Super Bowl Punch - Pink Panty Droppers

The name of the drink really says it all, right?

So you want a really special drink for your Super Bowl party and you have kind of hit a wall when it comes to ideas. Fortunately for you I, the super psychic, realized that you would have this problem and will be providing you with a fun, tasty, and booze full solution to your problem, the libation you need - the Pink Panty Dropper. This drink is best when made like a "punch" served in a big bowl. Curious about what is in this miracle drink? Keep reading!

The Pink Panty Dropper is one of my favorite drinks, and also one of the easiest I know how to make. You will only need 3 ingredients: Vodka, pink lemonade, and beer. I am not a big fan of "recipes", because I feel they stifle creativity but I have offered some guidelines below. To make this slightly sweet, pink colored drink all you need is:

1/2 - 1 gallon(s) Vodka (the cheap stuff works great)

12 - 18 can(s) Beer (any variety)

5 - 7 can(s) Pink Lemonade Concentrate (concentrate means that the water has not been added)

Directions:

1) Just mix the ingredients up depending on what you think your tastes and the tastes of your guests will be and this drink will turn out just great (you really cant mess it up).

2) Serve in a chilled punch bowl (or other large bowl) and watch your game in drunken bliss.  Troubleshooting: Too sweet? Add some more booze. Too tart? Add some more booze. Too much booze? Add some more booze.

You know, some people might think that a Pink Panty Dropper is a sexist kind of drink and that these drinks are made to get loose ladies drunk so they take off their underwear, and to those people I say: "it works for guys, too".

 

Drunk Monkey Steals Cocktail

Item from ABC News --"Drunk Monkey Steals Cocktail. On the island of St. Kitt's, it's not uncommon for monkeys to snag alcohol. " See the video.

Well, a monkey steals drinks? This is a regular occurrence? Questions arise. Are the bar owners contributing to the delinquency of an innocent monkey? Have these bar owners set the poor monkey up by tempting him? How many drinks does it take before a monkey can be declared legally drunk? How drunk does a monkey become before he starts acting like a human? Do monkeys qualify for rehab?

The video of "Drunk Monkey Steals Cocktail" has gone viral, and has the tag, "lower your blood pressure watch the monkey drink."

Monkey see, monkey do, monkey drinks like human. The monkey developed a taste for alcohol by watching humans drink, and monkeys get drunk like humans. The alcoholic monkey starts drinking and doesn't know when to stop. Again, the question: Do monkeys qualify for rehab?

Advanced Pairing

Ever since Americans started drinking real wine, the concept of pairing has been a popular topic. Plainly, what food flavors play well with certain alcoholic beverages? Everybody knows the old standards of red wine for red meat, white wine for fish, maybe a rose for poultry. Intermediate pairing techniques start to veer into more adventurous territory, the red wine and chocolate crowd or the people who get fussy about the long-lost cheese course. This is all well and good, but the process is starting to get a little esoteric. The idea behind pairing is to make every element of a meal harmonize, to make sure you're getting the optimal experience out of whatever you taste. Pairing for the sake of pairing turns this search for pleasure into a game of challenging palates. The following pairing suggestions aren't intended to be novel or at all counter-intuitive. Like classic wine pairing, their one and only aim is to make a meal better.

Scotch and Chinese Food

This one usually seems a little out-there whenever I suggest it, but it never fails to impress. Though scotch comes from the opposite side of the world from China, it pairs remarkably well with the keynote flavors in Chinese cuisine. At the most basic level, Chinese food gets a lot of its character from strong peppers, rich oils and intense spices like ginger. Even the driest wine is going to be too sweet and too mild to really mingle with those flavors properly. The unique smokiness of scotch complements the sharp, hot oil notes in many Chinese dishes while the heavy grain flavors present in all whiskey bridge the gap between the sweetness of Chinese sauces and the necessary blandness of rice. Most importantly, scotch is, itself, rather insistent stuff. It doesn't want to play nice, so the resulting competition of flavors is lively without clashing.

