Cocktail Confessions

The 4th of July is just around the corner and I just noted I haven’t put up a new cocktail recipe in some time.  After doing a little digging, I found an interesting recipe that ties in nicely with our U.S. history and our nations 234th birthday.  But before I delve into the ‘Artillery Punch’ cocktail, I thought I’d share a bit of trivia as well.  All you wordsmiths out there, or those that like to play Jeopardy or read the Oxford Dictionary in your spare time, you might enjoy this:

The word “cocktail” was believed to be first used in New York as a way to describe a combination of spirits, sugar, water, and bitters somewhere in the early 1800′s.  It is most likely the word referred to a particular beverage that included a variety of spirits in the mix, depending on what was available at the moment.  Over the years, the definition expanded to include almost any combination of spirits and other ingredients.  As a side note, however, most alcohol historians (how do you get that job by the way?) agree that the first “cocktail party” took place in Missouri.  I couldn’t find any additional information on this….perhaps the attendees were too drunk to remember themselves and write it down.

So the recipe I have for you today isn’t a singular drink mixed for one or two people.  It’s more suited for your family reunion or block party.  You may want to mix in a very large Gatorade decanter like the kind you see on the sidelines at a football game.  If those aren’t readily available, go buy yourself a large RubberMaid trashcan at the hardware store (but remember to rinse out ahead of time).

It is said that Artillery Punch originated in Savannah, GA with the Chtanham Artillery, and was actually served to one Admiral Winfield Scott Schley during his visit to the city just after the Spanish-American War.  Reports at the time state the punch had a much more dramatic effect on the Admiral than the Spanish guns ever did.  It’s a sweet drink with a sweet tea base and strong citrus overtones (thanks to the gin, lemons, and oranges no doubt) that helps mask the massive amount of liquor hidden within.  Talk about ‘shock and awe’, be careful with this one folks, it’ll sneak up on you in a big way.  Great for summer BBQ’s and gatherings.

Artillery Punch:

• 1.5 gallons (yes, gallons) of Catawba wine (a red wine produced from a regional grape on the north-eastern seaboard and midwest)
• 1.5 quarts of rye.
• 1/2 gallon of rum (choose a rum with caramel tones if you can).
• 1/2 pint of Benedictine.
• 1 quart gin
• 1 quart Brandy.
• 1.5 gallons of strong tea (fresh brewed is always better and worth the effort).
• 2.5 pounds brown sugar
• Juice of 1/2 dozen oranges (or use real boxed orange juice as a sub)
• Juice of 1/2 dozen lemons.

Place all these ingredients in your container and mix well enough (have a clean oar or paddle nearby?) so that the 2.5 pounds of brown sugar dissolves evenly and nicely.  Serve over large glasses of ice, and keep an eye on your guests lest you really do want them to re-enact the Spanish-American War in your backyard.

In the era of Sex in the City, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and half the shows on the CW these days (should I admit I actually watch many of them?) many cocktail concoctions took on some frilly characteristics.  There were a lot more pink umbrellas, red sugar rims, and fruit floating about in poolside glasses than most men would like to admit too.  When was the last time you saw Steve McQueen, Tito Ortiz, T.O. or Derek Jeter sipping on a cosmo? (Well, the jury is still out on Jeter, but that’s another story).

Anyway, I want to introduce you to a few libations that are gonna put a little kick back in your step, make you howl at the moon, and thump your pecs like a silverback gorilla.  Yes, some manly men drinks sure to darken your roots and ground you back in the ’50s where men worked and there was a pot pie, a pipe, and slippers waiting fro you when you got home.

With no further ado:

The Rusty Nail

Straight out of a construction site nail gun, we’re talking two ingrediants – Drambui and Scotch.  Drambuie is a liquer made with a blends of herbs, spice, a touch of honey, and get this….more Scotch!  Liberals be damned when you pour this down your gullet.

• 1oz blended Scotch.  Pick one with enough bite to counter the slightly thicker and sweetness of the Drambuie.
• 1oz Drambuie.
• Lemon twist for garnish.
• Take a lowball glass with ice and pour both ingrediants in.  Stir quickly and drop lemon twist in, allowing natural oils of rind to blend with drink, and then pretend ‘The View’ never existed.

