Drink 198: I do not think it means what you think it means

So I was wandering through one of the dozen Target stores within 10 minutes of the Bottle Wonderland Estate yesterday stocking up on cat litter, coffee pods, and household cleaner and I noticed something glorious: Bud Light Lime LIME-A-RITA.  “Wait, what?” is what any rational person would be thinking right now.  Most of our readers will have to trust me on that.

I was going to "green screen"
the background but decided
to go with fake Instagram effects

Well, according to the box, Bud Light Lime LIME-A-RITA is “FLAVORED BEER.”  Yum!  One thing I am looking for in a beer is some flavor.  I shot Mrs. Bottle a knowing glance and she returned it. We immediately flung a 12 pack into our cart and sprinted to the checkout. We hadn’t been this simpatico since our decision to give up exercise and let our bodies just take the form God intended.

See?

We drove home with the intention of putting these bad boys into our blast chiller to rapidly cool them and enjoy some a little later.  Then I noticed that it says right on the box to “try it over ice” so upon our arrival back at the Estate we decided to immediately tear into the package and have some over ice.  As directed by the box.

If this didn't have so many
kick-ass effects you
would see how my hand
dwarfs the can. You might
also be able to read where
it says "220 Calories"

After the foam settled, I took a big gulp delicate sip. It actually didn’t taste horrible, but I don’t know that there is much difference between drinking this stuff and drinking Zima.  Well, there are a couple of subtle differences:  Alcohol-wise it comes in at 8%, which puts it between a Zima and a Four Loko.  It is packaged in dainty 8 oz cans, too, so you can fit several into your murse, which is nice.

I tried to rationalize this by thinking it could make a tolerable summertime drink when I didn’t have time to whip up a batch of authentic margaritas.   It is made from Bud Light, so at least it will be low calorie, right?  WRONG!  That dinky 8oz can has 220 calories.  220!  That is more calories than a Krispy Kreme doughnut, for Pete’s sake!   Heck, it is 104 more calories than a 12oz Bud Light Lime beer.  Which also has flavor.

I had to learn more so I went to their web site.  Here is the entire contents of the “About” page:

Introducing Lime-A-Rita

The refreshing ready-to-drink margarita with a twist of Bud Light Lime.

Look for it wherever Bud Light Lime is sold!

Now I feel totally informed.

Overall Rating for Bud Light Lime LIME-A-RITA

Taste: 4

Presentation: 2

Ease of Preparation: 5

Drinks Until Blackout: 5

Ingredients

Margarita

Twist of Bud Light Lime

Calories

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 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 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 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

Drink 180: Bang Bang Bang on the Door, Baby

Mrs. Bottle is here on another non-Sunday to amaze and surprise you with today’s drink review. I was actually supposed to write this up for yesterday but I had to watch Breaking Bad and The Big C instead. I also had to sit and stare for hours in wonder at the amazing cuteness of our baby kittens, Little Lord Johnny Walker and Little Lady Crème de Cacao. And why are there no liquors with female names? It’s as if no women have ever created their own brand of tasty alcohol. If any of our nine readers know of any liquor products with female namesakes, please drop us a line so we may stimulate the economy more than we already have. Ed Note: Tia Maria?

Strat-o-fied
In metric for our European Friends

So today’s drink is the popular shooter, the B-52, made with coffee liqueur, Irish cream liqueur, and Mandarine Napoleon. We used Kahlua, Bailey’s and Grand Marnier, although Mr. Bottle wanted me to use Blue Curacao again. You may have picked up on the fact that he’s become obsessed with drinking blue beverages. However, this drink is layered so the color of the ingredients is actually an important feature. Unbelievably, the layering actually worked this time. However, we discovered that it’s difficult to share a taste test with a layered shot. Mr. Bottle suggested stirring it up but I couldn’t bear to destroy the integrity of my creation. So I took a big swig and tasted… orange. Mr. Bottle took a medium swig and tasted… Bailey’s. I took another tiny swig and tasted… some Bailey’s and some Kahula. Mr. Bottle took the final swig and tasted… mostly Kahlua and some Bailey’s. I think we were mostly satisfied with each part but we still don’t really know what this drink tastes like as designed. Probably good, but who knows.

For a bit of trivia, the B-52 is also referred to as the “Bifi” and according to Wikipedia (so you know it’s true), is named for the US B-52 Stratofortress long range bomber used in the Vietnam War. Apparently there’s also a flaming version which I believe is called the Flaming B-52. Clever. This probably makes more sense being named after a bomb. You know, because it’s incendiary. I also learned that Grand Marnier is hard to ignite unless warmed. There’s your useful info for today. It’s your job to figure out how to use it.

