Drink 181: Son, You Got a Panty on Your Head

Sheer Elegance looks like silk, feels like silk, and even comes in a control-top style, too.  Sheer Elegance looks and feels like silk. From the Orient!



Sheer Elegance, the cocktail.
From the Bottle Wonderland Estate!



The above quote is the first thing I thought of when I saw that today’s drink was called the Sheer Elegance.  In case you weren’t raised by a television or you are not yet middle-aged, here is a YouTube clip that might help give you some context. That commercial is a classic, and I especially like the serendipitous use of an Asian to deliver the message.  It really brings it home when she says “From the Orient!”   Everyone might not remember a 30 year old commercial, but surely everyone understands that silk “from the Orient!” is the best kind.  Those pantyhose must be good, but I wouldn’t know since I’ve only worn pantyhose a few times never worn pantyhose. Mrs. Bottle assures me that pantyhose do not feel like silk, though.  From the Orient!



Also from the Orient!
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The Sheer Elegance cocktail does not look like silk, feel like silk, and it surely does not come in a control-top style so I'm not sure why it is named after pantyhose. It doesn't even taste like it comes from the Orient.  Instead, its combination of amaretto, black raspberry liqueur, and vodka tasted like it came from the Karo Corn Syrup factory.  It was horribly sweet and it left my tongue coated in a viscous membrane.  That is not something I look for in a drink.  Or in a control-top undergarment for that matter.  The flavor was also a bit strange.  I’m not convinced that almonds and black raspberries are a great combination, although Mrs. Bottle thought it would have been decent had the taste been less cloying.

Part of the problem may be attributable to our 10+ year old bottle of Chateau Monet Liqueur Framboise.  We recently learned that 10+ year old Bailey’s Irish Cream doesn’t taste as good as fresh stuff so there is a tiny possibility that our black raspberry liqueur may not be at its peak flavor capacity.  I am unwilling to put the blame completely on it, though, because we have had plenty of drinks with this stuff and some of them have been not horrible. For example, the French Martini is quite similar to our latest drink, only it was good.  Maybe because it had more vodka.  Coincidentally, Mrs. Bottle suggested the real problem with the Sheer Elegance was the lack of vodka.  Of course that is her answer to a lot of things.

Overall Rating for the Sheer Elegance

Taste: 2

Presentation: 3

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 6 – 22% Alcohol

Ingredients

1.5 oz Amaretto

1.5 oz Black Raspberry Liqueur

0.5 oz Vodka

Drink 145: Pwner's Manual

What's vp with
the "v"s?
Did yov notice?

Today we bring you the Stalactite, a mix of sambuca, black raspberry liqueur, and Irish cream liqueur.  Since the Bottle Wonderland bar isn’t normally stocked with sambuca, Mrs. Bottle had to make a run to the liquor store to get some.  Some people might think of this as a chore, but for Mrs. Bottle it is one of the small pleasures in life.  When she is in the liquor store she sees a world filled with possibilities.

Since sambuca is a new liquor in our repertoire, we had our traditional pre-cocktail tasting.  Mrs. Bottle was not looking forward to it since the primary flavor component of sambuca is anise (see: Galliano). This is similar to the flavor of black licorice.  Mrs. Bottle does not like black licorice.  She claims it should not even be considered candy. It led us to a long discussion of the merits of black licorice as compared to those of strawberry Twizzlers.  I won’t bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that I pwnd Mrs. Bottle.

Since I like black licorice I found the sambuca tasty as expected.  Surprisingly, Mrs. Bottle also thought it was good. In the battle of anise-flavored alcohol, sambuca pwns Galliano. Taste test completed, we proceeded to make the drink. This drink had some of the more complicated instructions so far.  We were supposed to float the Irish cream on top of the sambuca, and then “carefully pour the raspberry liqueur, drop by drop, as top layer.”  The idea is that each drop of raspberry liqueur will pull the Irish cream down making little stalactites in the drink.  (Remember, stalactites cling “tite” to the roof while stalagmites “mite” make it up there one day. Knowledge is power.)