The Negroni

Hey look, I didn’t name this drink so back off.  I know what you’re thinking, but we evolved since then.  Negroni combines gin, vermouth and Campari and supposedly stimulates the appetite and promotes digestion.  Just what the doctor at teh Tiajuana clinic ordered.  It may be a bit tough to get used to, so you probably won’t get many requests to share, but savor this strong and in your face flavor and imagine Mel Gibson handing it to you for a job well done.

• 1oz gin (say Plymouth or Tanqueray)
• 1oz Campari (a bitter apertif)
• 3/4oz sweet vermouth.
• Put ingrediants in shaker full of ice and shake well.  Strain into a chilled cocktail glass or lowball filled with ice.  If you’re confident enough in your masculinity, you can add a cherry, but stare down anyone who gives you crap about it.

Blue Blazer

Sounding more like a mexican luchador (wrestler for you non-bilinguals), this has the added component of fire, always sure to amaze and impress.  It’s a bit more involved in preparation and not for the timid or drunk to try and mix.  We’re talking boiling water and fire, and silver plated mugs people!

• 2.5oz high proof rye whisky (100 proof or better is recommended)
• 2.5oz boiling water.  Yes, boiling.
• 1 teaspoon powdered sugar.
• lemon peel for garnish.
• 2 silver plated mugs as most other materials can’t hold up well with flames involved.
• Pour whisky in one mug with sugar and mix slightly, and boiling water in other mug.  Ignite whisky (be careful) and pour into mug of water.  Continue pouring back and forth to mix displaying a stream of fire.  When done, add lemon peel to glasses.  You are now the ‘most interesting man in the world’.

In about 24 hours from now I will find myself standing out in the middle of the Anza-Borrego desert playing ‘desert’ golf with my father-in-law, brother-in-law and a few other ‘men’ among ‘men’, and I have no idea how I’m going to fare.

My guess: Not well.

See, I got invited on an overnight ‘guys’ camping trip by some former marines (my father-in-law and his buddy) and their sons. This is an annual thing they conjured up a few years back where it’s an excuse to supposedly get back to nature. This really translates into getting away from the womenfolk for at least 24 hours sucking down as many libations as possible.

Initially I found myself a little pressured into this field trip. Before I even knew what was happening, my wife more or less signed me up for this as a ‘bonding’ experience with the ‘guys’. Before I could even register my own thoughts on the matter, my father-in-law was already telling me what time to be at his house. “But I have no sleeping bag…” I said. “No problem, I got you covered.” Damn… “But I have no clubs.” I then said. “Got that covered too.” Double damn…. Then my brother-in-law chimed in, “Come on, you’ll have fun.” Er……”What about my dog Frankie?” where my wife then replied, “Oh, I’m not going out of town with the girls afterall, so I can stay home and feed him.” Ughh…

It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with my father-in-law. I like him. I like him a lot. But these days with my step-daughter gone for the weekend, and the thought that my my wife was also going to be gone with her girlfriends, I was really looking forward to a nice, quiet weekend by myself at home…..to do chores, maybe do some Christmas shopping, catch up on some DVR recordings, and looking forward to working on some model train structures I am building.

But more to the point, at 39 years of age, I recognize that at times I am a pussy when it comes to the outdoors. You see, at the end of the night I like a hot shower, a comfortable bed, and the ability to use a clean bathroom in the morning when I have to make a dookie. None of these are present in the desert. No, the only thought process going through my head is that I will smell like smoke from the campfire, I won’t be able to fall asleep on uneven ground, I won’t be able to wash my hands or face, it’ll be 30 degrees overnight, and finally I’ll have to hold my crap as I cannot dig a hole out in the desert and squat above it. Now that I think about, I would never make a good contestant on Survivor, so Jeff, tear up my application.

The activities planned? Well, that another thing. There will be desert golf in which the loser lugs around the cooler of beer for everyone else…..Guess who will be getting his exercise that day? There will also be horse-shoes….a game I have never played. There will be rock-climbing….great, Why? There will be football tossing, in which I throw like a girl. And finally a campfire dinner with what my father-in-law says will require the “green bottle”….(i.e. Tanqueray gin martinis). Okay, that last part actually sounds fun and I may get on board with that, but I need a plan to participate yet not stay overnight in conditions that are less than optimal to me.

