Drink 115: Brandy, You're a Fine Drink

I said "NO VUVUZELAS!"

Sound the trumpets and blast the other horns because Mrs. Bottle is here! Mr. Bottle needs a little reprieve from the blog, mainly due to the fact that his laptop appears to be broken and he’s in Mr. Fix-it mode. These are not happy times at the Bottle Wonderland Estate but I know he will prevail over the apparent crappy quality of our Steve Jobs product. So on to a description of today’s beverage. The highly regarded and rumored to be deadly in large quantities: Brandy Alexander (more horns please, but no vuvuzelas).

So the Brandy Alexander consists of crème de cacao (brown), brandy, and heavy cream. Because I am a numbers person as seen in my previous masterpiece Bad Cocktail Reason No. 1 (and 2 and 3 and 4), I have three points to make about this drink.

Point #1. This was definitely a tasty drink. But as you can see below, our recipe called for ½ ounce of each ingredient which makes for one tiny drink. My mother has regaled me many times with the story of how one night she drank herself silly on this drink when I was but a young pup and she now refuses to touch them. If she drank the recipe below, she must have had about 22.

Keep in mind that this
glass is actually tiny

Point #2. Hopefully nobody will fault us, but instead of heavy cream, we used fat free half and half. I had a coupon so go ahead and shoot me.

Point  #3. According to Wikipedia, the Brandy Alexander is made with cognac and crème de cacao. It was supposedly made popular in the early 20^th century “at the time of the wedding of Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood and Viscount Lascelles, in London.” Super fascinating. But the part that sticks out to me is the word “cognac”. You see, I have a friend who doesn’t seem to understand that brandy and cognac are the same thing. I was at a happy hour when I kept saying “brandy” and this person would say “cognac” as if I needed correcting. Let me just say that I never need correcting. Ever. I hope Mr. Bottle is also reading this.

So go ahead and drink your Cognac Alexander but you may want to up the amounts so you don’t have to spend your entire night making your drinks.

Overall Rating for the Brandy Alexander

Taste: 4
Presentation: 2 – Tiny beyond belief
Ease of Preparation: 4
Drinks Until Blackout: 6 – 22% Alcohol

Ingredients

½ oz Crème de cacao (brown)
½ oz Brandy
½ oz Heavy cream