Not a stalactite
 in site

We don’t have an eye-dropper, so pouring something drop by drop was pretty much an impossibility. Mrs. Bottle gave it her best shot but it just wasn’t meant to be.  She was pwnd by the instructions.  Apparently a lot of people get pwnd by those instructions since I couldn’t find a single picture of a successful implementation of this drink online.  Of course, the taste of the drink is much more important than the looks.  In this case, the taste was surprisingly good.  I thought for sure that the raspberry and Irish cream would be gross mixed with sambuca but they were fine.  It is probably due to the fact that those flavors where muted compared to the sambuca and you couldn’t really taste them until your post-drink burp.  You do have a post-drink burp, right?

Overall Rating for the Stalactite

Taste: 4

Presentation: 1 – Probably a 5 if we did it right

Ease of Preparation: 4 – Probably a 1 if we did it right

Drinks Until Blackout: 3 – 35% Alcohol

Ingredients

1.25 oz Sambuca

0.25 oz Black Raspberry Liqueur

0.25 oz Irish Cream Liqueur

Drink 137: Worst. Post. Evar.

Oooh, Johnny

The Johnny on the Beach is a mix of vodka, melon liqueur, black raspberry liqueur, pineapple juice, orange juice, grapefruit juice, and cranberry juice.  It is the same as the Sex on the Beach with the addition of the orange and grapefruit juices.  The taste was pretty much the same as the SotB as well:  A melon-dominated fruit bomb.  It is late and I have already had two margaritas so here endeth the post. 

Overall Rating for the Johnny on the Beach

Taste: 3

Presentation: 1

Ease of Preparation: 1

Drinks Until Blackout: 7 – 18% Alcohol

Ingredients

¾ oz Vodka

½ oz Melon Liqueur

½ oz Black Raspberry Liqueur

¼ oz Pineapple Juice

¼ oz Orange Juice

¼ oz Grapefruit Juice

¼ oz Cranberry Juice

Drink 132: Blogger’s Block

Actual appearance of
the Purple Passion Tea

I have run out of ideas for blog posts.  I know this because I have been staring at the blinking cursor for an hour while “The Devil’s Advocate” plays on a TV on the background.  In retrospect, I should have put the TV on a different channel since Keanu Reeves’ “southern” accent in that movie could distract anyone.  Even Kevin Costner thought it sucked. The other problem is that all of the obvious angles for our latest drink the Purple Passion Tea have been covered, forcing me to come up with something original.  TBIAW readers know that is not my strong suit. 

The first problem is the drink’s color. The PPT has “purple” right in the name, but the drink is yellow.  Unfortunately (for me), Mrs. Bottle already covered miscolored (is that a word?) drinks in her Purple Hooter review. Next, this drink tasted nothing like tea, but we have also covered drinks that taste nothing like their namesakes a few times, too.  I even already used the word “namesake” in one of those posts.  Counting this sentence I have written “namesake” four times in 2011, raising my lifetime total to four.

Expected appearance of
the Purple Passion Tea

Here is where I normally list the ingredients.  I wrote that last sentence to pad the entry a bit.  I hope you didn’t notice. The Purple Passion Tea is made with vodka, rum, gin, black raspberry liqueur, simple syrup, lemon juice, and lemon-lime soda.  You might think that with four different types of alcohol that it would be strong, but you would be wrong.  There is less than a shot of alcohol total, which would be weak in any drink, but it is especially so when you also have seven ounces of sugar, juice, and sugar juice (otherwise known as soda).

As far as flavor, this drink was way too sweet.  I actually thought the first sip was pretty good, but as we continued to drink it, the sweetness became overwhelming.  It was also a little thick and had a syrup-like mouth feel.  It was so cloying that adding additional soda actually cut down on the sweetness.  In fact, it was so sweet that it may have put me into a sugar coma leaving me unable to form blog ideas.  Yes, that must be it.