 

Vodka and Cold Salad

A lot of the best vodka drinks are halfway to salad anyway, so pairing a plate of mixed greens and garden vegetables with the simple, acquiescent tones of a good vodka isn't that unusual. Vodka is one of the few liquors that work well with salt, and anyone with a culinary eye knows that a little salt goes a long way to liven up vegetables. Salt coaxes moisture to the surface of plants, releasing the essential oils that hold much of their flavor. Similarly, neutral alcohol also has a way of doing flavor-improving chemistry. Hell, a lot of Italian dishes hit tomatoes and tomato sauces with wine or vodka because certain flavor compounds in the fruit just won't activate without alcohol. A clean, chilled vodka with no extra flavorings is the ideal match for a proper, varied salad. It wants to share these flavors, so let it.

 

Rum and Salmon

This one is a simple matter of shared flavors. There are four things that make both rum and salmon better. They are, in no particular order: Butter, citrus, brown sugar, spice. A good, buttery, spiced rum (especially with a twist of fresh lime) will carry all of the flavors that make salmon, an already flavorful fish, the Prime Steak of swimmers. Also, because fish tends to be pretty light, pairing a drink with it is precarious. Beer may work with bland white fish, but something with as much character as salmon really wants something more nuanced. Most white liquors are just going to be too slight to really have a presence with salmon while most brown liquors will overpower it. Spiced rum is middle-of-the-road, which is why it succeeds.

The Mimosa: Crisp, Citrusy & Delicious

About a week ago, I had the pleasure of enjoying a mimosa. Never underestimate the power a mimosa can have on the start to a very lazy Sunday. This was a delicious way to start the day. So what if I consumed alcohol before noon? I enjoyed every drop. A mimosa is a very nice accompaniment to any sort of breakfast foods.

A traditional mimosa is one part chilled orange juice, with one part champagne. For my mimosa, I used Tropicana orange juice and Domaine St Michelle, which is actually a sparkling wine. I chose a bottle of their extra  dry. It tasted sweet and complemented the texture of the citrus in the orange juice. It had a deep apple taste with a sweet, almost creamy finish. The two fruits swirling together was a wonderful combination of tastes. The carbonation from bubbles in the sparkling wine was a wonderful distinct layer in the overall taste.

For a fun variation, add Grand Mariner to the mix. This is a liqueur that was formulated by Alexandre Marnier-Lapostolle, who learned the art of distilling spirits from his father. His father was a shopkeeper that sold wine and spirits. Grand Mariner is a blend of fine cognacs and the distilled essence of bitter orange. This liqueur is 80 proof, meaning it has 40% alcohol. This is a very popular spirit to add to drinks in France.

In old English, a mimosa was widely known as “Hair of the Dog”. This is an expression that literally means to cure oneself from a hangover, by consuming more alcohol. This expression’s origins trace to the idea that one can be cured of hydrophobia (also known as rabies) or any disease where infection occurs from a dog bite. To cure yourself, simply take hair from the dog that bit you and place it on the wound.

There is no scientific evidence that this method does actually help cure a hangover. Though it makes me wonder why the illusive Bloody Mary is so popular and a drink staple for many well before noon. Seattle weekly has a list of restaurants where you can get the top 5 Bloody Marys in the city here. If you don’t live in Seattle, make some fun plans to travel to our fair emerald city and have a night out with friends. Then consult this list for a place where you can slowly let in the light of day on the morning after. Many a Seattleite can be found wearing sunglasses, even on overcast or rainy days on the weekends, probably due to excessive alcohol consumption the night before.

So whether you choose to sip on a Mimosa or Bloody Mary, embrace the dark with those stylish shades and sip that Hair of the Dog in a dark corner brooding over the Stranger’s I SAW U column.

Don't Abuse-- Infuse.

I'm sick of flavored liquor. That is, I'm sick of the brand-name, off-the-shelf, candy-scented swill that has invaded liquor store shelves over the past decade. I could put up with the plethora of flavored vodkas out there. I mean, technically most hard liquor is flavored vodka, they're just flavors most people wouldn't drink if they were marketed as such. What's whiskey but sun-and-wood-flavored vodka? Gin's just juniper vodka and brandy is a wine and vodka cocktail. That's the nature of neutral grain spirits. The real offense, the last freaking straw, was when flavored whiskey hit the market. Vanilla whiskey. Cherry whiskey. These are sins, plain and simple. Oh, not because whiskey plus other flavors is an affront to the gods of distillation, but because there's a huge difference between the muddled fruit of an Old Fashioned and some confectionery syrup ruining a perfectly good batch of bourbon. That's why this flavoring thing has gone too far and why it's time to bring liquor infusion back to homemade basics. You want flavored vodka or, dare I say, flavored whiskey? Patience and fresh ingredients are all you need.

