Cocktail Confessions

It’s going to be a long day today, that I can tell.

Last night I met some friends and ex-coworkers at a sports bar in the area called Rudy’s, where I got my pint on.  Not a lot, and I didn’t feel hammered in the least.  With that being said, I barely slept a wink last night.  It was freezing cold (I forgot to turn the heater on), and I tossed and turned all night.  At one point, roughly 2:30 am, I just got up and went on the computer for about a half hour.  I probably slept a grand total of three hours last night, so I am sure I’ll be a very chipper person as the day wears on.  All I know is thank goodness it is both Friday and casual day at work.  I’m telling you right now, I don’t have the energy or motivation to do jack squat.

At the gas station, I did spend $3.48 (that includes tax) on the 5-hour Engery drink that is advertised all over.  It promises that I won’t suffer a crash later and I’m holding out until lunch time to use it, so we’ll see.

Anyway, this drink recipe today is inspired by my recent lunches at Chick-Fil-A, where I’ve been having some sweet tea with my lunch.  I also get a lot of searches here on my Seagrams Sweet Tea vodka entry I made some time ago, so I figured, why not another sweet tea based drink?  This is for when you need a little pick me up during the weekend, after doing some gardening chores or detailing the car on a warm afternoon, where the thought of regular ice tea sounds good, but just isn’t enough by itself.

Sweet Tea-tini

• 1 3/4 oz premium vodka
• 1 oz sweet tea (heavily sweetend fresh brewed iced-tea, a staple in the south)
• 1/4 oz fresh squeezed lemon juice
• Lemon wedge or lemon rind twist for garnish.

1. Pour ingredients in cocktail shaker filled with ice.
2. Shake well, preferably due a samba dance if you can.
3. Strain into a chilled, sugar rimmed martini glass.
4. Garnish with lemon wedge or twist.
5. Look coyly at neighbor and give ‘em a wink.

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.

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.

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.