So am I a puss? Maybe I am these days, but I’ll have you know at one point I was indeed a Boy Scout. I actually made it up to being a ‘Life’ scout and spent plenty of nights in tents and sleeping bags and campfires and self-made latrines. I’ve dug plenty of holes in the ground and have gone without taking a shower or washing my hands a few days at a time. But that was then, and now I feel I’m a bit over that. No, I don’t see myself squatting in the early morning hours looking out for scorpions as I drop a duece while watching my breath at the same time…not when I know there is a clean toilet if I really want to.

So my solution? Invite my own father to go with us. That way I can tell my father-in-law it’s logistically inefficient for me to drive to his house (45 miles north) just to turn around and drive an additional 2 hours southeast. That would also mean I’m stuck and can only leave when he leaves which may prolong my perceived agony. No, by taking my own father I shave off at least 45 minutes each way of drive time, I can leave when we want to leave, and most importantly, I will have to take him home at the end of the evening thus sparing myself from having to sleep overnight. Yes, at the end of a long day of what I am sure will be plenty of embarassing laughs at my expense when it comes to the ‘guy’ things, I know I will have my hot shower, my clean bed, and my toilet the next morning where they will have none of these.

So my duty for tomorrow? I pick up my dad and his golf clubs, we go to the store and fill a cooler with ice and beer and snacks, I take my new camera and make the best out of the situation. Will it be horrible? No, I don’t think it will be. I’m sure I may even have some fun, and I know my father-in-law has been looking to do something with me for a long time (I kept making excuses for years why I can’t partcipate in his reindeer games). Plus my own father gets to go which will be good for our relationship as well and make my drive much more palatable.

After some self-induced procrastination as of late, I finally sat down earlier this week to record this ‘filler’ episode for you all.  I’ve been kind of disappointed with myself as of late allowing my recordings to fall slightly by the wayside and it’s actually surprising how much I kinda forgot in producing an episode.  That includes the formatting, the folders, the uploading, fiddling aith Audacity, etc.  I made a few mistakes along the way, but it all came back pretty quickly and I hope to get back on track soon enough.

Episode 11 is completely unscripted, meaning, I had no idea what I wanted to talk about or where I was going with my blathering.  I just sat down, turned on the mic, and went at it hot.  Before I knew it, I was at the 30 minute mark or raw recording and didn’t feel as if I stumbled too much. 

In this episode I speak briefly about a new hobby of mine I stumbled into not too long ago and really found myself enjoying it: Model railroading, and my foray into n-scale structure modeling.  I then talk a bit about my experiences in multi-level marketing and how my wife has recently jumped on the pyramid band wagon and my chagrin about it.  But maybe she’ll prove me wrong (I hope she does actually) and make some money at it.  Finally, I attended the inaugural Long Beach Comic Con this past weekend, took some pictures, bought some artwork and action figures, and my overall critique of it….hopefully it is better next year.

Show Notes:

Intro – “Kryptonite” by 3 Doors Down as a tie-in to the comic con.

 1:00 – Powerade cocktails: Grape Powerade and Rangpur gin – good.  Grape and Jack Daniels – bad.

 1:52 – My mid life crisis in defining yet another new hobby for myself and my foray into the world of N-scale train modeling.

 7:50 – Multi-level marketing scheme’s and the wife’s recent plunge into it.

15:48 – Long Beach Comic Con – My critique and observations of has-been stars, artist alley, the worthless DC Nation panel, and organized chaos. (See pics in gallery).

34:10 – Wrap up.

Long Beach Comic Con Gallery

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A load of crap

Yeah, I know I’ve been a bad blogger as of late.  When i initially started this blog a few months ago, I really did have all of the best intentions to bring new content (in the form of podcasts or text entries) on a pretty consistent schedule.  However, as things happen, (namely me being lazy and suffering from writers block), I haven’t posted much as of late.

I can tell you I haven’t abandoned this project at all….I’m in it for the long haul…but all things being the same I really have been at a loss for words lately and other things have cropped up to keep me very busy.

I did however record a new 30 minute podcast last night, totally unscripted and on the fly.  I just sat down and turned on teh mic and talked about whatever came to my mind.  So you can tune in the next few days or so to listen to a little ranting on my thoughts on Xowii multi-level marketing pyramid that seems to be taking the Valley of the Dirt People (the often mocked Inland Empire) by storm, the questionable first annual Long Beach Comic Con (in which I actually attended), why grape Powerade and Jack Daniels are not friends, but Rangpur gin is, and finally my recent fascination with N-scale trains as a new hobby.