Let's start with an old favorite: Vanilla vodka. Even the best stuff on the market tastes like the run-off from a particularly soggy wedding cake, so it's not good for much beyond super-sweet dessert drinks and ridiculous cocktails that few outside a sorority ever consume. The reason for this is where the vanilla comes from. These brands are not scraping a vanilla bean and letting it steep, they're making vanilla-flavored syrups and extracts then homogenizing them with vodka and filtering the results. This is a terrible idea. Here's how to do it right.

Get a liter of decent vodka. Don't bother with really premium stuff because the point of high-end vodka is that it doesn't taste like anything to begin with. A good mixing vodka like Svedka, Smirnoff or (if you want some bite) Stoli will do just fine. Next, take three to six vanilla beans, slice them open, scrape the soft, fibrous insides into a clean, glass container that will also hold the vodka and then drown the whole thing in booze. Stir the mixture thoroughly, seal it tight and store it in a cool, dry place away from any intense source of light, especially sunlight.

Now, walk away. Seriously, leave the vodka to steep for one to two weeks. Don't stir it, don't shake it, and for the love of all that is good and true don't add anything else. When all is said and done, just strain the contents of your infusing jar back into the original bottle and you will have the best vanilla vodka you've ever tasted. No added sugar, no syrup, not artificial coloring or flavoring. Just vanilla bean and booze.

The process for herbs and berries is similar. Buy fresh, use more than you think you need, slice, stir, forget, strain. You can do the same with any other liquor, should you want to. What's that? You want to make chocolate vodka? Sigh. Fine. If you absolutely must, do yourself a favor and skip the Hershey's. The stuff you want is unsweetened, Dutch-process cocoa powder. Add one cup to a liter of vodka, shake it thoroughly, let it sit for the requisite time and then strain it. The Dutch stuff is more subtle and it'll give your vodka that fancy-chocolate flavor you'll probably want. And yes, it'll be plenty sweet, which is to stay not very sweet at all. You want sweet chocolate liquor? Buy some Creme de Cacao and be done with it.

The Lush Chronicles: Amateur Night Blues

There are a handful of nights across the year that invite amateur drinkers to get plastered. Whereas the self-respecting lushes of America are content to caress their livers from the inside on at least a weekly basis, most folks save up the punches on their drunk card for celebrations like St. Patrick's Day, Halloween and, of course, New Year's Eve. Every bartender hates these nights with a passion. People who aren't used to getting drunk have a habit of horribly misbehaving on those nights when they actually do dive into eye-deep booze. This is often embarrassing, violent and all kinds of ugly. Three things in particular happen on Amateur Night that make my marinated heart weep.

The Boiler

Consider, if you will, a bar occupied to the very brink of its capacity. It's a holiday night and most of the people there rarely set foot in establishments like these. It doesn't matter what kind of bar it is, whether a pubby dive, a peculiar microbrewery or a trendy meat market, the atmosphere is the same because two out of every three patrons have no business consuming as much alcohol as they have/are planning to. The close quarters, myriad strangers and flowing intoxicants lead inevitably to confusion which leads inevitably to high emotions which leads inevitably to violence. Somebody in the bar will start a fight at some point. Maybe it's over a spilled drink or some unwanted sexual advances, maybe it's just because amateurs have a way of indulging buried tendencies when they go all-out. All that matters is that the professionals in the room have to keep an eye out for the first swing, and that's never fun or relaxing.

 

The Drunk-Block

We all know the expression "cock-block", the sometimes justified, sometimes uncouth decision to stymie someone's attempt to bed one of your friends. It's a defense mechanism meant to out-compete or protect, but at least it's always intentional. The similar drunk-block is an accidental and thereby more irritating version of the same. Lushes can handle their drink, they can ride a tipsy wave all night with a combination of heightened tolerance and practiced self-control. Amateurs don't know their limits or how to rein themselves in, so they get drunk enough to require supervision. On Amateur Night, lushes have a hell of a time getting laid because their preferred partners, other lushes, usually end up having to babysit their amateur friends when the drinking gets ugly. That's why amateurs get horrible hangovers; it's Dionysus taking his revenge on the enemies of indulgence.

