Uninspired

Who’s there?

Orange!

Orange Who?

Orange you glad it’s cocktail hour?!

(more…)

Neither Hubby nor I had tasted a martini before this adventure.
(more…)

The Gin Sour went without incident. A Sour is a drink that can be made with any of the major spirits (vodka, whisky, rum). You can purchase sour mix but it is very simple to make from scratch with fresh lemons and fresh mix tastes much better.

Since the Gin Sour was delicious and without incident, I thought I’d take some time to talk about the health issues associated with this mixology undertaking.

(more…)

The next drink in the book is the Gin Cocktail, which is merely 2 measures of gin and 5 dashes orange bitters.

Merely….HA!

It turns out that orange bitters are not easy to find. Several liquor stores, barware stores, and gourmet food stores later, I still had not found orange bitters. An Internet search revealed two locations that produce orange bitters: Fee Brothers and the Buffalo Trace Gift Shop. I went ahead and ordered two bottles of orange bitters from Buffalo Trace. That was over a week ago, and I still haven’t received them, though. Also, in the future I’ll need peach bitters, so today I emailed Fee Brothers to see how I go about getting orange and peach bitters.

For now, I’ll have to skip the Gin Cocktail, but I’ll come back to it as soon as bitters are obtained. Oh…and they will be obtained!

We were blessed with a guest for Cocktail Hour one night last week. Ms. Keith joined us on Gin Sling night.

The Gin Sling born in the mid-1800′s, is a precursor of the first drink I mixed, the Gin Fizz. It is very much like the Gin Fizz only it uses still water and a dash of Angostura bitters.

A guest was a fun enhancement to Cocktail Hour and gave us a chance to practice our small-talk skills.

(more…)

The Gin Swizzle was our introduction to bitters. Bitters refer to a number of spirits flavoured with bitter herbs or roots and were often developed for medicinal purposes – especially for aiding digestion.

(more…)

I was a little rattled last night when cocktail hour rolled around because I had just finished chopping up a bell pepper that actually turned out to be a poblano pepper. Needless to say, the pepper juice ended up in my eye, so my left eyelid was swollen, my eye was watering fiercly, and I was in a fair amount of pain.

I proceeded with cocktail hour, though, because the show must go on!

(more…)

My plan is to implement a cocktail hour at home before dinner. Only one cocktail per person. It can be enjoyed with some basic bar food, perhaps while the hockey games are on or maybe I’ll even put on some music and Hubby and I will hone our small talk skills.

The first drink was simple – the Gin Fizz.

(more…)

The book is sectioned by types of spirits starting with gin. There is more to gin than I thought. There are three basic kinds, London Dry, Plymouth, and Genever. Genever is Dutch and the invention of gin is often attributed to the Dutch – developed for medicinal purposes, of course.

My first taste of gin occurred in college. I believe I found myself at a bar, on the spot to order something, and blurted out “Gin and Tonic!” It turned out to be quite refreshing. Shortly after that, I was visiting with my father during Christmas break and asked him what he thought of gin – that I had just recently tasted it and found it refreshing. His response was “Gin is just poor man’s Jack Daniels.”

I’ve mostly stayed away from gin since then (with the execption of one especially memorable – not in a good way – evening at the old 1201 Club involving no food and lots of gin and tonic).

The place I work decided to do an experiment and create an internal blog system. Employees are encouraged to write about anything – work related or not. They are in the Web 2.0 business, so it is just an experiment to see what people do with their blogs. I’ve been trying to figure out what to write about.
(more…)