AlcoHOLidays | Repeal Day | Good Clean Fun

Sips

Good Clean Fun cocktail for Repeal Day, December 5

From 1920 to 1933, the United States was technically dry, minus a few loopholes and a helluva lot of bootleggers.

See, the temperance movement thought that many of society’s ills would be cured if drinking were just outlawed. And even though President Wilson tried to veto it, Congress used their 2/3 vote to overrule him and they signed the 18th Amendment into existence, banning the sale, importation, or exportation of intoxicating spirits throughout the country. For the curious the intoxicating spirit threshold was .5% alcohol.

Now, the funny thing about number 18 was that it didn’t make consuming alcohol illegal, just the making, buying, and selling. So folks in the know stocked up big-time before the Volstead Act took effect on January 16, 1920. And even the making of spirits wasn’t completed forbidden–individuals could brew fruit-based wines and ciders for personal consumption and vineyards took to selling grape concentrates to facilitate just those measures with packaging that told folks exactly what not to do if they didn’t want their reconstituted grape juice to ferment. Wink wink.

Of course the hope that banning alcohol would immediately dissuade folks towards drinking backfired spectacularly. To many the law made absolutely no sense and it ruined a lot of faith in both the government and the police forces tasked with enforcing the new law. And then there was the not-so-small matter of the government losing out on all that taxable revenue now that all sales were under the table.

It took 13 years for folks to see the light. Thirteen years of bootleggers, speakeasies, and increased crime rates (instead of the hoped-for lessening). Prohibition was repealed on December 5, 1933, by the ratification of the 21st Amendment.

Good Clean Fun

1 sugar cube
Angostura Bitters
1 3/4 oz Gin
3/4 oz Limoncello
strips of citrus zest for garnish

Drip enough drops of the bitters onto the sugar cube to “soak” it and place it in the bottom of a low-ball or small cocktail glass. Combine the gin and limoncello over ice and stir until thoroughly chilled (10 to 15 turns should do it). Strain the chilled alcohol over the  sugar cube and add a couple strips of citrus zest to the drink, swirling it to start the sugar dissolving.

Soaking a sugar cube in bitters is a long-standing tradition of blending the savory and the sweet in drinks. And while cocktails were around two decades before the U.S. tried their little “Noble Experiment”, the trend to drink good alcohol neat was problematic when you were dealing with the low-quality and sometimes dangerous concoctions that served for spirits in speakeasies, hence the many mixers of Prohibition-era cocktials.

The term bathtub gin refers to grain alcohol flavored with various items (like juniper) and topped off with water from the bathtub spigot (as the bottles were apparently too tall to fit easily under the kitchen faucet)–so the story goes. In this cocktail I use gin as an homage to those dark days but pick a good one. Limoncello, while not tied to Prohibition per se, appealed to me in the vein of making lemonade out of lemons. Limoncello make take longer (though not 13 years, thank goodness), but it’s certainly tasty.

We all know full well that drinking without discretion or moderation can lead to some very bad things. Anything from bad choices of who to go home with to DUI-accidents to diseases of various sorts can befall someone who drinks too much or too often (or both). But a well-made cocktail really is, in my opinion, good clean fun.

Cheers!

AlcoHOLidays | Thanksgiving | Berry-Cran Cobbler

Sips

Berry-Cran Cobbler Cocktail for Thanksgiving

Growing up, Mom made no bones about Thanksgiving being her favorite holiday. Trips home to see family were in November, not December, and featured large gatherings of family and friends, food served buffet-style on every flat surface available, and (one memorable year) plates that were actually Chinet platters, because a normal plate wouldn’t come close to holding a little bit of everything available.

These days Thanksgiving is often relegated to the back-burner for many. Merely a carbo-load before Black Friday shopping begins (this year some stores are starting Thursday night, even).