 

The Cab Locusts

Amateur Night means a whole lot of people who shouldn't be driving, or even walking, home. Thus the taxi rush at last call. The amateurs swarm over the available cab population like a biblical plague, leaving the more put-together bar patrons without a reliable means to get home before the sun rises. Even more frustrating are those vultures who poach cabs hailed by other, more respectable people. Alcohol has a tendency to remove social grace, so this ultimate party foul happens far too often on Amateur Night. It's the last insult in a time replete with indignities.

Hot Buttered Rum

I have to confess that the first time I heard about Hot Buttered Rum it sounded . . . odd. Rum? With butter? Even Bacardi 151 on a freezing cold evening in January after a day spent skiing sounded odd in the context of melted butter. Then, when a friend explained that it really did involve rum with melted butter and spices and sugar, I thought it sounded less than appetizing. Essentially, the traditional recipe for Hot Buttered Rum is a hot toddy made with rum.

Hot Buttered Rum is made by adding a batter to rum, and sometimes, hot water. You make the batter by mixing butter with sugar and spices. You add a few spoons of the butter mixture (usually referred to as Hot Buttered Rum batter) to a mug, and then add a shot or two of rum, and top off the mug with boiling water. Stir gently, and serve. Generally the recipes for Hot Buttered Rum call for a dark rum; my local experts recommend Myers Dark Rum. Some favor spiced rum variants, and at least one aficionado praises Bacardi 151 after a day of skiing and no plans to leave the comfort of hearth and home.

But when another friend told me about the Hot Buttered Rum variant that used ice cream, I was appalled. It sounded awful, and the actual batter looked revolting. I was wrong. Having tried the ice cream varient I am now a convert to Hot Buttered Rum, and plan on making them a Winter holiday tradition, along with Smoking Bishop.

There are of course lots of variations. Here's a very traditional recipe for Hot Buttered Rum. Here's version for the crock pot that uses heavy cream in the batter, and you top the mug with a scoop of ice cream. Here's a version designed for the crock pot, and here's one without the rum. A similar, but unrelated drink, is the Tom and Jerry.

While Hot Buttered Rum is traditionally served as an apres ski beverage, I'm thinking it's a lovely tradition to make a batch to enjoy while trimming the tree or decorating for the holidays. The batter will keep for some time in the refrigerator so you don't have to use it all at once. Many stores also sell pre-made batter during the winter months; look in the deli and ice cream sections. The recipe I'll be using, and the one that firmly convinced me that Hot Buttered Rum is a lovely beverage is this one, made with ice cream.

Crime Thriller

Has anyone ever heard of a book called, The Scar, written by Michael Weiner (www.thescarnovel.com)?  My friend gave me the book. It was a quick read, but I thought the story was really intense and such a good crime thriller. Does anyone know if he has written anything else?

The Lush Chronicles: Acquired Tastes

Alcohol is weird. More so than any other food, if we can even call it food, alcohol compels us to indulge in unusual flavors. It's all bizarre stuff if you really think about it. Whiskey is nothing but used wood solvent. Rum is diluted molasses that has gone bad. Beer is spoiled grain augmented by the flatulence of microscopic fungi. More to the point, ethanol is poison. Our bodies treat it like a toxin and it inhibits neural function. The fact that we consume the stuff on purpose, for fun, is beyond absurd. Maybe that's why we're willing to drink alcohol with weird or downright off-putting flavors. We're already consuming something wretched and strange, so why not take advantage of the requisite state of mind and experience other odd things at the same time? This is where the acquired tastes of alcohol begin.

When it comes to the definition of "acquired taste" in the realm of potables, I have to set the bar a bit higher than most. Scotch, for instance, is often called an acquired taste. This is ridiculous. Acquired tastes are not based on the sole criterion that there exist people in this world who don't like a particular flavor. By that metric, chocolate is an acquired taste. Scotch certainly has a challenging flavor, but there are such a wide variety of different scotches and such a layered profile in the middle-of-the-road batches that there's no way to even describe the way "scotch" as a concept tastes.

