50 Shots of America

50 Shots of America–Michigan

Sips
Talk to the Hand

Talk to the Hand

On the cruise last January one of the couples we shared our dinner table with was from Michigan. The demonstrated exactly where by holding up their right hand and using it as a visual aid. Apparently this is a regular thing for Michiganders as the lower peninsula does resemble a mitten. (The UP–Upper Peninsula–is sometimes considered the bridge.) Because of this, the name for today’s cocktail came before anything else:

Talk to the Hand

4 fresh Cherries, 3 stemmed
3/4 oz Vanilla Vodka
1/4 oz Kirschwasser
1.5 oz Ginger Ale*

Muddle the 3 stemmed cherries with the vodka and kirsch in a cocktail shaker. Fill with ice and shake like your trying to keep warm while ice-fishing. Add the ginger ale and stir a few times to combine and allow the ginger ale to cool, then strain into a chilled cordial glass. Garnish with the remaining cherry.

*Use Vernor’s for authenticity. Next best would be some ginger beer for flavor, last on the list being the dry-er (read as, less sweet) ginger ales from the grocery store. Still acceptable if that’s all you can find, though.

Even though the first European settlers of The Great Lakes State were French Catholics (a nice, peaceful trio of Jesuit missions that actually got along fairly well with the Native Americans of the time) who helped establish the peninsula as a major fur-trading center, Germans have become the largest single ancestral group in the centuries since then. They’re also the largest producer of cherries in the country–hence the kirsch.

My research turned up the fun fact that a Michigan pharmacist was the guy behind Vernor’s ginger ale. Thanks to progress you can find it outside it’s original area (even down here in Florida from time to time). What made Vernor’s different was the extra fizziness, the sweet taste and the souped-up  ginger taste. It was even an integral part of the ice cream soda known as the Boston Cooler (which has nothing to do with town in Massachusetts): ice cream and Vernor’s. Yum!

50 Shots of America–Arkansas

Sips
Granny's Baked Apples

Granny's Baked Apples

Arkansas, our 25th state as of June 15, 1836, is no longer The Land of Opportunity.

No, seriously, they changed their motto to The Natural State back in the 1970s to boost their tourism profile.

What they are the land of is national parks, mountains, hot springs and agriculture–they’ve got poultry, beef and pork down pat!

They also have a high number of dry counties throughout the state: 42 of the 75 do not allow alcohol to be sold within their boundaries! And the counties that do sell it get the privilege of collecting loads of extra taxes–4% to start plus an additional 10% on cocktails and wine at restaurants!

Since we haven’t done a non-alcoholic drink in a while, now seems the appropriate time, doesn’t it?

Granny’s Baked Apples

1.5 oz Apple Juice
1 barspoon Sweetened Condensed Milk
splash of vanilla
sprinkle of cinnamon

Combine over ice and shake like you’re prospecting for gems in Crater of Diamonds State Park. Strain into a chilled cordial glass and top with cinnamon.

The primary inspirations for this drink are the state flower being the apple blossom and the state beverage being milk. I suppose if you just couldn’t hang with the lack of alcohol, you could always dash in some vanilla vodka instead of the plain vanilla.

And with this recipe we’re halfway through the 50 States!

50 Shots of America–Missouri

Sips
Meet Me at the Fair

Meet Me at the Fair

Now, if you were paying attention last week when Maine was added to the Union as part of the Missouri Compromise, then you’re probably not surprised that the Show-Me state is taking it’s place as #24 at the bar this week!

And speaking of that nick-name (unofficial–they don’t have an official one!), what does it mean?

While no one is 100% sure, the strong favorites are

  • the requirement of workers being shown, rather than told, how to do a particular job (lots of immigrants, maybe a language barrier thing, too); or
  • a speech by Congressman Vandiver in 1899 where he basically said “frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I’m from Missouri, and you have got to show me.”

Basically, actions speak louder than words, in Missouri.

So let’s just head over to the cocktail shaker, shall we?

Meet Me at the Fair

1 Tea bag
1 bottle German beer
1/2 oz Honey
1/2 oz Irish cream

Cold-steep the tea bag in the beer a minimum of 20 minutes. Combine 1 oz of the tea-beer, the honey and Irish cream over ice and shake it like your mixing up some instant pancakes. Strain into a small sugar cone and drink it before the cone dissolves.

The explanation:

The name comes from the song (and movie of the same name) Meet Me In St. Louis and refers to the 1904 World’s Fair that saw the creation of iced tea (don’t worry, southerners, Missouri was considered part of the South when it joined the union) and the ice cream cone. The two largest ancestral groups in Missouri are German and Irish and the state maintains some of the most lenient alcohol regulations in the country. Finally, there was a border dispute between Missouri and Iowa over an area known as the Honey Lands–the main casualty of which was a stand of 3 bee-hive holding trees; the state insect is the honey bee.

Oh, and the pancake reference? Aunt Jemima pancake mix was the first of it’s kind, invented in St Joseph in 1889.

