Drink 193: A Little Dog'll Do Ya

We still got it

Today we have the Salty Dog, a combination of gin and grapefruit juice.  It is essentially a Greyhound with a salted glass.  The Greyhound earned a coveted four glass rating, but the Salty Dog scores a perfect five.  Why the difference?  I'm glad I asked.  Let's quickly examine the three key differences between our Greyhound and our Salty Dog:

1. The salted rim.  Surprisingly, this made the drink a bit saltier than it would have been otherwise. It actually did seem to complement the tartness of the grapefruit juice, though. At least until the salt was all licked away. 

2. The recipe.  The recipe we used for the Greyhound called for 5 ounces of grapefruit juice and 1.5 ounces of gin.  The recipe we used for the Salty Dog used 4 ounces of grapefruit juice and 2 ounces of gin.  Maybe more gin=more deliciousness? You are probably thinking that it is odd that Mr. Boston would use different proportions for what is essentially the same drink.  That’s because you forgot that this is the rebooted alternate universe TBIAW where we are throwing off the self-imposed shackles of our prior incarnation.  So instead of Mr. Boston, we used a recipe we found on the liquor bottle. This brings us to…



Calls for lime wedge,
picture has lime wheel

3. The gin. I’m not sure what gin we used when we tried the Greyhound, but it was probably Seagram’s, our standard "mixed drink" gin.  For the Salty Dog we used Bluecoat American Dry Gin since that is where we got the recipe.  The Bluecoat is a step up in price, flavor, and alcohol content (94 proof vs. 80 proof) from Seagram’s.  Maybe one of those factors enhanced the drink.  If I had to chose, it would probably be the price difference.

Since the Bluecoat is a new addition to the Estate’s liquor collection it deserves closer examination.  It was acquired as Christmas gift from Mrs. Bottle to me (she really does know me well).  I’m pretty sure she chose it based on its pretty blue bottle and the fact that it uses a cork instead of a screw-top.  Everyone knows cork=delicious.

Pretty!

 Regardless of her selection methodology, the choice was a good one.  It has its own distinct and yummy flavor. Out of our high-end gins of Bombay Sapphire, Tanqueray 10, and Hendrick’s it reminded me the most of the Bombay Sapphire.  Mrs. Bottle and I are planning a blind gin taste test in the near future so we can really determine which is best. I will have more to say about Bluecoat then.  Potential topics include web sites that don’t work properly in the world’s most popular browser, whether copper pots make better gin or just attract copper thieves, and the pros and cons of using water from the Schuylkill River in distilled spirits.

Overall Rating for the Salty Dog

Taste: 5

Presentation: 5

Ease of Preparation: 4 – A salted rim away from a 5

Drinks Until Blackout: 7 – 16% Alcohol

Ingredients

2 oz Gin

4 oz Ruby Red Grapefruit Juice

Drink 192: Nog Day Afternoon

As a special holiday gift, today’s post comes in poem form.

Twas the day before Xmas and I read through our blog,

It’s been nigh a year since we first tried eggnog.

Not only that, as some did point out,

With less frequency come the drinks that we tout.

Screw this, it will take me all day to make a bunch of rhymes.  Our content can stand on its own without resorting to gimmicks.  These so-called parodies are often forced and awkwardly worded anyway.  It is sort of like the grammatical gyrations you have to go through to avoid ending a sentence in a preposition.  This is an example of the type of sentence to which I refer.  A friend once taught me a simple solution to this non-problem: Just add the word “a-hole” to the end of your sentence and it no longer causes heartache to any nearby wannabe English teachers.

Wrong: These aren't the droids you're looking for.

Right: These aren't the droids you're looking for, a-hole.

These aren't the grammar rules for which you are looking

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to the real issue: Why do we use so many colons in our posts?  No, that isn’t it, although it is a legitimate issue.  The real issue is the seeming abandonment of  TBIAW.  While it might appear that Mrs. Bottle and I had given up, we haven’t.  We are just extremely lazy.  It turned out we were no longer willing to take the time to do a bunch of work without remuneration.  It also turned out that we are tired of our legions of fans clamoring for fresh posts so here we are.