Overall Rating for the Purple Passion Tea

Taste: 3

Presentation: 0 – Would be a 5 if it was called the Yellow Passion Tea

Ease of Preparation: 1

Drinks Until Blackout: 33 –  5% Alcohol

Ingredients

0.25 oz Vodka

0.25 oz Rum

0.25 oz Gin

0.5 oz Black Raspberry Liqueur

2 oz Simple Syrup

2 oz Lemon Juice

3 oz Lemon-lime Soda

Drink 106: The Bartender Has Tritanopia

Brown Hooter

Mrs. Bottle here today to discuss the Purple Hooter. This is a shooter comprised of citrus vodka, triple sec, and black raspberry liqueur. It wasn’t bad, but my expectations when drinking something purple are that it’s going to look purple and taste purple. This was neither. I even ventured onto Google to see if I could learn why this is acceptable. There seem to be three common variations of this recipe and of course none match Mr. Boston’s recipe. One of the websites showed the recipe with vodka, black raspberry liqueur and 7-Up. However, the video on this same site showed how to make it used cranberry juice and club soda instead of 7-Up. I just don’t understand the world today. 

And this leads me to another thing that has me perplexed, but let me give some background first. Mr. Bottle has insisted that we undertake many home improvement projects this year. It’s thoroughly annoying because he knows how much I hate improving our home. Its mediocre nature suits me just fine. Plus he knows how very much I hate having to deal with contractors every day. However, because I need him to be happy so I remain happy, I complied and agreed that the bland, neutral tones in several of our rooms should be changed to more exciting colors.

So off to the home improvement stores we went to gather up several paint samples to help decide. And so here we are, back at my perplexing question. Who comes up with these paint color names? For instance, Benjamin Moore has a color called “Peace and Happiness”. What the hell is that? Apparently to someone at that company, it’s a light purplish hue. But when I polled Mr. Bottle about what he thinks peace and happiness look like, he said “a Chiptle burrito”. Which is not purple. And how about their color “Sweet Caroline”? According to the folks at Benji Moore, that’s a color in the green paint hue family (it looked awfully tan to me but there’s no time to pursue this angle). When I hear “Sweet Caroline”, all I see is a wall covered with Neil Diamonds, not a green (or tan) room. I could go on and on, but you get my point.

Vintage Charm Purple

It’s clear that the same people who name the paint colors at Benjamin Moore are the very same folks who created the so-called Purple Hooter.

Overall Rating for the Purple Hooter

Taste: 3
Presentation: 2 – The purple was sort of missing
Ease of Preparation: 4
Drinks Until Blackout: 3 – 32% Alcohol

Ingredients

1.5 oz Citrus-flavored Vodka
½ oz Triple Sec
¼ oz Black Saspberry Liqueur

Day 76: Goober ‘til the Last Drop

This is about half a Goober

Last night started off pretty chill at the Bottle Wonderland Estate.  I was parked on the couch watching television trying to relax after an exhausting session of Angry Birds.  Mrs. Bottle was heating up some food in the kitchen.  Then suddenly everything changed.  Mrs. Bottle started assembling bottle after bottle of liquor, liqueur, and fruit juice on the counter.  She frantically pulled dozens of glasses out the cabinet, proclaiming each one more worthless than the prior. She started eyeballing our cocktail shaker with a look of concern and then finally threw up her hands in disgust and shouted “why me, why me?!?!”  I am used to that yell each year on our wedding anniversary, but it seemed oddly out of place last night.

Why the kerfuffle?  It was all because of our next drink, the Goober.  The Goober is a mix of vodka, black raspberry liqueur, melon liqueur, triple sec, grenadine, pineapple juice, and orange juice.  That is lot of ingredients. That is also a lot of volume.  13.5 ounces to be exact.  That is ridiculously large for a beverage not served via drive-through window or convenience store.  We didn’t have a single glass large enough to hold 13.5 ounces.  Unless of course you count our margarita glasses or our massive stadium cup collection or our flower vases, but none of those would be appropriate for a drink as sophisticated as the Goober.  It was also a lot more than our cocktail shaker could hold.  We had to bust out our decorative shaker, but those are the types of sacrifices we make for our art.

Look at the size of that thing!