50 Shots of America–Maine

Sips
Bitter Berry

Have a drink with Louie the Lobster (a leftover party favor from my 30th birthday party where he and his buddies were Crawfish Impersonators--it was a Bayou-themed party)

The Pine Tree State became the 23rd state of the Union on March 15, 1820, as part of the Missouri Compromise in order to balance the number of slave and free states. Before that, Maine was part of Massachusetts.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, the first woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, was a native of Maine and wrote one of my favorite poems ever (and I’m not much for poetry)

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends–
It gives a lovely light!

It described me well, then, when I first read it in high school and still fits pretty well. Anyone who “likes to stay busy,” sometimes to the point of exhaustion, can probably relate.

She isn’t, of course, the only poet or author or “somebody” to live in or be from Maine, (the list is long and includes Stephen King, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Andrew Wyeth, Jonathan Frakes, Patrick Dempsey, and a whole bunch of folks whose names I don’t recognize but probably should) but she’s probably my favorite so far.

Bitter Berry

3/4 oz Gin
3/4 oz Cranberry Juice
1/2 oz Blueberry-infused Vanilla Vodka*
1 drop Angostura Bitters

*Soak a heaping tablespoon of dried blueberries in 4 oz Vanilla Vodka for a minimum of 2 hours. Muddling some of the berries increases the finished flavor.

Combine over ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled cordial glass and garnish with three of the plumped blueberries on a toothpick.

I normally don’t go for garnishes on these little drinks but the blueberries are significant as well as the toothpick itself: Maine is the main exporter of both blueberries and toothpicks, producing 20 million of the latter each day at the Strong Wood Products in Strong, Maine.

And don’t be fooled by the name–this drink isn’t actually bitter. Tart, yes, with a strong flavor from the gin, alone, but Bitters tend to enhance and warm the flavor of a drink. Plus, there’s a common ingredient between Angostura Bitters and the state beverage, Moxie: gentian root. I would have named the drink Wild Moxie but the company sued a neighboring state’s soda company for infringement for having the name Modox–I’m just not going to go there!

50 Shots of America–Alabama

Sips
Alabama cocktail

East Avenue South--the background photo is from my trip to Birmingham, its the lane leading down to an amazing restaurant, Cobb Lane

Passing through French, British & Spanish hands, the town of Mobile, Alabama was finally captured by Andrew Jackson and claimed for the US free and clear. Now that it had some beach-front property, statehood proceedings were completed and it became the 22nd state of the Union on December 14, 1819.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had quite a few memories of the Heart of Dixie: touring the USS Alabama as a sullen teen, making my Mom nearly fall off the ladder from laughing at me after I ran my head into an opening I failed to duck for; the honeymoon trip to visit my second husband’s father in Pell City and waking up to hear some deadly storms has ripped through Dixie Alley during it’s secondary tornado season while we slept; scrapbooking and comics conventions in Mobile; the summer trip spent at Auburn University during high school and… oh, yes.

Birmingham is known as the Magic City–it was the one city to boom during the Great Migration of the early 20th century when so much of the population left for opportunities far to the north. It’s railroads, mining and related refining industries created opportunities not readily available in the state. Most mining has ceased (except for coal) but Birmingham continues to be a hub for manufacturing as well as southeastern headquarters for multitudes of national corporations. It also boasts a significant food culture.

Finishing my Culinary degree required a semester’s internship and I’d been able to garner an interview with the head of the chef’s association there. It was my first weekend trip entirely on my own–both a lonely and exciting opportunity! I visited restaurants my boss had recommended (having lived and worked in the area for 1o years), wandered (and got followed through) the beautiful Linn park and the nearby museums, and hung out in Five Points South.

I also got lost.

This is less than news as I have no natural-born sense of direction but the circumstances were interesting and worth sharing. Downtown Birmingham (where 90% of my activity was focused) is laid out in a grid–couldn’t be simpler, right? Everything is marked North and South with Avenues running one way and Streets and Alleys crossing them. My hotel was on 3rd Avenue South (or something like that) and I was coming home from Five Points and got turned around. I found 3rd Avenue North and just figured I’d take it south a ways and I’d get where I wanted to go.

I found myself in a train yard something, turned around and found myself almost on UAB campus and _finally_ retraced my steps and got back to my hotel. On Sunday, as I was leaving and looked at that same gridded map for the umpteenth time it finally hit me:

The Avenues of Birmingham run East-ish/West-ish, they’re named North and South in relation to where they are above or below the railroad tracks!

No wonder I didn’t find my hotel on the first try, that night!

And now we drink!

East Avenue South

3/4 oz Peach Schnapps
1/4 oz Amaretto
1 oz Orange Juice

Combine over ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled cordial glass.

Obviously this is a nod to the Alabama Slammer cocktail but we’ve amped up the orange juice and ditched the sour mix and sloe gin/vodka/southern comfort whatever else folks opt to put in there. It’s sweet–almost unctuous –and tastes similar to a fuzzy navel but retains that hint of almond in the background.

And, absolutely, make 2 and share 🙂