We are rebooting TBIAW and expect it to be a smashing success.  Who among us hasn’t appreciated the recent reboots of Star Trek, Batman, James Bond, and Superman?  Well maybe not Superman, but you get the idea.  Reboots are so popular that they are rebooting Spiderman only 5 years after the last film from the previous incarnation.  I am looking forward to the reboot of the yet to be released Hunger Games. We rebooting up in here so much you’d think we’re running Windows ME. We aren’t quite sure what rebooting our blog entails, but I can tell you that it will be spectacular.

The rebooted TBIAW includes
low-resolution poor color balanced
photos taken with an iPod

In order to get into the reboot (and holiday) spirit, today we once again review eggnog. This time instead of the Southern Comfort nog, we had Organic Valley Organic Eggnong.   At first I thought the carton said that it was “orgasmic” eggnog.  I didn’t know if an orgasm was the cause or the effect of the cartoned cream and it wasn’t something I was willing to find out (although Orgasmic Valley sounds like a fun place to live). Fortunately I soon realized my mistake and poured myself a glass of eggy goodness.  And then I poured a ton of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum in there.  Maybe a bit too much in my over-excitement about our reboot.  It was a bit like drinking creamed gasoline.  I added a bit more of the nog after I made some room in the glass and then it was quite delicious.  After I realized that a puny 10% alcohol content had me crying like a little girl I understood just out of practice I had become.

Overall Rating for Eggnog

Taste: 4

Presentation: 3

Ease of Preparation: 5

Drinks Until Blackout: 10 – 10% Alcohol

Ingredients

5.25 oz Eggnog

2 oz Captain Morgan Spiced Rum

Drink 191: I Did Not Dealt It



At least it was free.



I can smell your fart.  Fast Five is playing on the tiny screen in front of me and I can smell your fart.  I was beginning to doze off to the dulcet tones of Vin Diesel delivering lines as he tears towards a cliff in his 1966 Corvette Grand Sport but thanks to your malodorous cloud I am still awake. We are somewhere over the North Atlantic and I am in the type of haze caused by two free beers and an Advil PM. It is either 3:30 AM or 9:30 PM depending on whether you have adjusted your watch yet.   And you farted.  And I smelt it.





View of Paris? from the window.
Might have missed this
 without the fart



What the hell is wrong with you?  Are you lazy or vindictive?  I already know the answer: “Yes.” There is a bathroom no more than 10 feet from your seat unless you managed to throw your fart from the back of the cabin.  Go down the stairs and fart up a storm.  Please. On this plane the bathrooms are even downstairs so you can rip away without detection.  Instead, you decided to release your intestinal gas right in your seat and now I, along with the rest of the passengers in the vicinity, am breathing your micropoopballs.  Gross.   Luckily for Mrs. Bottle she slept through it.  Actually, there are times in the middle of the night when I’m glad she has that ability.



On the bright side I will now get to see more of Paul Walker and The Rock Dwayne Johnson driving fast and blowing crap up.  That really translates well on a 320x240 screen with headphones with one ear intermittently cutting out.  All the while smelling your fart.  Did you eat a cabbage and broccoli salad before the flight?  Next time, please try some of these tips.  I recommend asking the flight attendant to move you to an empty corner of the plane.  That should also enhance you chances of getting a date with her later.  They love honesty.

Yep, that's what happened.



Not purple.



Since we are discussing honesty I feel obligated to let you know that today’s drink the Purple Pancho has a misleading name.  It is not purple at all.  It is kind of teal which is pretty far from purple unless you are talking about proximity on the Charlotte Hornets’ uniforms.  The drink is a combination of tequila, blue Curaçao, sloe gin, lime juice, simple syrup, and lemon juice.  Once you get over the confusion about the name, the taste is pretty good.  It is essentially a slightly sweeter Margarita.  I couldn’t really detect the sloe gin other than a slight prune-y  bouquet which would have been extremely welcome on my flight.  Mrs. Bottle found the drink a little too sweet but I had no problem with it other than the name.  I am going to rename it the Teal-a Tequila though.

