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.

American Beauty-almost

Finally, a drink I like! This one is named for it's color, which is a rosy pink when all is said and done. It's very sweet, I think in the future I'll make it with less grenadine. The one thing that makes this not quite so awesome is that in our book, the port isn't listed with the otheringredients, so when I did my liquor store trip last week, I didn't buy any.

So this is American Beauty, minus the port, which we'll have to get some of later, since I

definitely plan to have this drink again. At first I was a bit weirded out by the fact that this drink includes mint and orange juice, but the mint is such a tiny amount that the orange and mint blend and compliment each to give it a bit of tang, without being sour. No pucker lips here.

1/2 oz. brandy

1/2 oz. dry vermouth

1/4 tsp. white creme de menthe (flavor wise, green might work, but it would ruin the coloring)

1/2 oz. grenadine

1/2 oz fresh orange juice

dash of port (excluded this time)

Shake ingredients well with ice, strain into chilled glass. Finish with port.

I did some online browsing, and this drink can be garnished with a rose petal. I can't decide if I like that, or not, but in the mean time I do like this drink!

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.