Lastly, there have been a few upgrades here behind the scenes.  A few plugins have been upgraded, although you probably won’t notice anything yet, but perhaps some new thinsg will debut soon.

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.

What can I say?  For the better part of a few years, I’ve been on a self-imposed last ‘hold-out’ in gaining the courage to take my first trepidated steps into a BevMo store.  With absolutely no substantive experience to back up any of my outrageous thoughts, I have more or less had devised my own conclusions when it came to this so-called beverage mecha: 1) It’s chick territory — a pretentious haven where snobby, over-augmented, trophy wives that occasionally play Bunco and compare botox injections sip trendy wine spritzers all the while secretly craving the teenage pool boy bought their swill, or 2) A re-imagining of the old late 70′s-esque ‘Liquor Barn’ in which couch spelunkers counted out their laundry coins one by one for a cheap thrill in a paper bag came to shop.

What a surprise it was when I walked in this past Saturday and discovered a plethora of blended libations, unique hand crafted beers, sodas, and other goodies amongst various aisles.

The store’s asthectics are nothing to write home about, perhaps just a tad fancier than a big budget warehouse chain, but if it’s sole purpose is to provide alcoholic drinks in bulk, then I seriously doubt your average customer needs to be impressed by neon signs, chic decor and what not.  If you’re like me, you want in and want back out to the party as soon as possible.

There is an aisle of just standard mixers, and many of them were pretty standard fare, and even boring.  Take Bloody Mary mix for example….they only had about 3 or 4 different brands and nothing was too exciting.  I’ve personally had better luck at Home Goods, CostPlus and Mervyns with stranger and tempting labels.  The wall of soda was pretty much standard as well, but the Root Beer and Cream Soda section was really surprising.  Who knew there were so many varietals of root beer of all things, and is there really a need for 30+ brands of root beer?

I was pleasantly surprised with the micro and hand crafted beer section.  While not the largest I’ve ever seen before, there was quite an eclectic mix of regional brews to choose from, and of course I couldn’t pass up some of the stouts (podcasts on these will be forthcoming).  I also noticed there were many familiar labels from my college days: Lost Coast Brewery, Humboldt Brewery, Mad River, etc.  Pricing was pretty good as well.  BevMo certainly beat out my regular grocery chain when it came to certain brands by upwards of a few bucks a six pack.  But you won’t find everything here.  I didn’t see any Cheleda, certain standard imports, and many other common place beers were strangely absent from the scene.

There was a cooler of deli cheeses and racks containg dice and card games, and many kiosks with printed pint glasses if anyone was interested.

I more or less stayed away from the wines, as I’m not a big grape fiend, but then I came to the grail of the spirits I generally enjoy: whisky and gin.  I was overwhelmed by many of the varieties of whisky I’ve never seen or heard of before and prior to this outing I thought I was pretty well versed.  I was a kid in a candy store and just had to leave with some new bottles of stuff I can’t wait to enjoy.  We purchased an actual mason jar of corn whisky, and pre-mixed mint julep courtesy of Maker’s Mark.  I saw new bottles of Jim Beam and Crown I’d never laid eyes on before.  The same can be said for the gin and vodka selections as well.

The one thing that blew me away was the inconsistent pricing, generally to the customers favor if you just looked at the labels long enough.  For example, there was a standard 750ml of Tanguery gin for $36.99, and then right next to it was a 1.75L, also for $36.99!!  Guess which one I picked up?  I saw this time and time again on certain brands.  The same went for a few of the whisky’s as well…for $1 more, I could get a whole extra liter!!  What gives?  Why would anyone buy the smaller bottle when you could get more than twice as much for the same price or perhaps a single dollar more?  Hey, if these were pricing mistakes from the part time clerks, I sure am not going to point it out.  Their loss….my gain.

Not that I’m bragging, but we spent roughly $150 that day and I feel as if we walked out of that BevMo with closer to $250 in spirits, soda, and beer that should last us a bit longer than usual.

I’m really looking forward now to getting the podcast portion of this site up and running so I can try some of these with my friends for you all, describe them, and have a good time overall.