Heaven Can Wait (The Divine Cocktail Ingredients)

**Spoiler alert**  **Spoiler alert**

This post is not for alcoholics, prohibitionists, or others opposed to the consumption of spirits.

My favorite cocktail--though it's one I would not drink on a regular basis even if I were so inclined, since it's a special occasion concoction--is what I call my Heaven Can Wait. It's a drink anyone can appreciate, especially the ladies, since it's divinely cool and elegant, without any whisper of harshness or potency. 

Here's the recipe:

2 shots of gin

1 shot of Galliano (a proprietary yellow Italian mixer which comes in a very tall bottle)

1 shot creme de cacao

1 1/2 shots of heavy cream

Shaken vigorously with crushed ice and served "up" in a deep chilled traditional cocktail glass.

The taste is indescribable. I've seen variations of this, but mine was an accidental discovery, made when I lacked an ingredient in another recipe. Which is often how good drink combinations are discovered. 

Great cocktails are basically constructed out of a "goods" (a standard alcoholic distillate, such as gin, rum, bourbon, whisky, etc.) to which is added various secondary "mixers" such as liqueurs, fruit juices or pieces, seasonings, etc. The art of the cocktail attained its first flowering during the Roaring Twenties (in the middle of Prohibition, so go figure). It's lately been undergoing a mini-Renaissance. For a few decades, fine wines were on the ascendancy; hard liquor was regarded as passe, and good bartending was becoming a lost art. But wine flavors are hard to replicate. Each barrel of wine tends towards specificity: I've tasted thousands of wines, almost none quite alike; for those who like certain grapes, sticking with Chardonnay, or Bordeaux, may seem superficially like a preference, but for anyone who takes very much of the stuff, it's always a crapshoot. It literally makes no sense to say "I like Pinots," because the range of difference among the various vintages and makers is so broad. It can be frustrating, trying to replicate a great wine experience--it's a once in a lifetime thing, unless you have the money to buy by the case, and buying good wine by lot can run you big-time.