Overall Rating for the B-52

Taste: 4 – The average of 4,3,4,4 from our tasting

Presentation: 5

Ease of Preparation: 2

Drinks Until Blackout: 4 – 28% Alcohol

Ingredients

0.5 oz Coffee Liqueur

0.5 oz Irish Cream Liqueur

0.5 oz Mandarine Napoleon

Drink 174: The Return of Buddy Love

Myspace Angle

Sound the horns, hit the lights, and then behold! Mrs. Bottle is back!! I know all eighteen of our readers have been on the edge of their seats wondering where I’ve been, what I’ve been doing, or even if I’m alive or dead. I’ve been here, at the wondrous TBIAW estate. I’ve been reading a lot and watching True Blood and Happy Days reruns. And I’m still alive. Also, Mr. Bottle and I have been quite social for the past several Saturday nights resulting in no drink for me to critique. Sure, I could have written a blog on another day but I wanted to keep the mystery alive. And yes, this is a different day but Mr. Bottle didn’t feel like reviewing today’s beverage, ultimately forcing my return.

Speaking of today’s drink, it is a shooter called the Nutty Professor. And not the kind featuring Jerry Lewis. No, this is a shooter calling for equal parts of Mandarine Napoleon, Irish cream liqueur, and hazelnut liqueur. For our version, we used Grand Marnier, Bailey’s, and Frangelico. The drink smelled and tasted pretty nutty, possibly from the hazelnut liqueur. It was also pretty creamy with a hint of orange and I thought that overall it had a pleasant flavor. Mr. Bottle however was not a fan, possibly because of the cold feelings he has for Bailey’s. But since the drink was small and tasty, I didn’t mind finishing it off by myself.

In case you were wondering how big a hazelnut is in centimeters
 img

Now is the part of the blog where I teach you about the newly acquired item in our bar stock: Frangelico. Putting aside the ever annoying birth date request on the home page, this might possibly be the most informative alcohol website I’ve ever visited. You might be surprised to learn that Frangelico is made with hazelnuts. That was a doozy, but wait. It’s actually made with Tonda Gentile hazelnuts, which can only be found in the northern Piedmont hills of Italy. These are also found in Nutella so you know they’re the best. Some other fun facts: In case you are blind, the Frangelico bottle is shaped like a monk. In case you have tummy issues, Frangelico is gluten free. In case you are Jewish, Frangelico is kosher. And lastly, in case you get some and don’t use it, Frangelico has a shelf life of twenty years. Twenty years you say? With our history, this might just be the most perfect bottle for our bar.

Overall Rating for the Nutty Professor

 

Taste: 4 – Mr. Bottle might say less

Presentation: 3 – unless you are into milky beige

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 5 – 27% Alcohol

Ingredients

0.5 oz Mandarine Napoleon

0.5 oz Hazelnut Liqueur

0.5 oz Irish Cream Liqueur

Drink 173: Frah-gee-lay?

The other day we received a Facebook “like” from Fragoli Liqueur. This was exciting for a number of reasons.  First, we always are happy to get a “like” since it boosts our self-esteem and helps us gain on Lady Gaga.  Secondly, Fragoli is the first company to publicly proclaim their fondness for TBIAW.  It is one thing to have your friend do it, but a company is another level.  I wonder if the Fragoli board of directors unanimously approved the "like" or if there was some dissent? Did they battle it out like in Twelve Angry Men?



Perfection, thy
name is Fragoli



Hmm, I guess there were only two reasons it was exciting, but two is a number, too.  One thing I’m sure of is that we received their coveted “like” because of the blog’s outstanding content. There was no way it was simply because they have some automated bot that spotted the word “Fragoli” in our Economic Stimulus sidebar and just gave us the “like” in the hopes that we would like them back and possibly link to them in our blog.  We frown on that kind of self-promotion. We would never expect them to link back to a post of ours just because it mentioned their product repeatedly and glowingly.

 I also hope that Fragoli doesn’t think that we will compromise our editorial integrity when reviewing their product just because they “like”d us.  We cannot be bought that easily.  Please note that we can be bought.  Just not that easily.  I implore you to keep that in mind as we talk for a moment about Fragoli, an Italian strawberry liqueur. It is a must to discuss since it is an ingredient in our latest drink the Strawberry Sunrise. 

Since we have never had Fragoli before, we tried some straight before putting it in the drink.  I can say without bias that Fragoli is the best tasting thing I have ever tried.  It was the perfect combination of sweetness, strawberry flavor, and alcohol bite.  It was like a strawberry patch exploded into my mouth and I used alcohol nectar to extinguish the flames. Fragoli even has these cute whole wild strawberries in the bottle.  Can you imagine anything more perfect?  I surely can’t. 

We combined the Fragoli with grenadine and orange juice in our Strawberry Sunrise even though we aren’t quite sure Fragoli was the proper ingredient.  You see, the recipe called for strawberry schnapps, not fine delicious Italian strawberry liqueur. Since schnapps is just sweetened flavored liqueur, we decided to use Fragoli since it meets the criteria. Really, you’d have to be crazy to use plain old schnapps when Fragoli is available. We are a lot of things but we are not crazy.

