regurgiate almost verbatim what the textbook laid out word for word.  I picked up a few things, but not enought to justify a week long 40 hour class.

Anyway, as I’m a bit behind on some of my podcasts (including the Big Brother recaps), here are some of the following changes made here:

• Added NextGEN gallery plug-in v1.3.5, but haven’t had an opportunity to use it yet.
• Upgraded plug-in Count Per Day to v2.2, but I’m not using it right now.  The earlier version didn’t seem to work and I just haven’t reactivated it yet.
• Upgraded plu-in Blubrry Power Press to v0.9.5 which is supposed to add better features for iTunes and other podcast feeds.  I tried to get recognized by ZUNE this past week, but I must have missed something.  MS has some quirky encoding requirements that seem trivial, but the documented instructions are so vague…if I get onto Zune Marketplace anytime soon, it will be purely by luck or trial and error.
• Added the following link to my favorites: http://tropicaldrinksblog.com Tropical Drinks Blog.  Site has many recipes with an island flair to them.

Disaronno

Okay, I know I start this podcast by calling it number 7, but in fact it is actually episode 8.

I wanted to try something in a new direction, and seeing that I got some favorable response from a Facebook entry I posted recently on a grilled steak sandwich recently, I decided to devote an episode to basic grilling.  I’m not sure I’d call it Grilling 101, because I could talk on and on in regards to different subjects as it pertains to outdoor grilling, but I thought this was a good place to start, especially for those that are just sick and tired of plain hot dogs and hamburgers or may be afraid of the grill.

I’d be interested in what you think about this episode.  It ran a bit longer than I initially expected, but I’d like to think there’s a lot of good information in this episode.

Disaronno (pictured) is an Italian almond tasting liqueur which strangely does not have any nuts it anyway has an alcohol content of 28%.

Show Notes:

• 01:11:  Intro Song: Holiday for Strings (written by David Rose, performed by The Voice of Walter Schuman).  I ripped this segment from one of my Ultra Lounge CD’s.  I like it because it has a real ‘camp’ factor to it, and should transport you somewhere back into the early 1950’s.
• 01:55:  Disaronno liqueur and A&W root beer cocktail.
• 04:35:  Grilling 101 (charcoal v. coal, picking oils, cleaning, meat choices and quick grilling tips)
• 31:10:  Grilled steak sandwich recipe.

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Over the weekend Monica and I had a very expensive, but good, dinner over at Simply Fondue in Mission Viejo.  It’s in a strange location (not one that I would ever pick) and I’m curious to see if it will make it in the long run.  It’s tucked away in a corner of Mission Viejo that doesn’t get much traffic other than the people that live in the immediate area.  Even the manager we spoke to said they are doing a lot of advertising for this place, more so than their other locations because people simply don’t know its there.

Fondue is a very social, and long experience.  We shared a 3 course meal ($49 a person), and from the time we sat down until the time we signed the check and left, it was close to two and a half hours later.  Drinks are also pretty expensive there and I’m not a big fan of $10 martini’s although I decided to have one called ‘Italian Ice’.  It’s made with blue curacao, some vodka, and a sugar rimmed glass.  It was good, but not $10 good, so I only had one.

One thing that Simply Fondue does have though is a pretty extensive martini menu.  They list just over 100 martini’s, although many of them seem to be novelty or desert martini’s and maybe the next time I go back I’ll try some of the more interesting concoctions they list.  One particular martini they listed was called a ‘Christmas’, and the ingredients are simple:

Christmas

• 4 parts gin (preferably Tanqueray)
• 1 part Creme de Menthe
• Combine in a cocktail shaker with ice, shake, pour in martini glass

The Creme de Menthe is a brilliant green color and is a bit potent in flavor and can dominate the gin.  Make sure the gin is not a flavored one with lime or some of the other citrus blends on the market.  Creme de Menthe is basically mint, or concentrated peppermint and probably more commonly used in a ‘grasshopper’, so I imagine the sweet ’Christmas’ martini gets its name from both its pine green color and peppermint taste.  Quite a tasty little drink, but dangerous as the sugar content could lead to a bad headache, and who wants to throw up bright green?  Try rimming a glass with red sugar for more aesthetics.

I’m proud to announce that purely on a self indulgent whim, I believe I have created a new libation in which I hope you’ll find just as tasty and satisfying as I did.  Anyway, I’d like to think I created it, but I suppose somewhere else on this big blue marble some other prat may have come up with the same concoction to help sway his lady friends into thinking he’s got it going on like Donkey Kong.

The ingrediants are two-fold and simple: pomegranate soda and rangpur gin. 

Rangpur gin is a sweeter gin with the flavoring of lemons and mandarin oranges and is often confused with limes.   Actually, the word Rangpur originated from the Bengali language which is a common name for this hybrid fruit and shares the namesake with the city Rangpur in Bangladesh, India.  Rangpur fruit is highly acidic and can be substituted for commercial limes.

I haven’t decided on a name yet, but I like the kit-bashing name of ‘Pom-Pur’.  A hybrid of the words ’pom’egranate and rang’pur’.  Its fun and easy to say, and rolls of the tongue nicely with a hint of exotic origins.

Pomegranate soda is already bottled by the Safeway/Vons/Pavillons ‘Organic’ line of foods, and is basically pomegranate juice, simple syrup (read: cane sugar) and soda water for fizz.  I suppose if you cannot find this already bottled, then simple ‘POM’ juice and regular soda water will do just fine.  There are also plenty of other pomegranate soda’s on the market, but make sure you look for the ones with only the basic ingredients: soda water, syrup (most likely high fructose), and pom juice.  Anything else gets a bit scary.  Now on to the recipe:

Pom-Pur

• Ice filled tumbler cocktail glass
• 1.5 to 2 oz of Rangpur gin.
• Add remaining pomegranate soda.
• Garnish with (your choice): mint sprig, orange slice or orange rind twist, cherry.

I’ve made quite a few of these treats and passed them around the neighborhood and they seem to be getting a pretty darn good reception if I may say so myself.  Be careful though….the sugar content is deceptively high and masked by the mellow and fruity taste.  A few of these may contribute to that hangover feeling because of the hidden sugar.