Despite some of the more inauspicious beginnings of Thanksgiving (similar to the controversy surrounding Columbus Day), Thanksgiving is still widely celebrated throughout the United States on the fourth Thursday in November. Menus vary depending on your family’s heritage or adopted traditions, though turkey with all the trimmings is considered the norm. What makes this turkey dinner different from any other?

Cranberry Sauce

Sure, you can buy canned cranberry sauce year-round, but you can roast poultry year round, too. Cranberry sauce is just one of those things we don’t seem to buy much of (or make) except for Thanksgiving.

Berry-Cran Cobbler

1 Tbsp Dried Cranberries
1 oz Simple Syrup
1 1/2 oz Spiced Rum
3 Tbsp Raspberries & Blueberries
Crushed Ice
Cranberry Juice
Sprig of Mint

Muddle the dried cranberries and simple syrup in the bottom of a mixing glass. Add the rum, fresh berries, and then crushed ice to the 3/4 mark on the glass and shake until nice and frothy. Dump the whole thing into a glass, add more ice (if needed), and fill with cranberry juice.  Garnish with a sprig of mint and serve with a straw.

Even though cobblers are traditionally made with sherry or other fortified wines, I thought rum better fit the feeling I was going for. The fresh berries should break up a bit during shaking and the cobbler is one of the few drinks that is served with the shaking ice rather than straining over fresh. It’s a fun sort of throw-back drink for a fun sort of throw-back holiday. It’s very sweet, so if you want something lighter, split the shaken mixture between two glasses and use more cranberry juice to thin it.

To be totally candid…

There’s a lot of crap going on in society today–Mother Nature is obviously not. pleased. with us, jobs are still scarce for many, and some people still insist on being grade-A asshats just because they feel like it. But in the face of all of that, we still have a lot to be thankful for. I’m not going to make you confess your gratitude. (Hey, if what you’re most thankful for today is your morning coffee, your earbuds to drown out an annoying co-worker, and the 30%-off coupon you’ve got for Kohls, you shouldn’t have to feel bad for standing next to the guy whose thankful his cancer’s in remission–we don’t judge, here. Be happy for you both.) But whatever you raise your glass to this coming week, I hope you have a good one.

Cheers!

AlcoHOLidays | Veterans Day | Alliance

Sips

Alliance Cocktail for Veterans Day

Veterans Day began life as Armistice Day, commemorating the cease-fire (aka an armistice) that halted actual fighting on November 11, 1918, even though the end of World War I wasn’t until the Treaty of Versailles was signed the following June.

WWI, also known as The Great War, was thought of as “the war to end all wars.”

How optimistic.

Never underestimate man’s ability to fight about anything and everything.

At any rate, after WWII and Korea, veterans service organizations headed the requests to change the name to include soldiers of the later conflicts. In 1954 President Eisenhower made it so.

The idea behind Veterans Day was that it was a day to thank those who’ve served our country and “dedicated to the cause of world peace” (via Dept of Veterans Affairs) Banks, the Postal Service, and government offices close, most schools, too, and many communities throw parades in honor of our servicemen and women.

So make sure to thank your nearest Veteran this coming Sunday, and raise a glass in honor of those who fought and gave their lives for the freedom we enjoy today.

The Alliance

3/4 oz Rye Whiskey
3/4 oz Cognac
3/4 oz London Dry Gin

Combine liquors over ice in a mixing glass and stir until everyone is shaking hands. Strain into a rocks or cocktail glass with 3 ice cubes inside.

As with other all-alcohol cocktails, we stir this one so that the drink reserves a silky feeling on the tongue without diluting it overmuch. In The Alliance, the Cognac greets you nice enough, the rye pushes its way in a bit, and the gin’s botanicals bring up the rear. Purists might cry havoc at the combination of 3 such strong flavors, but war makes strange bedfellows, and these 3 are making the best of it.

Cheers… and thank you.