Overall Rating for the Purple Pancho

Taste: 4

Presentation: 0

Ease of Preparation: 3

Drinks Until Blackout: 9 – 11% Alcohol

Ingredients

1 oz Tequila

0.5 oz Blue Curaçao

0.5 oz Sloe Gin

2 oz Lime Juice

1 oz Lemon Juice

1 oz Simple Syrup

Drink 190: Meet the New Blog, Same as the Old Blog

Why does Mrs. Bottle hate me?  It has been almost a month since we have posted a drink and yesterday she suggested we fire things up again.  “Sure” I said, not knowing what drink she had chosen.  It turns out she had selected the Caruso, a mixture of gin, dry vermouth, and crème de menthe.   It was not good.   The combination of mint and vermouth is the worst pairing since Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

David Caruso does not approve

Honestly, I would have never agreed to resume blogging if I’d known she would make me drink this crap.  The Caruso is bad enough that the Wall Street Journal has an entire article about the perplexing nature of the drink’s origins and longevity.  The freaking Wall Street Journal!  You’d think they would be too busy writing about the collapse of the world economy instead.  I guess in 2009 things didn’t look so dire. Maybe if they had been a little more focused we wouldn’t be in this mess. 

Here’s what they wrote:

A Caruso cocktail survives, dusty from disuse, in the pages of the average bartender’s guide. That drink is compounded of equal parts gin, dry vermouth and crème de menthe [Ed Note: slightly different than ours], and it’s not very good. If no one drinks it, and it’s not very good, what’s it doing in the books? Perhaps the Caruso has persisted for the same reason as most of the cocktails in such compendia—to fill space. If a bad recipe gets printed in one bar guide—especially a prominent one like the 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book, in which the less than palatable Caruso was listed—it soon finds its way into all the others.

Coincidentally, “filling space” is also the same reason most of NBC’s fall lineup exists.  Unfortunately for me, the Caruso is now filling space in my belly, on our blog and in your brainpan.  Space that could be better filled by other things.  Well, at least the space in my belly.

Overall Rating for the Caruso

Taste: 2

Presentation: 3

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 3 – 30% Alcohol

Ingredients

1.5 oz Gin

1 oz Dry Vermouth

0.5 oz Crème de Menthe

Drink 189: Just Like Riding a Bicycle



If your urine looks like this
call your doctor immediately



Bonjour Mesdames et Messieurs. We are back with a new drink, the Moulin Rouge.  It is made from sloe gin, sweet vermouth, and bitters. This drink was fantastic if you like horrible cocktails.  It was extremely sweet and almost glue-like in consistency.  At least it had a healthy dose of awful sweet vermouth to counter the almost drinkable sloe gin. 

Mrs. Bottle really hated it and she practically did a spit take when she tried it. I, on the other hand, found it merely terribly unpleasant.  If I were trapped in a crevasse with my arm pinned by a boulder I could probably choke it down after a day or two.  Mrs. Bottle would rather drink her own pee. I have heard it is pretty good. 

You are probably expecting some tie-in to the movie Moulin Rouge or at the bare minimum some kind of send-up of Lady Marmalade. Unfortunately I haven’t seen the film and I would never criticize such a masterpiece of a song.  Also, I have lost my mojo. After not having written anything for a week I kind of forgot how to do it.  I mean I remember how to write words on a page as is evidenced by the thing you are reading.  What I have forgotten is how to bolg. Or is it blog? Either way, it doesn’t take long to get out of the groove.  Don’t fret, though, or bolg isn’t dead. I’m sure I’ll get my mojo back soon enough.  Until then, if we go too long between posts make sure to check you local crevasses and make sure I’m not stuck. I need both my arms.

"OoooooOOoooOOoo"

Overall Rating for the Moulin Rouge

Taste: 1.5

Presentation: 3

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 6 – 22% Alcohol

Ingredients

1.5 oz Sloe Gin

0.75 oz Sweet Vermouth

1 dash Bitters

Christina Aguilera photo: By Julian from Germany (PC134194) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Drink 188: Is This Post Beeper Friendly?



Brown Russian



Mrs. Bottle here and I’d like to…I’d like to say something…something I prepared. This morning… Hello, how about that click to get here? I guess that’s why they call it the World Wide Web (hahaha).

You guys may not know this, but I consider myself…a bit of a drinker. I tend to think of myself as a one woman six pack. But when I met Vodka, I knew it was one of my own. And my six pack, it grew by one. So were two…so there were two of us in the six pack. I…I was alone first in the pack, and then Vodka joined in later.

And last night, when Vodka introduced me to equal amounts of Kahlua and Cream, I thought…wait a second, could it be. And now I know for sure, I just added two more ingredients to my six pack. Four of us drink parts running around TBIAW estate together, in TBIAW resident city, looking for a shaker and ice. So tonight, we make a toast!

This is what Mrs. Bottle is wearing right now
img

You may have guessed it, but today’s drink is the Cappuccino Cocktail. It is made with coffee-flavored brandy, vodka, and light cream. And yes, this drink is basically a White Russian all dressed up in a pretty cocktail glass. So it was like a win-win-win for me. The  White Russian is one of my favorite drinks, I got to use up more of the cream, and it tasted just like a slightly stronger White Russian. Can’t go wrong with that. Even Mr. Bottle agrees.

Overall Rating for the Cappuccino Cocktail

Taste: 5

Presentation: 4

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 6 – 22% Alcohol

Ingredients

0.75 oz Vodka

0.75 oz Coffee-flavored Brandy

0.75 oz Light Cream

Drink 187: Aye, Crème Man

More like shorts
than capris

In the early days of TBIAW, we would often provide some history on a cocktail’s origins.  I realized today that it has been a while since we’ve done that and the oversight must be rectified immediately.  It is important to return to one’s root and today we are going to dig deep.  So without further ado, we present the Capri, a shooter made from crème de cacao, crème de banana, and cream. 

It was invented by famous mixologist Hobie Flehr in 1952.  He called it the Capri because he hated to wear full length pants and was trying to eradicate them through awareness-raising cocktails.  The Capri was his most famous one, outshining his previous efforts Clam Digger, Pedal Pusher, and the disastrous Knickerbocker.  Unfortunately for Flehr, the success of the Capri  was short lived and his bartending career petered out. He was briefly homeless which was hard on him since his ankles got extremely cold at night.   He bounced back professionally, though, when he created a line of pouched juice drinks. ^{[citation needed]}

Rare photo of Flehr in plus-eights ^{[citation needed]}
Img

As far as flavor, the Capri was pretty tasty.  On my first sip I mostly tasted the chocolate flavor of the crème de cacao.  I commented to Mrs. Bottle that I didn’t taste much banana.  She has the opposite reaction and said that when she sipped it that it tasted like a banana exploded in her mouth.  I’ve never experienced that personally so I couldn’t relate.  Regardless, I gave the drink another sip and this time I could taste the banana as well.  The two crèmes complemented the cream completely. As an added benefit, we are that much closer to polishing off that carton of half and half.

Overall Rating for the Capri

Taste: 4

Presentation: 3

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 8 – 15% Alcohol

Ingredients

0.75 oz Crème de Cacao

0.75 oz Crème de Banana

0.75 oz Light Cream

Drink 186: Big Lizard In My Back Yard, Can't Afford to Feed It Anymore

Have a Coke
and a blank
stare

Today we will not be talking about baby scat commercials even though we remain emotionally scarred after yesterday's post. Instead we will discuss the Lounge Lizard, a mix of dark rum, amaretto, and cola.  This is the second best drink we’ve ever had with cola out of the two we’ve tried.  Don't you think it was so cute back then when I had given up drinking soda?  That dark period of my life is over now and hopefully soon forgotten.

The Lounge Lizard’s rating may have been adversely impacted as a result of my soda relapse, since drinking a cola is a normal occurrence instead of a treat. 

For our cola we used Coke Zero, which we thought would work better than our other option, Diet Pepsi.  Why? Because Coke Zero >>>> Diet Pepsi. Also, the Coke Zero was in the pantry and the Diet Pepsi was way downstairs. It turns out the Diet Pepsi may have been a better choice even with the required trek to the dank basement of the Estate.  because the drink ended up being a bit too sweet for either of our liking.  The Coke Zero is already pretty sweet and adding the amaretto pushed it over the top.  If I were to make it again I would definitely leave out the amaretto.  And maybe the rum, too.

Overall Rating for the Lounge Lizard

Taste: 3

Presentation: 4

Ease of Preparation: 5

Drinks Until Blackout: 11 – 9% Alcohol

Ingredients

1 oz Dark Rum

.5 oz Amaretto

Cola

Drink 185: Poop, There it Is!

Today we have the Chocolate-Covered Strawberry, which is a mix of strawberry schnapps, crème de cacao, and cream.  In our case we used delicious Fragoli wild strawberry liqueur (which we are not being paid to promote, but we could easily be persuaded to given the right incentive) instead of boring old schnapps. We also used half and half instead of cream.  We are not being paid to use half and half either (are you listening dairy council?), but we happen to have a carton of it that is about to expire so we need to use that stuff up.  Reader tip: expect more cream-based drinks in the next few days.  Mrs. Bottle was also eager to open the half and half because she will now be forced to drink White Russians daily (Final parenthetical – the White Russian post is our most viewed because of that picture of Superman with his shirt off.  The one of the Penguin with his shirt off was less successful).

Yes, this is all there was

This Chocolate-Covered Strawberry was pretty tasty, but you really had to search for the chocolate flavor.  It was almost overwhelmed by the Fragoli ultimately leaving it tasting more like a strawberry-covered strawberry.  In all seriousness, the Fragoli has a pretty pronounced flavor.  Another strawberry schnapps may reveal more of the crème de cacao but I guess we'll never know.

This drink is served in a red wine glass over ice.  I am not opposed to using ice in a red wine glass since that is how I usually drink my Almaden Blush.  This drink is only 1¾ ounces so it looks kind of ridiculous in a wine glass, though.   On the upside, it looks like a Strawberry Yoo-Hoo so you could mix up a batch, pour it in an empty Yoo-hoo bottle, and drink it while you are at the mall.  Or you could pack it in your kid’s lunch for a hilarious although legally and ethically questionable prank! 

Now is the part where I usually seamlessly segue into some tangentially related pop-culture or current-events based commentary.  What I need to talk about now is too shocking and upsetting to treat it with that type of frivolity, though. Last night I saw a commercial for Luvs Diapers that may be the most disturbing advertisement of our times.  I guess this thing has been out for a while but it hasn’t yet caused a national stir.  Maybe the rest of America is like me and they haven’t seen it yet. Now that I have seen it, I wish I could un-see it. 

Why is it so disturbing? I shall now break it down for you in a photo essay.

It starts off pretty normal.  We have three babies in the “Heavy Dooty Championship”.  At this point I figure it is some kind of beauty pageant spoof where we will see horrible mothers spend hundreds of dollars to pimp out their children in the hopes one will become Grand Supreme Heavy Dooty and win a cheap-ass bedazzled crown.

We now meet our first contestant.  So far… nothing disturbing.  She appears to be warming up for the talent portion of the contest.  I wonder what her talent is?

Oh she is showing her butt.  Maybe her talent is interpretive dance.

Oh my god, she crapped her pants.  Well, that’s what babies do I guess, but that is going to hurt her chances of winning Grand Supreme Heavy Dooty.

My, what a racially diverse and gender neutral judges panel.  I wonder what they will think?

Baby Randy Jackson clearly thinks the poop is a problem, dawg.

 

Okay, now I am getting upset.  Contestant #14 also pooped himself and the people in the audience are recording it on their phones so they can re-watch it later.  The authorities may be interested in those two.

Wait, what?  The judges are giving him better scores than the first contestant.  It is starting to dawn on me that the Heavy Dooty contest has something to do with poop volume.

Now there is no mistaking what is going on here.  This is just like looking into the mirror for me when I am headed to the loo.

Holy crap!  This kid should probably be rushed to the emergency room, stat.

The judges love it.  Sick bastards.

The kid on the left is thinking, “where are my parents and why are they making me stand on stage with a poop-filled diaper?” She probably also wants to get out of there before the champion goes for an encore.

The crowd goes wild!!!  I am beside myself.

Watch the whole thing here if you dare.

Overall Rating for the Chocolate-Covered Strawberry

Taste: 4

Presentation: 3

Ease of Preparation: 5

Drinks Until Blackout: 7 –  18% Alcohol

Ingredients

1 oz Strawberry Schnapps

0.25 oz Crème de Cacao

0.5 oz Cream

Drink 184: Uh Oh, It's Magic

Today’s drink is the Black Magic and Mrs. Bottle is here to report on its wonders. It’s made with vodka, coffee liqueur and a dash of lemon juice. It’s almost identical to the Brave Bull we’ve already reviewed, except the Black Magic called for vodka instead of tequila. And that lemon juice is new too. It was a pretty tasty beverage and Mr. Bottle and I essentially chugged the thing. The only complaint I have is that the “dash” of lemon juice seems pointless because you can’t really taste it. Here’s the official definition (according to http://www.epicurious.com/): “a very small amount of seasoning added to food with a quick, downward stroke of the hand, such as "a dash of Tabasco." In general, a dash can be considered to be somewhere between 1/16 and a scant 1/8 teaspoon.” Now that I know exactly what a dash amounts to, I think I probably added two dashes of lemon juice. And I still didn’t taste the lemon. Pointless has definitely been proven.

I know you're gettin' twisted
and you can't come down


So you may have noticed that this is our first post in almost a week. That’s because I was working very late last week so I didn’t really feel like making a drink for the blog. Your next thought may be something along the lines of “Wow- they went a whole week without a drink? That must have been hard for them.” Just to set the record straight, I didn’t say I didn’t feel like having a drink. Sure, we could rhapsodize about the wondrous notes of our favorite blended red or the significant watery flavor in our normal low calorie beer. But nobody wants to read about me and Mr. Bottle drinking wine or beer all week.

You may also have thought to yourself, “I didn’t know Mrs. Bottle had to work so hard.” Neither did Mrs. Bottle. I’m definitely going to explore a future career as a wine pourer in some Napa winery. I’m really great at pouring the same amount of wine in identical wine glasses. It’s like I’m some sort of pouring genius. I know this is definitely something I can eventually capitalize on to make my millions. But in the meantime, I’ll just have another Black Magic.

Overall Rating for the Black Magic

Taste: 5

Presentation: 5

Ease of Preparation: 2 – I was out of practice on that lemon twist

Drinks Until Blackout: 3 – 34% Alcohol

Ingredients

1.5 oz Vodka

0.75 oz Coffee Liqueur

1 dash Lemon Juice

Drink 183: Whoa, Did You Feel That?

Earthquake
damage!

In case you live under a rock, you probably heard about today’s earthquake.  Actually, if you live under a rock, you probably felt the earthquake more than most people did.  I hope your rock hole was undamaged!  We felt the earthquake here at the Bottle Wonderland Estate, too, but it was just a little shake.  It was like if a large truck was driving nearby or if someone had set off a sonic blaster but we were not forced to evacuate.  We also didn’t have to leave the house.

Today’s drink also happens to be the Sonic Blaster but Mrs. Bottle can assure you I had nothing to do with making the earth move.  Instead, I daintily sipped its combination of vodka, rum, banana liqueur, pineapple juice, orange juice, and cranberry juice.  The name Sonic Blaster seems wildly inappropriate for a drink that is 2/3 juice and only 11% alcohol.  Something called Sonic Blaster should have a little more oomph. I’m thinking it definitely would have Red Bull instead of juice and it should probably have some kind of whiskey and/or sambuca.

That was quite a coincidence that the earthquake
 was centered right where that star was on the map

The name might not be great, but t least it wasn’t called the Sonic Banana Blaster.  I bring this up because prior to this we have had eight drinks featuring banana liqueur and five of them have had “banana” in the name (Banana Di Amore, Banana Foster, Top Banana, Banana Slip, Banana Bomber).  We have awarded the Sonic Blaster one point for creativity.  It is possible it does not have “banana” in the name because of the simple reason that you cannot taste any banana in the drink.  I guess it is overwhelmed by the other juices.  We could taste the rum but only ever so slightly.  All in all it was a tasty drink but nothing earth shattering.

Overall Rating for the Sonic Blaster

Taste: 4

Presentation: 5

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 10 – 11% Alcohol

Ingredients

0.5 oz Vodka

0.5 oz Light Rum

0.5 oz Crème de Banana

1 oz Pineapple Juice

1 oz Orange Juice

1 oz Cranberry Juice

Drink 182: I'm Your Lover, I'm Your Zero



We are not going to fall for
the "banana in the tailpipe" trick
but we did fall for the "banana in
the garnish" trick.



Today’s drink is the Banana Di Amore, which translates from Italian roughly to “Banana Love”.  I have a number of hilarious jokes to make about this name, but since this a family-friendly blog you will have to insert your own banana [joke] instead. The reason it is called the Banana Di Amore is because in addition to its crème de banana liqueur it is made with amaretto.  A popular brand of amaretto is Amaretto Di Amore.  Put them together and what do you get?  Banana love. We used a different brand of ameretto, though, so our drink would more rightly be called the Banana De Kuyper.  That translates from Italian to  "Banana Cheapskates".

In addition to the two liqueurs, this drink also contains orange juice, simple syrup, and lemon juice.  Since it is frozen, it also contains freeze-water, more commonly known as ice.  I’m not a huge fan of frozen drinks in general (except for Beergaritas) because you tend not to get much alcohol, and this one was no exception.   Between the juice, ice, and low octane liqueurs, it was only 3% alcohol.  Even if we had used 99 Bananas instead of regular crème de banana it would have only bumped it to 5%.  It hardly seems worth it for the amount of effort involved what with the blending and the fancy garnishes and the ice and all.

The drink did taste good at least, although it was a little sweet.  Despite the freeze-water, you could taste all of the ingredients and they complemented each other well.  The problem is really only the lack of alcohol.  Luckily there is a solution and that solution is to have 2.5 servings instead of one.  That will bump it from 3% alcohol to ∞%.  “Say what?” is what your inner monologue should be saying right now.  You may even whip out your calculator to try to prove me wrong.  If you have an Apple, it would probably look something like this (in video!!):

If you have a windows PC it will probably look something like this:

Oh silly reader, you clearly do not understood maths.  I have a math minor and a PhD in Diet Mountain Dew consumption.  Those things combine to let me prove that 2.5 servings of a beverage multiplies things in an unexpected way. Behold:


Do not drink if you are looking
for significant source of other nutrients.
"Other" nutrients?

See?  0 Calories per serving.  2.5 servings per container.  10 calories per bottle.  If that doesn’t prove the magic of 2.5 servings, I don’t know what will. Maybe a Coke Zero?

Overall Rating for the Banana Di Amore

Taste: 4

Presentation: 5

Ease of Preparation: 3

Drinks Until Blackout: 200 – 3% Alcohol

Ingredients

1 oz Amaretto

1 oz Crème de Banana

2 oz Orange Juice

0.5 oz Simple Syrup

0.5 oz Lemon Juice