It is sad that you can
barely make out the
Fragoli in this picture

Unlike the L.A Sunrise, the Strawberry Sunrise actually looked like a sunrise with a nice separation of the orange juice from the red ingredients.  Separate, though not equal.  As far as flavor, the drink was quite good.  It was almost like a cocktail version of a strawberry and orange Julius. If there were any complaints, it was a little too sweet.  This was undoubtedly due to the ½ ounce of grenadine and not the Fragoli.  The Fragoli’s sweetness was perfect and it remains blameless in any of the drink’s shortcomings.  The Strawberry Sunrise  also was a bit weak, coming in at just over 7% alcohol.  In this case the recipe takes the blame, since it called for a lot of OJ and not enough Fragoli. 

To conclude, Fragoli.

Overall Rating for the Strawberry Sunrise

Taste: 4

Presentation: 5

Ease of Preparation: 5

Drinks Until Blackouts: 12 – 7% Alcohol

Ingredients

2 oz Strawberry Schnapps – We highly recommend Fragoli

0.5 oz Grenadine

Orange Juice

Drink 161: Three Minutes to Wapner

If you look closely
you can catch a glimpse
of the mysterious Mr. Bottle

Before we get to today’s drink the Rain Man we must make some corrections to our last post.  First, and this is embarrassing, we inadvertently called the Drink with Jerry blog Drinking with Jerry.  That is a horrible mistake and we apologize sincerely.  I hope Jerry didn’t kill himself because he made the same error.  The second correction is that Jerry is not dead.  He was nice enough to comment on yesterday’s post and we hope he resumes his blog soon.  Technically this isn’t a correction since we did not say he was dead, just that we like to imagine that he was dead.  In fairness, I often like to imagine certain people are dead. It is a fun way to pass the time.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get back to the Rain Man, a mix of 151-proof rum, melon liqueur, and orange juice.  The drink was not bad as long as you can deal with melon liqueur.  That ingredient constituted only 1/8 the volume of the drink but 7/8 of the flavor.  The orange and rum combined to level the melon out enough that Mrs. Bottle and I both liked it even though she isn’t a melon liqueur fan.  We didn’t even allow its putrid presentation to put us off.  The only thing that slowed us down was concern about the 151 rum.

This is to remind you of the 151 warnings.
We in no way used this picture again because
we were too lazy to come up with something else

We have already covered the dangers of 151 rum but there is one warning they left off the label: overstating drink power.  Upon tasting the Rain Man Mrs. Bottle repeatedly mentioned that she could feel a tingle in her nose due to the powerful 151.  She must have said it 10 or 20* times.  What she didn’t realize is that the overall strength of the drink was the same as our previous drink, 19% alcohol.  She didn’t comment about how the Peter Pan burned her nose, though.  Clearly the 151 triggered some kind of psychological response.  When Mrs. Bottle reads this I suspect it will also trigger a psychological response.  I can’t help that, I must report the truth.

* All figures approximate

Overall Rating for the Rain Man

Taste: 4

Presentation: 2

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackouts: 7 – 19% Alcohol

Ingredients

1.25 oz 151-proof Rum

.75 oz Melon Liqueur

4 oz Orange Juice

Drink 159: Cop a Squat

Do not judge a Bajito by its outward appearance

Today we have the Bajito, a mix of dark rum, fresh lime, simple syrup, mint leaves, and basil leaves.  The Bajito continues our mini-run of drinks that feature fresh mint although at a week old we are stretching the definition of “fresh”.  The basil we used was as fresh as fresh can be, though, coming directly from the Bottle Wonderland back forty into the cocktail shaker.  You might be surprised that the Estate features an extensive farm. Despite our affinity for the green plastic lime, Mrs. Bottle and I are actually big proponents of sustainable local food. That is why I plan to move very close to the Jelly Belly Factory.

Even better than food from the local farm is the food you grow yourself. Knowing we raised that basil from a small basil plant purchased at Lowe’s all the way to its current incarnation as a medium sized basil plant brought extra satisfaction to every sip. It would have brought even more satisfaction if we could have actually tasted the basil in the drink. While there was a hint of basil, the drink pretty much tasted like a regular Mojito. That isn’t a bad thing since a Mojito is delicious and so is the Bajito. 

Where the Bajito falls down is in its appearance.  Bajito is Spanish for “squat” and I have to assume it is called that because it is shorter than a Mojito and not because it looks likes like something that happens when one is squatting.  The good news is that it has 3 ounces of rum so after one or two you won’t care how it looks.  Four or five of them will probably make a lot of things look better than they are.  I recommend it before reading TBIAW.

Overall Rating for the Bajito

Taste: 4

Presentation: 0

Ease of Preparation: 2

Drinks Until Blackouts: 4 – 29% Alcohol

Ingredients

3 oz Dark Rum

1 tbsp Simple Syrup

5 Slices Fresh Lime – How much is that, anyway?

4 Fresh Basil Leaves

4 Fresh Mint Leaves