Some Words

Three glasses, a pile of pickles, and two friends, recently convinced me that my birthday party should be all vodka and pickles. Reading Absurdistan might have helped in that as well.

Before that though, I’ve gone on a mixing spree. This lead to another look around the cocktail blog scene, which took me back to Slakethirst by way of Brilliant Cocktails. You might also want to check out A Dash of Bitters

Brilliant Cocktails is a nice little site that has a video podcast feed of the cocktails being made, which is nice. That said, I don’t always go for the same stuff that the host, Chris Doig does.

He seems to be a professional bar tender at some place that actually cares. So the ways in which drinks differed from how I mixed them always had a reason, sometimes the simple fact that he can get better booze than I can. In some ways it’s just refreshing to watch a guy mix a drink and clearly know what he’s doing and care about the tradition. Sometimes I order a gimlet, just to gauge the bartender. A martini is going to lead to all sorts of trouble, a gimlet is so simple I usually figure it for a good, if sugary, baseline. At least I did, until a guy put hazelnuts in one. Two little brown nuts in a lime green concoction filled with ice. I’m never going back to that bar.

Anyhow, watching the podcasts was a nice diversion, and I learned a few cool sounding variants on what I’d been doing. Thank you Mr. Doig.

Slakethirst also recently mentioned a drink called the Lucien Gaudin. It was a piss pour night at work (Redefined it as a matter of fact. I can now die, having heard a woman call upon the power of Jesus to fix her son’s Xbox. It wasn’t broken.) and so I mixed myself up one of these. It did not disappoint.