Saturday, June 4, 2011

The Once Upon a Time - Without a Twist


Brown drinks are less appetizing to some people. I have a drink in my book which is dark grey--almost black! Not visually appealing, but very good on the palate. You can't judge a drink by its color, though the clarity of a good, clean martini suggests the quality of its purity--a very sleek taste, suitable for fine distinctions and a clear head.

A good cocktail is an icebreaker. If you're uptight or wound-up from work, a good cocktail can loosen your tie, and limber up your tongue. So the story goes.

Here's a variation on a Southern mix, but without a twist. Sticking a wedge of fruit on the edge of a glass may look cute, but it's sometimes inconvenient, or superfluous; it can get in the way of the drinking. I usually squeeze it and drop it in, or put it off to one side. Don't get me wrong, a wedge of orange or lemon, steeped in a pink gin, say, can be better than candy. But in this case, it's unnecessary. So--no twist. Just the straight stuff.


By proportion, of course--


3 Parts dark Caribbean rum
1 Part Aperol
1 part Cynar aperitif
1 part sweet lime (squeezed fresh)
2 dashes of Angostura bitters


Shaken lightly and served up (no garnish).

Here in California we've been getting more unseasonable rain than most weather-casters can recall. Time to check the record book. Is it the result of global warming, or of some other sinister force? Let's ponder it over a drink.

2 comments:

J said...

Looks tasty.

Then Myers and 7-up works as well or..."old school" as the g's say, Bacardi 151 n whatever. (actually ah usually avoid hard booze now)


--were Mitt Romneyoid to go to victory-- (pray to Osiris that won't happen), booze could conceivably be...verboten, not to say all sorts of other pleasures .

TC said...

Curtis,

Oy, this weather.

Research has led me to believe that the cause is a late-fading La NiƱa event multiplied by a negative Arctic oscillation wrapped within a sudden-onset and absolutely unpredicted cooling of the North Pacific Ocean called the Pacific decadal oscillation.

The epicentre of the cumulative effect is (I reckon) located directly beneath the Arlington Fountain Circle, where the continent receives, through the funneling effect of the land opening in the Bay spanned by the Bridge, the rising perpendicular-plane directional brunt of the weirdest and most warped jet stream in recorded history.

The further away one gets from that point, the less likely anyone but us is ever to have known.