Drink 195: The 24 Days of Christmas

Greetings and welcome to the 2011 TBIAW Holiday Gift Guide!  Some poor misguided souls might think that mid-January 2012 is too late for a 2011 holiday gift guide.   Those people do not work for the US Postal Service.  Here in the cosmopolitan Charlotte Metroplex, home of such landmarks as the Bottle is a Wonderland Estate, South Carolina,  and the NASCAR Hall of Fame, people are still receiving mail from November.  This is why I always use FedEx to deliver transplant organs.

Sadly, Mrs. Bottle and I were victims of this horrible tragedy of delayed mail.  I did not receive my December 16^th issue of Forbes magazine until January 7^th.  This was an important one, too, for it contained the annual ForbesLife Gift Guide.  I rely on this each year to help me figure out what luxury items to purchase for Mrs. Bottle.  Had this issue arrived on time I would have known that the Burgundy Persian-lamb Wulling jacket by the Row ($12,000 – Barneys) should be under the tree.  Instead Mrs. Bottle received a White Chinese-polyester jacket by the Wal-Mart ($43.99 – Wal-Mart).  In fact, my issue was so late that Barneys no longer has the clearly superior jacket.  Maybe I can find a different one for next year.

The tree is made from bumble bones
image: Forbes.com

I don’t have time to cover everything.  It is January after all.  I have time to mention a few, though.  For men I was going to recommend the Halston Velvet slippers until I saw that they are “price upon request”.  Something tells me that they will be more than these superior ones.  Alternately you could get this $7,000 ping pong table.  It is actually a good deal because it doubles as a beer pong table dining room table so you are getting two pieces of furniture for the price of one.  Its 900 pounds of concrete could also be useful if you ever need to make sure a body never floats to the surface.  You are practically losing money by not owning one.

For the audiophile in your life they suggest the Basis Inspiration Turntable.  A turntable?  Seriously? People who insist on vinyl can be kind of annoying.  I’m guessing that people who insist on vinyl and own a $54,000 turntable are probably not an exception.  For the same price as that turntable you could buy  a USB turntable to convert your precious records to MP3 and 215 160GB iPods so you can listen to them.

Finally, for those of you with precious darling children, they bring you $1,200 ladybug earrings. I say go for it.  If you think you can't afford it go ahead and use the college fund money.  It will pay off.  When you have to get a doctor to remove thousands of dollars of jewelry from your little angel’s nose it will create a fun story for years to come.  College can’t teach you those kind of life experiences.

Vampire Eric really
wishes he had legs
so he could get a sip

In honor of these high-falutin’  gifts we decided to have the Grand Mimosa, a mix of Champagne,  Grand Marnier, and orange juice.  Since we just spent all that money on gifts, we used cava instead of champagne.  We are not made of money after all.  The drink was okay, but both Mrs. Bottle and I thought that it was not as good as a classic Mimosa which excludes the Grand Marnier.  Even better is plain cava, which excludes the orange juice as well.

Overall Rating for Grand Mimosa

Taste: 3

Presentation: 3

Ease of Preparation: 5

Drinks Until Blackout: ??? – The recipe did not give champagne proportions

Ingredients

0.5 oz Grand Marnier

1 oz Orange Juice

Champagne

Day 44: French, French for Fantasy

This drink was actually
much uglier than it looks here

It’s me, Mrs. Bottle, here to discuss today’s drink, the French Fantasy. During these past 40+ days of trying new drinks, I’ve discovered that I tend to associate drinks with songs. For instance, right now all I’m doing is singing Billy Idol’s “Flesh for Fantasy” in my head (I refuse to torture Mr. Bottle with my actual singing). It has nothing to do with this drink because it wasn’t flesh colored and it wasn’t my fantasy to drink. But unfortunately it’s still stuck on the repeat function playing in my head.

The French Fantasy gets its name from all the French ingredients: black raspberry liqueur (Chambord), orange liqueur (Mandarine Napoleon), orange juice, and cranberry juice. Granted, the last two aren’t necessarily French, but maybe the French fantasize about drinking orange and cranberry juices. Possibly because they’re low on vitamin C and the women need help preventing kidney stones? I’m not sure, but what I do know is that while we didn’t have a French black raspberry liqueur, we substituted Grand Marnier for the Mandarine Napoleon . Since Grand Marnier is French, I’m thinking an alternate drink name might be the Frenglish Fantasy. Rolls right off the tongue.  

Before this drink, we had never heard of Mandarine Napoleon so I decided it would be a good idea to see what this liqueur is all about. I have to say that after reviewing the website, I feel smarter than ever. I recommend that if you have children struggling with their world history, this might help them understand Napoleon Bonaparte, specifically how he grew to power and his relationship with mandarin oranges. Interestingly, the liqueur that is also called “The Emperor of the Night” (I think only by the people who make it), is actually produced in Brussels. Which you may know (after consulting a world map) is not in France. So do the French fantasize that Napoleon had actually conquered Brussels and that it was part of France? Or do they just fantasize about being in Brussels because it’s just that much better than France?

Also not really from France

None of that really matters because it’s all about the drink. To be blunt, it was an ugly drink. The color was bad. It was similar to Sex on the Beach, which also used black raspberry liqueur. So I think we have our culprit. But I didn’t think it tasted bad. It was fruity from all the juices but I felt like the raspberry dominated. Mr. Bottle did not care for it at all but we both had already consumed a few libations earlier in the evening so I think that might have affected us a little. Maybe we would have liked it better if we’d actually used The Emperor of the Night.

Overall Rating for the French Fantasy

Taste: 3
Presentation: 2

Ease of Preparation: 4 – would have been a 5 without the garnish – the prettiest part of the drink
Drinks Until Blackout: 6 – 16% alcohol

Ingredients

1 oz Black Raspberry Liqueur
1 oz Mandarine Napoleon
2 oz Cranberry Juice
2 oz Orange Juice