Monthly Archive for December, 2007

It’s the sea­son for cel­e­bra­tion! Whether you’re toast­ing in the New Year, Matthew, Laura and me in honor of our grad­u­a­tion, or fam­ily and friends on Christ­mas, these lit­tle babies are com­plex enough to knock your taste buds into cel­e­bra­tion mode.

Luck
(Adapted from Katsuya’s “Burn­ing Manderin”)

I am a huge fan of “spice-rack” cock­tails, or cock­tails that fare on the savory or spicy side. I saw some­thing like this at Kat­suya and decided it might be my new favorite. The com­plex­ity of sweet, spicy, and sour in this mar­tini is painfully perfect.

• 2 oz Man­darin Vodka
• ¾ oz fresh squeezed OJ
• ¾ oz fresh squeezed Lemon Juice
• 1 chopped Ser­rano chili (I like it with the seeds still in but you decide)
• splash of cran­berry
• Shake and strain into a chilled mar­tini glass with a sugar-coated rim. Gar­nish with a large’ish jalapeño wheel.

Hap­pi­ness
OK this may seem like a sum­mer drink, but I had a crav­ing the other day, so it made the cut. The pome­gran­ate and grape­fruit combo is fuck­ing beau­ti­ful. For a(n) (impor­tant) vari­a­tion, try some crushed ice and a splash of lemon-grass liqueur.

(serve in high­ball glass with ice)
• 2oz (not well!) gin
• 1 oz pome­gran­ate juice
• Fresh squeezed lime wedge
• Top with grape­fruit Izze and gar­nish with a lime

Longevity
Every­one needs a booch’ey cock­tail every now and then to make their bod­ies happier(/lives bet­ter?). Well I could lit­er­ally drink this cock­tail for break­fast it’s so easy/perfect. For those of you who feel weird about Raspberry-infused vodka (cough, me), try mud­dling the rasp­berry with some lemon and using reg­u­lar vodka to avoid the unfor­giv­ing fake rasp­berry fla­vor (and let me know how it is!).

(serve in a high­ball glass over ice)
• 1 ¼ oz Raspberry-infused Vodka
• 1 fresh-squeezed lemon wedge
• 1 tsp fresh squeezed gin­ger
• Fill with home­made or unfla­vored raw organic Kom­bucha
• Splash of soda water
• Shake and top with a raspberry

Pros­per­ity
Dur­ing win­ter­time, most peo­ple opt for thick, sweet drinks that they think make them warmer. It is due to this time of year that we have unfor­tu­nate com­bi­na­tions like the North Pole Cock­tail. That’s so filthy.
When it gets cold in SoCal, the only thing I can think about is some­thing fresh and crisp to match that not-too-cold bite in the air! Some­thing like shochu (which you can get at most Japan­ese mar­kets, prob­a­bly some­where like Whole Foods, and def­i­nitely at a Japan­ese restaurant)

(serve in a high­ball glass with CRUSHED ice)
• 1 ¼ oz Japan­ese Shochu
• mud­dle 2 cucum­ber slices and a kaf­fir lime leaf
• top with Lemon­grass Dry Soda
• Stir
• gar­nish with 2 mint leaves

“Be always drunken. Noth­ing else mat­ters: that is the only ques­tion. If you would not feel the hor­ri­ble bur­den of Time weigh­ing on your shoul­ders and crush­ing you to the earth, be drunken continually.

Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will. But be drunken.

And if some­times, on the stairs of a palace, or on the green side of a ditch, or in the dreary soli­tude of your own room, you should awaken and the drunk­en­ness be half or wholly slipped away from you, ask of the wind, or of the wave, or of the star, or of the bird, or of the clock, or what­ever flies, or sighs, or rocks, or sings, or speaks, ask what hour it is; and the wind, wave, star, bird, clock, will answer you: ‘It is the hour to be drunken! Be drunken, if you would not be mar­tyred slaves of Time; be drunken con­tin­u­ally! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you will.’”

- Baude­laire as quoted in Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Jour­ney Into Night“

Cheers! May you been drunken with wine, with poetry, and with virtue. Here’s to us.