Stinger

Another stealth tasty drink! The Stinger in my opinion is a non-sensical name. Apparently it's an upper crust type drink that was big with "flyboys back in the Big One". It is a pretty tasty drink, especially considering it's 100% booze (not terribly alcoholic booze...but still)

2 oz. brandy

3/4 oz. white creme de menthe

Mix in cocktail shaker with cracked ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass or on the rocks in an old fashioned glass.

I.... honestly don't have a lot more to say besides that I like the drink, and would totally drink it again.

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.

Bellini

For the record. I really don't feel like doing this tonight. But, we opened the champagne yesterday, and if we don't drink it soon, it won't be much good, and the weekend it packed, so tonight it is, we tried the Bellini. This is the first drink that I knew for sure, I'd like. And sure enough I do. It's sweet and girly, and light, with just a hint of sour. But, it's also not terribly interesting. It's expected. However a nice shake up on the mimosa, and definitely a pick for a girly day at the spa or something similar.

1 1/2 oz peach juice

Champagne

Pour peach juice into a champagne flute, fill glass with champagne and garnish with a peach slice (we skipped the garnish)

For the record, my husband, who hates champagne actually really liked this drink! Approved by all of us, room mate included!

Black Velvet

I am shocked. We have two champagne cocktails right next to each other in the book, the first is this one, and at first glance, my immediate thought was EW. To be honest, I haven't had much opportunity to drink champagne when it wasn't first mixed with orange juice, (a clear first choice for ladies drinking before noon.) However, I was pleasantly surprised by this slightly sweet, full bodied, but light cocktail. The heaviness of the Guinness is well balanced and lightened, and I could definitely drink several of these. Safely the best of both worlds I think!

1 oz Guinnes or other stout

3 oz champagne

Pour Guinness carefully into chilled flute, without creating foam, top with champagne.

I totally fail at the floating thing, turns out you're supposed to let it slip, like a black and lace instead of black and tan. However, I think I still get the main experience. Interesting to note that this drink was invented in order to mourn the death of Prince Albert in the late 19th Century.

Algonquin

Ick. Can I just say, I still don't like whiskey. I tend to really like drinks made with pineapple juice so I thought maybe this would be different, but I was wrong.

It's not as bad as whiskey and tonic or some other awful things I've had (whiskey shots!) where the whiskey flavor is over bearing and just takes over your mouth, the pineapple does sweeten it, and vermouth takes the burn off. But in general, the overwhelming flavor is that of the whiskey, which I simply don't like.

Can I also say that I really hate maraschino cherries? Talk about overly processed and sickeningly sweet. With a drink like this I'm not entirely sure what the point of such garnish is anyways. Do you eat the cherry while taking a drink? Should the flavors mix? Is it like some type of chaser? We didn't have toothpicks, so my cherry is sitting at the bottom of my glass, knocking about until I finish the drink.

One thing I CAN say about this drink is it has a kick. If you like the taste of whiskey this drink would probably go down real smooth. The alcohol taste isn't real strong, though the flavor of the whiskey is. Even so, I'm already feeling the fuzzyness in my head, and I'm barely halfway through my glass.

2 oz. rye or blended whiskey

1 oz. dry vermouth

1 oz. pineapple juice

Stir ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.

I think it's also fair to say that the more I drink this, the more I like it. Now I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad sign.

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.

From A-Z

You may or may not have heard of a goal making movement called (among other things) 101 in 1001. The basic premise is that you make a bunch of goals, big, small, silly, serious... (101, in fact) and try and complete them in 1001 days. I did this by myself a few years ago with success somewhere in the 60% completion area. Not bad, considering how much a person changes between the ages of 20 and 23.

Luke and I have decided that we want to make our own goals as a couple. This has been complicated somewhat by the fact that all goals have to in some way apply to both of us together, not an individual, and Luke wants all goals to have quantifiable, measurable success, not something where you wait until the end of the time period, and reflect qualitatively whether or now the goal was achieved or not.

Well, one of our goals is now to try every cocktail in our bar book, as systematically as possible. Our bar book is The Little Black Book of Cocktails, and we're starting at the beginning, and working our way forward, as much as possible. So today I went grocery shopping and also made a trip to the local liquor store. I came home with:

Scotch

Dry Vermouth

Sweet Vermouth

Orange Bitters

Rye Whiskey

Pineapple Juice

Brandy

Creme de Menthe

Peach Juice

Guinness

...and our room mate is getting Champagne.

Let the tasting begin!