Drink 200: Mr. and Mrs. Mix a Lot

I hate looking like a jackass.  Which is unfortunate considering the frequency with which I look like one.  I am also kind of a cheapskate.  These two traits are in a constant struggle for superiority each morning when I view my daily emails from Groupon, LivingSocial, AmazonLocal, DealSaver, Vactionist, and Google Offers.  On the one hand am saving money when I take advantage of an offer.  On the other hand I look like a jackass when I hand the cashier my creased piece of paper to save $7 on $14 worth of food and drinks (alcohol excluded). 

Sometimes Mrs. