Day 54: Bourbonic Plague

Unfortunately the garnish
didn't completely block the
mouth of the glass

Our cocktail today is called California Lemonade and it has lemon juice, lime juice, grenadine, club soda, and simple syrup Unfortunately for us it also features whiskey, our least favorite spirit other than that freaky kid in The Ring.  Apparently people in California have no idea what lemonade tastes like because this drink tasted nothing like it.  In case anyone reading this lives in California, here is what lemonade should taste like: Sugar and lemons.  Here is what the so-called California Lemonade tasted like: Sour and ass.

That may be a bit of hyperbole, but this drink was pretty bad.  The ratio of sour stuff to sweet stuff was way off.  We have had enough drinks now to know that if you have a lot of sour juice, you need a lot of simple syrup or some other sweet element to balance it. A 1:1 ratio is probably best, slightly less if you don’t have a sweet tooth.  The California Lemonade had 3 ounces of lemon and lime juice with only 1 tablespoon of simple syrup and ¼ teaspoon of grenadine.  That is about a 5.5:1 ratio of sour to sweet, which is too much for any right-thinking person.  The sour was so powerful that it almost completely masked the whiskey, which was its one redeeming quality

Speaking of whiskey, I am starting to wonder why I want to learn to like it in the first place.  The good stuff is really expensive and we don’t need that at the Bottle Wonderland Estate.  Simply maintaining our Renaissance garden consumes a large portion of our budget.  I suppose I am supposed to like whiskey because someone decided it was manly and it shows some sort of toughness to drink something that tastes bad. Paregoric tastes bad, too, and contains more alcohol than whiskey. Why didn’t that become popular?  Probably because paregoric prevents diarrhea, and we all know that not wanting diarrhea is for wusses.

Requires a lot of Roundup

The thing about the California Lemonade is that it contains whiskey but still isn’t manly.  Even I know that walking around with a drink that has a lemon, orange, and a cherry as garnishes does not exude machismo.  It is also served with straws.  Not one straw, multiple straws.  The jury is out on whether it is manly to drink out a straw or not, but I am confident you won’t see a bunch of coal miners sipping straws from the same drink.  I guess the multiple straws are good when you say “hey this is terrible, you should try it!” and you don’t want to spread cooties.  Cooties are not manly.

Overall Rating for California Lemonade

Taste: 2 - So very close to a 1

Presentation: 4

Ease of Preparation: 1

Drinks Until Blackout: 9 – 10% Alcohol

Ingredients

2 oz Whiskey

2 oz Lemon Juice

1 oz Lime Juice

1 tbsp Simple Syrup

.25 oz Grenadine

Club soda