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 150: Sesquicentbibial

Today is our one hundred fiftieth drink so we have something very ordinary planned.  That’s because TBIAW feels that celebrating the 150^th post is like celebrating your two week anniversary.  That is, if you are older than 13 and/or you are not Drew Barrymore, you should probably wait for a bigger accomplishment before marking the occasion.  Let’s try to stay focused on the big picture, people. This also applies to parents who insist on telling me their kid’s age in months once the little cookie-cruncher can walk.  For the record, I don’t really care if your kid is 38 months old. I was just being polite when I asked his age and I’d prefer not to have to do math in my head to figure out he is four.

The garnish is supposed to be a tangerine.
We don't feel bad about it since the
drink isn't exactly Ruby Red either.

 Now back to the topic at hand, the Ruby Red, a mix of grapefruit-flavored vodka, triple sec, grapefruit juice, and orange juice.  Grapefruit-flavored vodka is one of those extremely specific ingredients that would usually send us to the liquor store and leave me grumbling about having an entire bottle of something that we will never use again. Fortunately we happened to have a bottle of Absolut Ruby Red in our bar.  We have it because Mrs. Bottle bought it a few years ago and made one drink with it, leaving me grumbling about having an entire bottle of something that we never used again. Until today, our one hundred and fiftieth drink!

Also tastes like grapefruit
img

The primary flavor was grapefruit (who woulda thunk it?) with a slight orange note.  You could definitely taste the vodka as well.  Some vodkas may have been hidden by the juice and triple sec but the Absolut shines through. I think this is because it is made in Åhus, Sweden and distilled an infinite number of times (according to their web site).  I am fairly sure that infinite distillation is impossible, but maybe the Swedes know something we don’t.  Maybe that little ^o above the A in Åhus gives them special powers.  I thought that ^o was going to have a name like an umlaut or a cedilla, but it is actually part of the letter.  As far as I know the letter doesn’t have a name, either.  Since Åhus looks pretty close to Ånus, I propose that Å should be from this point forward known as a “gooch”.

Overall Rating for the Ruby Red

Taste: 4.2342

Presentation: 3

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 6 – 22% Alcohol

Ingredients

2 oz Grapefruit-flavored Vodka

1.5 oz Triple Sec

1.5 oz Grapefruit Juice

1 splash Orange Juice