AlcoHOLidays | Election Day | Political Party

Sips

Back when I was first in college (in the dim mists of the late 20th century), I was incredibly political and planning to become an event planner. I even went as far, for a Intro to Business project, as creating a business plan based on my company-to-be, aptly named Party Politics. I’ve volunteered on campaigns, participated in straw polls, attended election parties, and become thoroughly disillusioned with the entire process.

And that’s about all I’m going to say on the subject of politics as I blog about cocktails to be convivial, not combative.

Election Day, the Tuesday after the first Monday of November (so somewhere between the 2nd and the 8th), was chosen for its “sweet spot” location of just after harvest but just before the bad weather. And while some states consider it a civic holiday, most folks have to squeeze in their voting before or after work (unless they use the increasingly available early voting options). I remember one Election Day in particular, again in college, where our economics professor was so disgusted that only a few of us had voted (it was only 9 am, by the way) that he cancelled class so people could go vote.

Didn’t matter than many of us didn’t have cars and taking the bus wasn’t practical when you had a 10 am class to be back for, but whatever.

This was also the same professor that held up class for a tirade on Valentine’s Day, so take that for what you will.

At any rate, when I decided to create a drink based on politics and elections, I had to think of what spirits would best reflect the process.

Political Party

1 1/2 oz Vodka
3/4 oz Kahlua
1/2 oz Goldschlager
1/4 oz Galliano

Combine all ingredients over ice in a mixing glass and stir until well-chilled. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish patriotically (I  used a skewer of star fruit, blueberries, and raspberries).

With a bit of reflection I settled on vodka for the clean-as-a-whistle background you want to have as a candidate, Kahlua for the numerous cups of coffee those all-night strategy sessions can take, Goldschlager for the money that powers the campaigns, and Galliano for the bitterness of losing. After all, elections are the one area where they’ve yet to play the “everybody wins/there are no losers” card.

While this cocktail retains a certain sweetness (gotta lure you in somehow), it may not appeal to every palate. That’s okay… partisan politics isn’t to everyone’s taste.

AlcoHOLidays | Halloween | Iced Pumpkin Spice

Sips

Okay, now, I don’t really have to explain Halloween, do I?

Unlike some of the more obscure holidays I know we’ll examine in this series, Halloween (Hallowe’en, All Hallow’s Eve, Samhain–pronounced sow-in, by the way) is one of the biggies celebrated in many countries and cultures. While we celebrate mostly with candy and costumes these days, some still see it as a mystical night where the veil between this world and the next grows tissue thin.

Fall has long-been my favorite season, so it’s no big surprise that Halloween is my favorite holiday. There’s just something about the nip in the air (sometimes we  have to really search for that nip, down here in Florida), a good bonfire or fire-pit, impending sweater weather, and winter squash starting to appear in the stores that makes me extra happy. Not to mention the fun of being able to go to work in silly costumes.

A certain national coffee shop has made many folks–even those not terribly fond of coffee–salivate like Pavlov’s dogs over the mere mention of a Pumpkin Spice latte. About the only thing that drink is missing is a good shot of something. It just so happened that I was browsing the fall/Halloween display in World Market in September and found the Torani Pumpkin Pie-Flavored Sauce, 12 oz. for $5.99.

For those not familiar, Torani is a pretty common brand of flavorings used in coffees and Italian sodas. While there are many recipes available all over the Web for similar syrups (which make it easy to make your own pumpkin-spice anything year-round), getting to try the real deal was a happy surprise. Not only have I made amazing pumpkin spice lattes at home with it, we’ve also used it on vanilla ice cream and it’s heavenly.

Iced Pumpkin Spice Cocktail

It doesn’t do half bad in today’s cocktail, either!

Iced Pumpkin Spice

1 1/2 oz Spiced Rum
1 oz Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/2 oz Pumpkin Pie-Flavored Sauce
Cinnamon Stick

Combine rum, condensed milk, and sauce over ice and shake until the nip in the glass matches the nip in the air–even if the latter is just wishful thinking. Strain into a  chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a cinnamon stick.

Novelty glass and mellowcreme pumpkin patch optional.