Fuzzy Wuzzy

Fuzzy Wuzzy

One evening in the lab, the Vultures were discussing trendy drinks of the past and just tossing some names around. When we got to the Fuzzy Navel, silence reigned and then one of us said:

“That was a damned good drink. Let’s make one now.”

There are a lot of products available lately with fake flavoring and hideous colors and your Vultures are happy to rake them over the coals. But peach schnapps and peach liqueur have always been reliable, inexpensive ingredients. Peach is one of those flavors that remains bright and fresh-tasting even when some artificiality is involved. Enjoy your peachy cocktails in their many variations, and try this pretty new one we’ve created for you.

To an iced shaker, add:

2 ounces vodka
3/4 ounce cranberry syrup
1 ounce freshly-squeezed orange juice
1/2 ounce peach schnapps or liqueur (our favorite: https://www.stirrings.com/real-products/liqueurs/peach)

Shake vigorously and pour unstrained into glass. Garnish with orange wedge and add a straw.

Cranberry Syrup

To a saucepan, add:

2 cups fresh cranberries
3/4 to 1 cup light brown sugar
Water to cover berries

Keep stirring over medium heat until the cranberries start popping their skins. Remove from heat and let stand to cool. Strain and bottle. Store in refrigerator up to 5 days.

Voodoo Volcano

VooDoo Volcano Bowl

The original Volcano Bowl was featured at Don the Beachcomber’s — we added a little VooDoo with some Deadhead Rum and a Zombie formulation for an easy pour.

To a large shaker, add:

3 ounces Deadhead rum
3 ounces gold rum
3 ounces silver rum
3 ounces pineapple juice
3 ounces grapefruit juice
3 ounces freshly-squeezed lime juice
1 ounce maple syrup
3 dashes orange bitters
3 dashes allspice dram
A hearty scoop of crushed ice

Shake vigorously and pour unstrained into a volcano bowl filled with ice cubes. Garnish as desired; we enjoy a few pineapple slices and maraschino cherries. Add 151 proof rum to the volcano reservoir and light carefully.

Serves two to four — time to get out the loooooong straws!

Always drink responsibly; always drink well.

Midnight Margarita

 

Midnight Margarita

What is mixing a cocktail if it is not a ritual? And at that warm, mood-changing moment when you take your first sip, is it not a spell that has been cast over you?

“Practical Magic” (1998) was the first movie to show the characters bond as they toss worry to the winds and dance around the kitchen table; you’ll find it in several subsequent “chick flicks” but this one had actual witches doing it. The circle dance is an ancient tradition and a blender full of Margaritas certainly improved it.

Recipes for Midnight Margaritas abound on the Internet. This one was invented by actual witches. And yes, we put the lime with the coconut.

Prepare a small rocks glass by rimming it with a combination of salt and brown sugar.

To an iced shaker, add:

2 ounces 1800 Coconut Tequila
1 ounce Cointreau
1/2 ounce freshly-squeezed lime juice

Shake vigorously. Dance around the kitchen table and raise that shaker high, or pass it widdershins to the other drinkers.

Strain into prepared glass filled with crushed ice. Add a straw and a hunk of coconut if it’s handy.

Sally Owens: And I don’t want them dancing naked under the full moon!
Aunt Jet Owens: No, of course. The nudity is entirely optional. As you well remember!

Always drink responsibly. Always drink well.

Creature from the Black Lagoon

Creature From the Black Lagoon

No movie monster deserves a summery green drink more than The Creature; when you’re ready to entertain friends at the seaside or relaxing near your favorite lagoon, our cocktail is a perfect accompaniment.

The Brazilian locale of the movie makes Cachaça the obvious choice, and we were careful to include a “black lagoon” feature.

To an iced shaker, add:

2 ounces Cachaça (we enjoy http://www.LeblonCachaca.com)
2 ounces Midori (www.midori-world.com)
1 ounce Cruzan Coconut Rum (www.cruzanrum.com)
1 ounce lime juice
1 ounce pineapple juice

1 ounce dark spiced Rum (we prefer http://www.krakenrum.com)

Shake VIOLENTLY! for a good 30 seconds (we demand a well-shaken cocktail). Strain into a large rocks glass filled with crushed ice. Set the reamed lime half in the ice as a bowl and fill that with the Kraken or other dark rum. Add a straw and enjoy.

The vegetal nature of the Cachaça offsets the Midori and makes a clean and refreshing drink with a hint of Tiki influence. Just don’t go swimming alone!

Always drink responsibly; always drink well.

Licorice Whip

Licorice Whip

The Cocktail Vultures don’t always have to be so fancy. Occasionally, we like to imbibe one of our favorite spirits in a more casual way, maybe even allowing a professional bartender to mix it for us so we can enjoy some nightlife. We think our latest drink does this very well — with absinthe, that most formalized and mysterious of spirits. It’s pretty, too, and may have you singing “Choo Choo, Charlie!” by the end of an evening.

The Licorice Whip

Fill a rocks or highball glass with ice. Add:

1 ounce absinthe
1 ounce real grenadine
3 ounces club soda
Stir thoroughly and add a straw.

If you wanted to dress it up with a cherry, it would do no harm.

[Note: real grenadine is made by warming pomegranate juice (we recommend Pom) on the stove and adding an equal amount of sugar. Stir until sugar is completely dissolved. Bottle and store in your refrigerator for up to three weeks. An ounce of vodka or silver rum will help preserve it.]

