Sometimes Only a Cocktail Will Do

For late nights dragonslaying in Azeroth I find wine makes me too sleepy too quickly and is not a dull buzz I want. So instead when I want to sip something simple & tasty with kick I prefer margaritas, mojitos, caiperinha, limoncello, beer, that sort of thing. After all, it’s a virtual party! We’re not always in the mood to read classic literature, right? Occasionally a comic book or magazine is what you want.

Tonight I made an experiment that turned out SPLENDIDLY. It’s my Lychee Ginger Vodka Martini — not as good as the one made with real ginger at Solage around the corner from my temporary apartment in Napa Valley, but it’ll do.

Lychee Ginger Vodka Martini
2 oz. vodka
1 oz. ginger liqueur (grabbed a mini bottle of Domaine de Canton Ginger Liqueur as an impulse buy at the local wine store checkout counter!)
4 oz. lychee juice OR 3 oz. lychee nectar
1 lychee to garnish the bottom if you like

Shake in cocktail shaker with ice, filter pour into martini glass, drop optional lychee in the bottom.

I expect this will be perfect for hot nights on the deck with pre-chilled ingredients.

The Beer That Made Me Weep

. . . and I don’t mean in a “tears in my beer” kind of way. This magic elixir was SO GOOD I was compelled to share it with everyone I know who might be a beer drinker.

For years I have been looking for a really good 120 minute IPA (India Pale Ale) and heard great things about Dogfish Head’s offering of said beer. I have enjoyed their 60 minute and their 90 minute IPA many, many times. Many, many times I have checked Whole Foods and various spirits establishments hoping to finally come across the elusive 120 minute version.

Tonight, in Whole Foods, at long last, I found it. Not available in 6-packs or even 4-packs . . . only as individual 12 oz. bottles.

The color reminds me of Obsession cologne — a clear orange-caramel that brightens to a deep amber at the edges, then gold on the rim. If you hover your nose over this beer and inhale you will be greeted with aromas of apricot, toffee, cookies, fresh cut grass/ wheatgrass juice, and fresh baked wheat bread. Sound good? Wait until you put it in your mouth. Your palate veritably GLOWS with flavors of dulce de leche, wheatgrass juice, toffee, dried apricots, peach pie, butterscotch and raw sugarcane.

This is the muscat of beers.

This beer is like rolling around in ecstasy in a giant mound of hops. After I finish this I imagine I could need a cigarette.

I would pair this! I would pair this with vanilla ice cream or angel food cake. Then again, it’s rich enough to be dessert on its own.

Let me share the bottle label marketing pitch for you — it says it all:
“What you have here is the holy grail for hopheads. This beer is continually hopped over a 120-minute boil and then dry-hopped every day for a month. Enjoy now or age for a decade or so.”

Yyyyesssss. I think I may ACTUALLY like this better than chocolate. If you can find this, buy it and try it.

Omigod now I have to find this: http://www.dogfish.com/brews-spirits/the-brews/seasonal-brews/aprihop.htm . Now if only ANYONE carried their Barleywine.

If Café du Monde Had a Beer

As usual Whole Foods’ beer department does not disappoint, and neither does Dogfish Head brewery for that matter. Dogfish Head typically brews some of the best IPAs I’ve ever had but their seasonal brews are always intriguing. When I saw a six-pack of their Chicory Stout on the shelf I couldn’t NOT put it in my cart. Their description of it is better than anything I could say about it: “A dark beer made with a touch of roasted chicory, organic Mexican coffee, St. John’s Wort, and licorice root. Brewed with whole-leaf Cascade and Fuggles hops, the grains include pale, roasted & oatmeal.” If you like rich, dark, bitter, full-bodied beers this one will get your attention. Best pairing in my opinion would be a plate of beignets!

Another recommendation for December/January seasonal beers in this style is Brooklyn Brewery’s Black Chocolate Stout. The flavor of this one is blacker whereas the Dogfish Head Chicory Stout is browner. I have a black truffle Sottocenere cheese in the fridge downstairs I’d love to try this with!

As always, if you have a beer, wine or spirits recommendation please pass it along!

For the Horde!

This weekend some of our World of Warcraft friends came over to our place for a holiday party, the first gathering since the big June one in NYC — a great time was had by all. Some of the guys brought some outstanding beer as is the case when you have beer aficionado friends (one who brews at home and aspires to brew professionally), my new favorite being Dead Guy Ale. Also one of my friends reminded me about the PKNT Carménère she recommended. Must hunt that down! Remind me next time I have a party to get extra tequila! We only had enough for one batch of margaritas. There was plenty else to drink — I mulled some wine (unsweetened) with Williams Sonoma Mulling Spices and a Rosenblum Cellars Zinfandel (can’t recall which one specifically and the bottles are out to recycling), served warm in a punch bowl my mom handed down to me long ago. My only complaint about the Williams Sonoma mulling spices vs. others (or home-combined) is that there is too much star anise, which ended up compounding the anise flavor in the Zin for too much black licorice flavor than most people care for. Ah well, it was tasty and people liked it.

Toward the end of the evening we went out into the back yard to saber a bottle of Presto Brut Prosecco for a toast — I know everyone says this but I really do NOT recommend trying this at home. It is not about chopping off the top of a bottle; it is very VERY dangerous and you risk being riddled with glass shards if the bottle explodes. You could hurt a guest or damage property. I received a demonstration in school from a professional with a lot of experience but even I probably should have just opened it normally until I got adequate practice doing it alone. Either way we all bundled up and filed into the back yard where I stood about 20 feet away from the group and faced the bottle away from everyone to shoot the cork toward the fence about 50 feet away from me. Plenty of room! We ran into a snag: it was way too cold out and the bottle would just not pop. Finally my friend who has professional training with blades (and safety) tried it with a little more umph at the bottle neck on the last stroke and POW it worked perfectly. Not sure why no one took a picture of it but we at least got some shots of folks in the kitchen for the toast.

Obviously we did more than just drink — there was much catching up between old faces, introductions with new faces, many many turns at Rock Band, a hilarious group viewing of “The Princess Bride”, general silliness and tomfoolery, hugs and good cheer. And yes, inevitably someone talked about World of Warcraft.

Sometimes ya gotta keep it real

Today, burgers and margaritas.  Yeah!  Hello, it’s still summer for another couple weeks!  The Patron is a-callin’!

Okay, I am extremely anxious for Charbay Winery & Distillery, some amazing folks whom we visited up on Spring Mountain for a tour while in Napa Valley, to get started on making tequila.  I am telling you — their spirits will just BLOW YOU AWAY.  They are so smooth and flavorful.  Their Green Tea Aperatif is my personal favorite but the Blood Orange Vodka and Ruby Grapefruit Vodka intrigue me.  When I get off my ass and upload some photos of our tour I’ll include them here.

Their Cabernet Sauvignon by the way was outSTANDING.  Hell I can’t imagine anything they’d produce that wouldn’t be.