I swear to Godzilla…

January 26, 2016January 26, 2016 ~ Meg ~ 29 Comments

Week 4 of the year of drinking adventurously! And it’s a fail!

The view from my front door at about 3PM Saturday. I’d already shoveled the front walkway once.

I tried, I really did. I knew the storm was coming. Rather than wait till the last minute, I started looking last week for the Japanese whiskey that was to be this week’s offering. According to Jeff’s book, Japanese whiskey rivals the best products of Scotland and Ireland. Who knew? I live in the suburbs of a major East Coast city so I figured one of the larger liquor stores would stock at least one or two varieties on their shelves. Nope. I searched for it online. The closest liquor store to carry it is in East Brunswick, New Jersey; a trafficky hour and a half away. I couldn’t even find it on the menu of any of the local Japanese restaurants. I will have to refer you to Lula’s blog to see how she liked it.

Now, you would think I’d take advantage of this enforced downtime to write, edit, research or something. But you would be wrong! We brewed our own beer! You knew I’d get around to alcohol at some point, right? Rather than bore you with the details (and I intended to bore you with the details but I bored myself just writing them, so…), I will just say that when this batch is finished fermenting, we will hopefully, have an English Ale. And because this week’s adventure should have taken me to Japan, home of the legendary and awesome radioactive monster, Gojira (Godzilla), I thought it would be the perfect day for a Godzilla movie marathon! That didn’t happen either, my husband can’t sit through them. Although to be fair, that might have something to do with the fact that I own the boxed set of the original Toho Productions movies, in Japanese with subtitles! (I could bore you with those details, too.)

Nevertheless, sometimes marriage is about compromise and in order to satisfy my desire for giant alien monsters, he agreed to watch Pacific Rim, which I found on TV. It really doesn’t take much to make me happy!

Anyway, sorry to fail on week 4. I am slightly more optimistic about next week, however. The drink of choice is from China. Philadelphia does have a Chinatown … Anyone up for a night on the town?

(Header image courtesy gizmodo.)

Dear Canada, you are so cool.

January 19, 2016September 22, 2016 ~ Meg ~ 55 Comments

Week three in The Year of Drinking Adventurously. Canadian Whiskey. (Find all 52 entries here.)

This week I had an easy and enjoyable choice of potent potable: Canadian Whiskey. Living in the Northeastern United States, I am in Canada’s back yard (front yard?). My state, Pennsylvania, shares a border with Ontario, Canada across Lake Erie.

It’s a 6 hour trip to Niagra Falls; Montreal and Quebec City are within a day’s drive.

Canada is a big place with a lot of stuff to love. For one thing, Canadians are friendly and polite. Just ask Whitney, she’s married to a Canadian. It is also home to one of my favorite bands of all time: RUSH.

Showing my true nerd-self. –>

There’s also hockey, poutine (French fries covered with cheese curds and gravy, trust me it’s amazing), Tim Horton’s coffee, thousands of acres of unspoiled native forest where (I’m sure) the Sasquatches live, the second tallest peak in North America (Mount Logan) and their new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is a babe. Voila:

How the hell do they get anything done? Image via Huffington Post

What was I saying? Oh yeah, whiskey. I’ll be honest with you all. I tend not to be a big cocktail person. Whiskey goes over ice in my house. However, I’m trying to be adventurous, right? So I experimented with a couple recipes and found this one from Ina Garten (The Barefoot Contessa) for fresh whiskey sours:

This theoretically (ha!) makes 4:

1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon

1/2 cup fresh squeezed lime

1/2 cup sugar syrup

3/4 cup Canadian whiskey (actually you can use any whiskey)

Toss it around in a shaker with ice, then serve with a maraschino cherry in a tumbler. That’s what Ina Garten did, anyway. I’ve seen whiskey sours in tall glasses, too. I drank mine straight out of the shaker. Why dirty another glass? Just kidding…

Whisky_Sour — Not my photo, I drank mine from the shaker, remember?

Anyway, this turned out amazingly great. I will definitely make these again. The lemon-lime flavor was not overpowering and the amount of sugar syrup was just enough to prevent the citric acid from taking the enamel off your teeth.

Do you ever feel bad using “good” spirits to make mixed drinks? Like it’s a waste since you’re not really going to taste the full flavor of the alcohol? I kind of do but it would also be ridiculous to keep a separate stash for just cocktails. Wouldn’t it? Hmmm….

The Crown Royal is a really nice mild whiskey. If you are trying a whiskey for the first time, this would be my recommendation. Canadian whiskeys are as pleasant and polite as their makers. There’s no funky peat-smoke taste like the Scotches or corn and sour mash flavors of the bourbons, just a nice smooth warmth. I can see why, in the Great White North, whiskey would hit the spot. Why not try cuddling up to a Canadian this weekend? Sample Canadians, below.

Oh hell, why wait for the weekend? And don’t forget to go see what Lula concocted this week!

Not your Grandad’s Bourbon

January 12, 2016September 22, 2016 ~ Meg ~ 45 Comments

It’s week two of the Year of Drinking Adventurously. Bourbon. (Find all 52 entries, here.)

This week we cross the pond from Scotland to the southern United States to sample bourbon, America’s most famous spirit. Bourbon has enjoyed a resurgence of popularity recently. Even cool kids like Hilary Clinton are drinking it.

Hilary touring the Maker’s Mark Distillery, image courtesy Huffington Post

Now, I’m not going to pretend that I haven’t been caught up in this wave of bourbon trendiness. Honestly, three or four years ago, I wouldn’t have touched the stuff given another whiskey option. That’s what happens when your earliest bourbon memories are sneaking a taste of your Dad’s Old Grandad on the rocks when he isn’t looking. Blech.

Then I met Woodford Reserve and my life was forever changed. The thing I hated about bourbon was that “corny, sour mashy” taste and smell. The Woodford had none of that. Recently, I acquired a bottle of Blanton’s Bourbon and it’s become my new favorite.

However, I can’t find it in my local liquor store leaving me to buy this instead:

So how does one drink their bourbon? Straight up? Yes. But I can’t keep posting that every week, you’ll stop reading. Here are 2 of my favorite options:

1. The classic Manhattan:

In a shaker with ice: 3 oz. bourbon, 1 oz. sweet vermouth, 2-3 dashes bitters, 1 Maraschino cherry. Shake and pour into Martini glass or if you prefer, serve on the rocks.

I know it looks like a girly drink but if you were hoping for a Cosmo, you will be sorely disappointed. You have to like whiskey to like this cocktail.

2. The bourbon hot toddy:

(No photo because it looks like a cup of tea)

In a small sauce pan: 3-4 oz. bourbon, juice of half a lemon (or a fresh orange or tangerine is nice too), 1-2 tablespoons honey, water to dilute (not too much!) Heat until honey has dissolved (don’t boil it or you’ll cook off the alcohol and then what would be the point?), serve in a teacup or mug.

Comfort in a cup! Nice on a sore throat, too. Even my tea-totaling Nana would have a hot toddy when she had a chest cold. This was the perfect drink for me with the nagging cough I’ve been battling.

I struggled to tie this into writing. Bourbon was the drink of choice for some famous authors like William Faulkner, Hunter S. Thompson and Samuel Clemens. Bourbon is featured in the lyrics of over 400 hundred songs. I’m sure it’s fueled the muse in many famous drinkers over the years. That’s all I got!

Make sure you check out Lula’s post today. She wrote about rye, bourbon’s kissing cousin!