Blushing Banana Daiquiri

Blushing Banana Daiquiri

The Cocktail Vultures are ever on the prowl for methods and ingredients to facilitate your drinking, and for a long time we’ve been in a quandary about banana drinks. Everyone loves them, but a good banana ingredient can be elusive. Those flavored schnapps-type liquors are too phony-tasting, and just throwing in a fresh banana is a real roll of the dice. Too green and it’s a grassy tummy ache. The just-right banana requires more planning than we are sometimes willing to give — what if you want your banana drink NOW?

We searched our mental database and pulled out a fond memory from childhood: banana baby food. Many of us remember sneaking a jar of this from amongst a younger sibling’s supply of squash and peas — the smooth, slightly-sweet texture, the aroma of fresh bananas. What the hell? We gave it a shot, and we think we have a winner here.

Banana baby food is available everywhere, and there are no artificial ingredients or colors. It’s just a consistent purée of real bananas with a jot of citric acid, and it works perfectly in a blender drink like ours.

The proportions below were built around one six-ounce jar of bananas, and the recipe makes two generous portions of frozen goodness. Remember Mom this Mother’s Day with our delicious, pale pink Daiquiri — after bringing you up, she needs a hefty cocktail!

To a blender, add:

1 6 ounce jar banana baby food
4 ounces silver rum
2 ounces banana liqueur (we used Banane du Brésil)
1 ounce freshly-squeezed lime juice
1 ounce house-made grenadine
1.5 cups crushed ice

Blend on high for a good 20 seconds. Before pouring, you may add a jot of crushed ice to the glass to keep things frosty, and include a straw. Our garnish was an array of tiny stars cut from orange and lemon rinds using an antique aspic cutter.

After all, isn’t your Mom the star of the show?

Always drink responsibly; always drink well.

The Pink Squirrel ala The Cocktail Vultures

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Pink Squirrel a la Cocktail Vultures

The story goes that the Pink Squirrel was invented in 1941 in a bar in Wisconsin, but didn’t enter the popular imagination until the Sixties when it became identified as one of the original “girl drinks.”  Those suburban housewives were looking for something stronger than a lemonade in the afternoon while playing bridge or Mah Jong.  The Pink Squirrel was thereby brought to ruin through the marketing of bottled versions in liquor stores, and powdered prefab make-it-yourself kits in supermarkets. The Cocktail Vultures love a challenge, and decided to rediscover what made this drink popular so many years ago. We kicked the recipe around the block a bit, took out the Creme de Cacao, and put back what we’ve discovered was an ingredient in the original recipe: ice cream.

To a shaker, add:

2 ounces Creme de Noyaux
1 ounce chocolate vodka (Our favorite: http://www.vodka360.com/brandsflavors/360-double-chocolate.html)
2 ounces melted vanilla ice cream

Shake long and hard with crushed ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

A note on Creme de Noyaux: it’s an almond-flavored, sweet liqueur. It’s old-timey and not easy to find. Brands include Hiram Walker, Bols and Marie Brizard. If you only manage to snag a bottle of Creme de Almond, add a drop of red food coloring to stay with the original pink color.

Created 7/31/2010

The Grasshopper ala Cocktail Vultures

The Grasshopper a la Cocktail Vultures

A sweet, creamy, minty cocktail that became popular alongside her pink sister, the Pink Squirrel, with the same crowd and for the same reasons. When tweaking the original recipe, the Cocktail Vultures turned once again to ice cream. And we threw out the Creme de Cacao and brought in a quality chocolate vodka. The chocolate flavor in most Creme de Cacao is phony and barely there anyway, and all it lends is a heavy stickiness. The ice cream provides sweetness, and the vodka gives a better jolt of chocolate as well as a pleasant kick that makes this more than a girl-drink.

To an iced shaker, add:

2 ounces Creme de Menthe
2 ounces chocolate vodka http://www.vodka360.com/brandsflavors/360-double-chocolate.html
3 ounces melted vanilla ice cream

Shake vigorously and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Created 9/2/2010

Mother Gin Sling ala Cocktail Vultures by way of “The Shanghai Gesture”

Mother Gin Sling

Inspired by “The Shanghai Gesture”

Originally a play set in a brothel in Shanghai, centered around a former debutante addicted to drugs, Shanghai Gesture was cleaned up for Hollywood and made into a quirky film by Josef Von Sternberg. How could we fail to love a film set in a casino, where the pretty hostesses are all named after cocktails, and managed by a woman named Mother Gin Sling?

The Cocktail Vultures have always had a thing for Chinese New Year and fake “ching-chong,” and decided to do a little transformation of our own. We give you the Mother Gin Sling.

To an iced shaker, add:

2 ounces dry gin (we used Plymouth’s www.plymouthgin.com)
1/2 ounce St. Germain elderflower liqueur www.stgermain.fr
3/4 ounce freshly-squeezed lemon juice
1 ounce Jasmine Syrup*
2 dashes Peychaud’s Bitters

Shake vigorously and strain into an ice-filled highball glass.

Note: This cocktail is very “gin-forward.” Any gin will work in it, but different gins affect it differently. We tried it with Plymouth, Warwick (http://wvwinery.com/warwick-gin/) and Bombay Sapphire (www.bombaysapphire.com), achieving a uniquely-pleasing result each time, and settling on Plymouth as our favorite.

* Jasmine Syrup:
Brew jasmine tea and add an equal amount of sugar. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Store in refrigerator for up to one week.

Prohibition Repeal Day! December 5th

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If ever there was a day for Cocktailians, Imbibers, Drunks and Casual Tipplers to celebrate, it’s today, which marks the 79th anniversary of the repeal of the 18th amendment, Prohibition, or as we like to call it, Alcoholic Independence Day.

So go out or stay in and raise a glass to common sense and good taste and to the fine work of forgotten bootleggers of yore who kept us at least in bathtub gin and smuggled rum, and to Al Capone who made his legend keeping the hooch flowing.