Drink 197: What's Good for the Gosling

I’m back! Yes, it’s Mrs. Bottle here to share a story about the drink Mr. Bottle and I recently discovered. In honor of Chocolate Mint Day this past Sunday, we tried the Chocolate Mint Martini. We strayed from Mr. Boston and found this drink in another bar book I picked up during the Borders (RIP) liquidation sale. I think it was cheaper on Amazon but I was caught up in the frenzied moment of the sanctioned looting of a store.

Instagram classes things up, don't ya think?

The Chocolate Mint Martini has Vodka, Crème de Cacao, and Crème de Menthe. The recipe was unclear on whether the Crème de Cacao should be the clear or brown so I chose brown. It is a little richer in flavor and earthier in color (thank you Top Chef). Also recipes mostly seem to call for the clear version so I wanted to use up more of the brown stuff. It was quite mint-y, refreshing and very tasty.

Which leads me to another observation. It’s been a Ryan Gosling film fest at TBIAW estate over the past couple weekends. First we watched Drive. Then we caught a bit of Lars and the Real Girl (which we had previously viewed). Next came The Ides of March. Then Crazy Stupid Love. Well, we saw this in the theater (a real rarity for us) but we really want to watch it again so I’m counting it. And finally Blue Valentine. Technically we haven’t watched this yet because it’s supposed to be a real downer but it’s been on our DVR for about two months so I’m counting it as well. So what’s my observation you may ask? That Mr. Gosling is also quite mint-y, refreshing and very tasty. Now I have to go because Mr. Bottle is asking if we can start watching The Notebook.



Mrs. Bottle is thinking of starting

a new blog called

"The Gosling is a Wonderland"

By AlBBie905 (Own work)

 [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)



Overall Rating for the Chocolate Mint Martini

 

Taste: 5

Presentation: 5

Ease of Preparation: 5

Drinks Until Blackout: 3 – 34% Alcohol

Ingredients

1.5 oz Vodka

0.75 oz Crème de Cacao

0.75 oz Crème de Menthe

Drink 196: Fourget About It

Today is National Drink Wine Day so it seems appropriate that we temporarily awaken from our hibernation and bring forth on this blog a fresh post.   Today is also National Battery Day and I am excited to see what the battery blog has planned.  I’m sure it will be electrifying. Heh.

The can is hard to see because
of the camo.  It is right in the
center of this photograph

In order to celebrate Drink Wine Day, we bring you Four Loko, the Champagne of flavored malt beverages.   “Four Loko? You said that stuff was banned!” is probably what you are thinking right now.  I had been under that impression for months.  That all ended the other day when I was at the local mini mart buying my daily supply of lottery tickets, washer fluid, Twinkies, tree-shaped air fresheners, and Mountain Dew.  It was when I was deciding on the best flavor of Mountain Dew to match my mood that I noticed just one cooler over was a shelf filled with Four Loko.  “Four Loko?” I thought, “I said that stuff was banned”.

I instantly forgot about buying any of that other crap, grabbed a forbidden Four Loko, and sprinted towards the counter.  My excitement level only increased when the cashier accepted my $2.60 and handed me the 23.5 oz can in a brown paper bag.  I immediately took my bag-swaddled can out side, popped it open took a big swig, and began pestering people at the gas pumps to lend me $20 so I could fill my tank. 

Okay, that last part only happened in my mind.  What really happened is that I brought it home and waited for Mrs. Bottle so she could also enjoy the caffeine and alcohol fueled party I was going to have.  While I was waiting for her to get home, I did a little research on Four Loko. What I learned was that it has been unbanned because they removed all the caffeine, taurine, guarana, and all the other stuff that made it cool.  I hadn’t been this disappointed since I learned that Ryan Gosling was snubbed for Sexiest Man Alive.

Seriously? He didn't win?
img: gcdgraphics

At this point, there is very little difference between a Four Loko and a Zima.  I’ve tried to enumerate the differences here:

Zima	Four Loko
Slightly Effeminate Clear Glass Bottle	Badass Faux-Camouflage Can
Not available since 2008	Once banned for being too cool
Between 4-6% alcohol content	12% alcohol content
Loved by young girls	Loved by young bros

The key difference appears to be the alcohol content.  As a frame of reference, drinking one can of Four Loko is the equivalent to drinking 3.85245901639344 Colt 45s.

But how does it taste?  In a word: terrible.  We had the lemonade flavor, which I had judged to have the best chance of being refreshing and delicious.  Clearly I choose poorly.  Mrs. Bottle said, “when I first put it in my mouth it wasn’t bad, but then it tasted horrible.”  Insert your own joke here.

A plastic cup is the ideal vessel for an ice cold Loko

I tried to finish it, because I hate to see $2.60 go to waste, but I just couldn’t do it.  I got through about half the can (or 1.926229508 Colt 45’s worth) before I threw in the towel and threw away the can.  All I was left with were regrets and a slight buzz.

Overall Rating for Four Loko Lemonade

Taste: 1

Presentation: 1

Ease of Preparation: 5

Drinks Until Blackout: 3 Cans (11.55737705 Colt 45s)

Ingredients

23.5 oz Four Loko

1 Solo Cup

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

Drink 194: Malibu's Least Wanted

If you are like me you spend most of your time studying Kanye West lyrics. I was recently analyzing his song Monster (with guest vocalists Bon Iver, Rick Ross, Jay-Z, and Nicki Minaj – I’m a little disappointed I wasn’t asked to drop a few rhymes, too) and couldn’t help but notice this line:

Garnish with pâté 

Mix the Goose and Malibu and call it Malibooya

A drink recipe!  Since Kanye likes it we figured it must be good. The die was cast.  We had to try out this Malibooya (or is it Malibu-ja?).   Unfortunately Kanye left the rest of the recipe as an exercise for the listener.  Therefore we had to make some educated guesses about the proportions, serving vessel, and preparation techniques.  Would it have killed him to add some details?

Mix the Goose and Malibu and call it Malibooya

One ounce of each in a chilled shot glass’ll do ya

There, was that so hard?  Maybe he was too busy lining up 13 additional artists to feature on his next track to think about the predicament of the mixologist MC. 

We had to assume that by “Goose”, Mr. West is talking about Grey Goose, although with his high end tastes, there is a reasonable chance he meant pâté de foie gras.  I don’t believe in force feeding most fowl, so we’ll stick with the vodka.  I don’t know if Kanye is aware that Grey Goose is only the third best tasting vodka in the world. Maybe I will send him a tweet. 

The only Grey Goose currently on hand at the Estate is Grey Goose L’Orange so that is what we used.  Since we aren’t allowed to keep Malibu in the house, we had to run to the local ABC store and pick up a mini-bottle.  They only had Malibu Black which has higher proof and less sweetness than regular Malibu but we figured that would be okay.

Tom Brady added for scale

Before we get to the drink, we have to address something about Malibu Rum.  When I say “rum” what country do you think of?  Jamaica? Puerto Rico? (not a country, BTW) Cuba?   What about Malibu? That one is easy: California (also  not a country).  When you see palm trees on a bottle you probably think of someplace tropical.  Well, if you are drinking Malibu Rum, you should be thinking only one thing: “Canada”.  That’s right; Malibu Rum is a product of Canada. Wait, what?  Just another in the long line of products exposed by the TBIAW iTeam.

It also appears the Canucks want to buy New York

If you zoom way in
on the "palm" trees
on the bottle, this is
what you'll find

We put that troubling piece of info out of our minds and prepared the drink.  We decided to go with even proportions of Goose and Malibu and treat it as a shooter.  Mrs. Bottle thought it was like drinking suntan lotion with an SPF rating of gross.  She said it was slightly better if you drink it quickly because you only got the suntan lotion taste at the end.  I agreed that it was bad.  The coconut and orange flavors did not make a good combination, and it was kind of ugly, too. A more appropriate name for the drink would be the Malibutthole.  Which would be worth a minimum of 23 points  in Words With Friends.  

Mrs. Bottle after trying the Malibooya
(Artist's Rendition)

Maybe we made a mistake with the proportions.  Maybe it would be better with regular Malibu.  It is possible the problem was the orange-flavored vodka.  Perhaps we were supposed to use pâté after all. I guess we'll never know.  I can leave you with these words from Kanye, though:

I'm trippin', this drink got me sayin' a lot

Overall Rating for the Malibooya

Taste: 1

Presentation: 2

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 3 – 38% Alcohol

Ingredients

1 oz Goose

1 oz Malibu

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 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 191: I Did Not Dealt It



At least it was free.



I can smell your fart.  Fast Five is playing on the tiny screen in front of me and I can smell your fart.  I was beginning to doze off to the dulcet tones of Vin Diesel delivering lines as he tears towards a cliff in his 1966 Corvette Grand Sport but thanks to your malodorous cloud I am still awake. We are somewhere over the North Atlantic and I am in the type of haze caused by two free beers and an Advil PM. It is either 3:30 AM or 9:30 PM depending on whether you have adjusted your watch yet.   And you farted.  And I smelt it.





View of Paris? from the window.
Might have missed this
 without the fart



What the hell is wrong with you?  Are you lazy or vindictive?  I already know the answer: “Yes.” There is a bathroom no more than 10 feet from your seat unless you managed to throw your fart from the back of the cabin.  Go down the stairs and fart up a storm.  Please. On this plane the bathrooms are even downstairs so you can rip away without detection.  Instead, you decided to release your intestinal gas right in your seat and now I, along with the rest of the passengers in the vicinity, am breathing your micropoopballs.  Gross.   Luckily for Mrs. Bottle she slept through it.  Actually, there are times in the middle of the night when I’m glad she has that ability.



On the bright side I will now get to see more of Paul Walker and The Rock Dwayne Johnson driving fast and blowing crap up.  That really translates well on a 320x240 screen with headphones with one ear intermittently cutting out.  All the while smelling your fart.  Did you eat a cabbage and broccoli salad before the flight?  Next time, please try some of these tips.  I recommend asking the flight attendant to move you to an empty corner of the plane.  That should also enhance you chances of getting a date with her later.  They love honesty.

Yep, that's what happened.



Not purple.



Since we are discussing honesty I feel obligated to let you know that today’s drink the Purple Pancho has a misleading name.  It is not purple at all.  It is kind of teal which is pretty far from purple unless you are talking about proximity on the Charlotte Hornets’ uniforms.  The drink is a combination of tequila, blue Curaçao, sloe gin, lime juice, simple syrup, and lemon juice.  Once you get over the confusion about the name, the taste is pretty good.  It is essentially a slightly sweeter Margarita.  I couldn’t really detect the sloe gin other than a slight prune-y  bouquet which would have been extremely welcome on my flight.  Mrs. Bottle found the drink a little too sweet but I had no problem with it other than the name.  I am going to rename it the Teal-a Tequila though.

Overall Rating for the Purple Pancho

Taste: 4

Presentation: 0

Ease of Preparation: 3

Drinks Until Blackout: 9 – 11% Alcohol

Ingredients

1 oz Tequila

0.5 oz Blue Curaçao

0.5 oz Sloe Gin

2 oz Lime Juice

1 oz Lemon Juice

1 oz Simple Syrup