Once we had filled the shaker with the cornucopia of liquids, it was time to shake it.  Last year at this time Mrs. Bottle might not have been able to lift such a heavy drink, but she has been using her shake weight religiously for months. This gave her the proper upper body strength and technique necessary for a good mix.  The shaking must have worked because the Goober turned out to be very good.  For me the tastes that were most prevalent were the melon liqueur and the orange juice.  Mrs. Bottle thought the raspberry liqueur was the star.  Either way, it was pretty fruity.  Not there’s anything wrong with that.  The one thing neither of us tasted was a goober pea, leaving us slightly confused about the drink’s name. We didn’t let that stop us from downing the whole thing, though.

Overall Rating for the Goober

 

Taste: 4

Presentation: 5

Ease of Preparation: 1

Drinks Until Blackout: 10 – 10% alcohol.  You’ll never get there, though, since that would be a gallon of Goober

Ingredients

1.5 oz Vodka

1.5 oz Black Raspberry Liqueur

1.5 oz Melon Liqueur

1 oz Triple Sec

1 oz Grenadine

3 oz Pineapple Juice

4 oz Orange Juice

Day 73: Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing, Baby

Looks neither grape nor Nehi

I read last week that Diet Coke is now the second best selling soft drink in America.  It supplanted Pepsi, the previous #2.  Pepsi spokesperson Joe Jacuzzi indicated that Pepsi was not worried about the drop but that they will be ramping up advertising this year nonetheless. Coke spokesperson Steve Sauna could not be reached for comment.  It also turns out that four of the top ten sodas are now diet varieties.  This is up from only two in 2001.  This trend away from sugary soda towards zero-calorie diet soda should have been obvious to me given how thin Americans have become in that same time period. 

The real shocker in the data is that the number ten soda is Fanta.  This raised a lot of questions for me. What flavor of Fanta are they talking about?  In the US, it is known for its orange soda, but they have seven different flavors here and over 90 worldwide.  On the top ten list it just says “Fanta”. Did they get to lump all those flavors together?  If so, then Pepsi should get to do the same.  If they added Crystal Pepsi sales to Pepsi’s maybe they could reclaim the coveted #2 slot.  Then I needed to know who the hell drinks Fanta?  Besides the Pope, that is.  Apparently he drinks four cans a day.  I always thought that Jesus Juice was white wine, but maybe it is Fanta.  Maybe if the Pope appeared in a Fanta ad during the Super Bowl, they could move up to number nine.  Especially if he appeared with the Fantanas.

Yummy yogurt-flavored Pepsi would push them to the top
Image Source 

Nowhere to be found on the list was Nehi.  This isn’t a big surprise since I can’t remember the last time I saw Nehi in a store.  I probably haven’t had one since my last trip to the Texas Tavern in 1992 so I was pretty excited to try our latest drink the Grape Nehi.  I thought it might bring back a lot of childhood memories and also give me a buzz.  Those two things are not related.  The drink is made of vodka, raspberry liqueur, and lemon juice.  It really tasted nothing like its namesake. In fact, you couldn’t taste anything but lemon.  It wasn’t bad, really, but when you name it the Grape Nehi you set certain expectations. And those expections do not include lemons. Maybe my memories are a bit flawed, but I don’t remember a strong lemon flavor in Grape Nehi soda.  Maybe the Cheesy With messed up my taste buds. 

Overall Rating for the Grape Nehi

Taste: 3

Presentation: 2 – In our guide, it says this drink is also known as the Purple Hooter but this looked more brown than anything

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 7 – 19 % Alcohol

Ingredients

1 oz Vodka

1 oz Raspberry Flavored Liqueur

1 oz Lemon Juice

Day 56: Where No Ale Has Gone Before

As blue as an Andorian's blood

Mrs. Bottle here covering today’s drink, the Galactic Ale. I believe many folks might also refer to it as Romulan Ale. To avoid further possible confusion, I’m not referring to a pale lager produced in San Salvador that surprisingly did not receive high marks from the Beer Advocate. No, it is the ale illegally consumed by members of the Starship Enterprise, as well as other inhabitants of the Star Trek universe. My guess is that if the pages of Mr. Boston contained a drink called Romulan Ale, copyright issues would ensue. Hence we have the royalty-free Galactic Ale.

