Old Fashioned

I'm told that this drink is a favorite of my friend Jessi's. I can't say I agree. Again, don't like whiskey. Although, somehow its a little better for me when it's not mixed.

Tonight is a bit special, my friend Sarah is here celebrating her birthday, as it's a Monday night, it's nothing to exciting, but I figured we could hit two birds with one stone and try a drink, both blogging and celebrating.

We substituted maraschino cherry syrup for the splash of simple syrup. Somehow, the bitters really takes the edge off the whiskey for me. This is much easier to drink then some of the other whiskey drink.

Sarah says she can't really taste anything but the whiskey. She prefers her whiskey with beer, and likes the malt taste, so the drink isn't ideal for her. As she drinks it down and gets closer to the cherry, she likes it a bit better.

2 oz. bourbon or blended whiskey

Splash of simple syrup

2 dashes bitters

Add ingredients to iced rocks glass and garnish with a cherry.

Perhaps I need to be a bit more brave and just drink my whiskeys straight up.

Rob Roy

Yet another Scotch drink. This one I like ok. It certainly warms the stomach, a nice thing on a cold rainy October night like tonight. The bitters really come through in this drink. The sweet vermouth merely serves to sweeten the drink, I can hardly taste the vermouth flavor.

A classic 19th Century drink that can vary from sweet, through perfect and on into dry, our version is sweet.

I'm also very excited because we just inherited a few actual cocktail glasses (pictured) in which to serve these, rather then the little tumblers I was using before. Since I have the glass to use, we chose to mix with ice, and strain into the cocktail glass instead of serving it on the rocks. A truly authentic experience?

1 1/2 oz Scotch

3/4 oz Sweet Vermouth

Dash of bitters

Serve over ice in a rocks glass or shake with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass garnish with a cherry.

For the record. Maraschino cherries are gross, and whoever invented them (who strangely enough is from my husbands home town, the nearby college town of Corvallis, OR) should be shot.

Affinity Cocktail

Cocktail one in our little black book gave us a bit of a whirl. Neither of us like Whiskey, or Vermouth much for that matter. So for the first (and second, as you'll see) drinks of the book to contain both of those ingredients set us a bit off. But biting the bullet so to speak I went ahead and got some mid-range (I think?) whiskey and scotch.

This is supposed to be a winter drink, for before dinner (according to some website a google search revealed to me) and I can see where they're going with that. I like it more then I thought I would, it's a little bit sweet, but it cuts through that to those sour taste buds and really makes you salivate. The aftertaste is light and pleasant, and oder nice, and the orange bitters ads a touch of citrus that makes the sourness tolerable to me as I typically don't prefer sour drinks.

1 oz Scotch
3/4 oz dry vermouth
3/4 oz sweet vermouth
2-3 dashes orange bitters

Stir ingredients with ice and strain into chilled cocktail class

I can see why this simple drink is a classic.