That in mind, there are some specific scotches that are decidedly acquired tastes. Consider Laphroaig, an Islay scotch that has been gaining popularity lately thanks to its idiosyncratic taste. The stuff tastes like a campfire. There's no better way to describe it. Its flavor is functionally identical to the scent of smoke off a pile of burning wood with no accelerants to aid the flame. Even for card-carrying scotch drinkers, Laphroaig is damn near unapproachable. A lot of good bars keep the stuff on hand to make unusual cocktails, using it like the mixology equivalent of liquid smoke.

And yet there are people out there who are in Heaven when they can get their hands on a deep glass of Laphroaig straight-up. Maybe it's connected to a sense memory for them, maybe it just tickles a particular synapse in their unique brains. Most probably don't even know why they've acquired the taste for campfire scotch, just that they like it while the majority of other people wouldn't even identify the flavor as palatable.

My personal acquired taste is Fernet Branca. It's part of a class of liquors that haven't been in fashion for nearly a century and even then were mostly used as after-dinner digestive aids in continental Europe. Only the sweetest and simplest digestivi survived into modern bartending, like Sambuca and Grand Marnier. Fernet Branca has only just come back into the American cocktail palate, and with good reason. On its own the stuff is incredibly bitter and has a pervasive, antiseptic mint note. Sipping it is a terrible idea. Either take it all at once or mix it with something. It's been popular in Argentina for a long time to mix Fernet Branca with cola, which is my preferred way to drink it. Maybe I like it because I have a high tolerance for mint, or maybe I like it because it reminds me of the smell of a fancy spa shampoo I loved in my teen years. All I know is that most people can barely stand the drink and I wish I had a bottle of it wherever I go.

Necco Mint Julep Candy Chews

Although it turned out to be reasonably tasty, this candy struck me as ill-conceived in two ways:

1.    Hey, kids!  Have some candy named after booze!  It's fun!  Try a candy cigarette afterward, to complete the experience!

2.    What do mint juleps taste like?  Do people drink them for the taste?  I thought people only drank mint juleps for the booze.  Otherwise, we'd just be drinking mint tea. 

I can't really help with point #1.  Although it does occur to me that "pina colada" is a common candy flavor, and that's an alcoholic beverage too.  (I mean, just barely, but still.)  It makes me imagine a world of booze candy.  Manhattan Skittles.  Sidecar Chews.  Rum and Coke Slurpee.  Seabreeze Gum.  You get the picture.

As for the second point… I don't know.  I guess so.  I was reminded of the Mint Mojito flavor of Orbit gum I tried a few years ago.  It tasted minty, with a vague "something else" flavor which I guess, if pressed, I might have reluctantly identified as rum.  I mean, I'm honestly not too sure what light rum tastes like, despite having drunk plenty of it in my day.

I have had mint juleps, and the same rule applies.  They are a really refreshing, incredibly alcoholic way to while away a hot summer afternoon.  I can totally understand why it's the alcoholic drink of the South, because in summer before air conditioning, what else was there to do but drink a really cold, refreshing, iced drink and get totally smashed?

To put it in contemporary terms, a mint julep is a mojito made with bourbon instead of rum.  You muddle sugar and mint together in the bottom of the glass, add bourbon and a ton of ice, and soda water to top off. 

As you might expect, spearmint is the dominant flavor in Mint Julep Candy Chews.  And sweetness.  So in that sense, it is indeed very faithful to the original.  Is there a bourbon flavor lurking down there somewhere?  I don't know.  I do taste something else, but I can't really put my finger on it.  If you gave this to me without telling me what it was, I would just say "it's a mint chew."  The bourbon flavor is subtle at best, is what I'm saying.

Call the concerned parents!

I don't have kids, and I'm hardly what you would call conservative.  Even so, I'm hesitant on the concept of a candy marketed and flavored like a mixed drink.  I mean, have you ever had a mint julep?  Unlike the pina colada, beloved of frat girls and vacationing secretaries everywhere, the mint julep is not a drink that messes around. 

Texture wise, Mint Julep Candy Chews are virtually identical to a Mamba or Starburst.  Each candy is about the size of two Starbursts stacked together.  It is a surprisingly delicate and edible candy, given its source - NECCO, most famous for the Necco Wafer.  (Maybe this shouldn't be so surprising after all, given the strong emotions that Necco Wafers inspire.)

Pages