Let me say that I begged Mr. Bottle to allow me to report on this beverage. And by beg I mean that I asked if I could write it up and he said “of course”. I do love me some good Star Trek TV shows and movies. I believe this is a learned behavior. You see, my parents were avid watchers of the original Star Trek series. They even reportedly left their wedding reception early to watch a new episode airing that evening (that’s what I’ve been told and I choose to believe that’s how they spent their wedding night). We also watched countless re-airings of the show while sitting at our TV trays every evening for dinner.

I thought I knew these shows inside and out until Mr. Bottle recently received the Blu-ray box set for Christmas. Holy wow, the first season was really slow, choppy, and I’ve found them to be the perfect cure for sleeplessness. That said, nothing beats William Shatner’s dramatic rendition of Captain Kirk. I … must … re … examine … his … performance … in …T.J. … Hooker!

Thinking about Kirk, I imagine his reaction after drinking the Galactic Ale, a shooter combining vodka, blue Curaçao, lime juice, and black raspberry liqueur. I’m sure he would say “This is very blue, tasty and lightly fruity with a slight raspberry flavor. Not a big alcohol taste, so that’s a plus. Now Spock, go mind-meld the bad guy, Dr. McCoy, check my vitals, and Yeoman Janice or Green Lady, kiss me now!!”

Khaaan you bring me another one?

To sum it all up, I’m pretty sure you’ll live long and prosper after consuming large quantities of this delicious blue libation.



Overall Rating for Galactic Ale

Taste: 4

Presentation: 5 – Bluuuuuue!

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 5 –  24% alcohol

Ingredients

.75 oz Vodka

.75 oz Blue Curaçao

.5 oz Lime Juice

.25 oz Black Raspberry Liqueur

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

Day 37: Beaches and Prose

Romance Week continues and today we have Sex on the Beach, a favorite drink of 21 year-old college students.  It is a shooter made with vodka, black raspberry liqueur, melon liqueur, pineapple juice, and cranberry juice. This drink is pretty visually unappealing.  It looks a lot like dirty water.  The taste is what you might expect, a fruit bomb.  Mrs. Bottle thought the melon dominated the drink and for her that is a big minus.  I agreed that it had a very strong melon flavor, but I could also taste the pineapple juice.  The black raspberry and cranberry didn’t fight their way through at all and the vodka was completely undetectable. The absence of alcohol notes is another reason it is popular with 21 year-olds.

Romance Bear is presumptuous



Suave



Sex on the Beach scores pretty low on the romance scale as well.  As previously noted, shooters are not the epitome of class.  I have nothing against shooters in general, but you rarely see people having a quiet candlelight dinner ordering a round of Alabama Slammers.  You might hide an engagement ring in a champagne flute, but you would never put the ring in a shot glass unless you are confident in your Heimlich skills.  The name Sex on the Beach doesn’t ooze romance either.  We all know that romance can and should lead to physical love, but why be so overt?  There are places where such crassness is considered romantic, though.  These places are primarily in New Jersey.

If I were going to take the easy way out, this section would contain more cheap jokes about sex on the beach leading to sand where you don’t want it or being careful to look out for crabs, lol. Instead, we are going to answer a question I found on the web:

Has anyone had sex on the beach is it romantic?

Hey my name is Kandi and I'm 18 :-) I've been seeing this handsome guy for three months he is older 37. He wants to take me to the beach to have a romantic night together. I was thinking blankets, wine, dinner, and candles. Also can you get in trouble if anyone sees. The beach that we are going to usually has a lot of cops around I don't know why

Dear Kandi,

A) You should not have sex until you are married, otherwise you might get a reputation

B)  Is this beach in Dubai?  If so, you should pass.

C) It’s too bad you are already 18 or you could ditch that 37 year old for Mark Sanchez.  Maybe you could lie about your age.

D) You should skip the sex, you will get sand where you don’t want it.

Sincerely,

Mr. Bottle

Overall Rating for Sex on the Beach

Taste: 2
Presentation: 1
Ease of Preparation: 3
Drinks Until Blackout: 7 – 15% alcohol
Romance Score: 1

Ingredients

.5 oz Vodka
.5 oz Black Raspberry Liqueur
.5 oz Melon Liqueur
1 oz Pineapple Juice
.25 oz Cranberry Juice