I hate tomatoes.
This always dismayed my mother, who loved tomatoes for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner, and for anytime in between. I always whined, and refused to eat them. Today it’s my tomato-loving bride who faces the pushback; I still whine and refuse to eat them.
So why do I like the Bloody Mary?
I still remember a science class in second grade where we sampled unflavored gelatin. I had never eaten anything that had no flavor at all. It was very, very strange.
Vodka cocktails remind me of that day in class.
Continue reading “Confounding Vodka: The Night of the Hunter”
The Black Pearl is another Minneapolis original by Johnny Michaels. With its sweet combination of vodka, sparkling wine, and blackberry syrup, it is, as Michaels says, “another vodka-based favorite for the peoples.”
Continue reading “Vodka and Champagne: the Black Pearl Cocktail”
I never knew anyone who actually built a Cold War bomb shelter, though I do recall the very useful hide-under-your-desk drills in grade school. It didn’t occur to me at the time that I was one of millions of Americans living in harm’s way with respect to our open-air atomic tests and their fallout. Continue reading “Under my desk with the Atomic Cocktail”
There are only a few vodka cocktails important enough that every bartender should know how to make them. The Kangaroo leads the list (usually under its street name, “Vodka Martini.”) Next in line is the Cosmopolitan. Continue reading “What flavor is your Cosmopolitan?”
Do you remember the first cocktail you made? Continue reading “What was your first cocktail?”
We first encountered the French Pear Cocktail at one of our local restaurant bars. It was part of the promotional blitz that made St. Germaine the darling of cocktail inventors for awhile. The French Pear was floral, fruity, and champagne bright—springtime in a glass—so we set about to reconstruct it. Continue reading “French Pear Cocktail”
One of the delights of the Smoky Martini Cocktail is its accommodating nature. There seems to be no canonical recipe, only a loose ingredients list: gin (or vodka), Scotch (or Irish, blended or single malt), dry vermouth (optional), lemon twist (optional). Here is flavor opportunity broad enough to satisfy the tastes of any Scotch drinker, and even those who do not consider themselves in the Scotch–drinking ranks.
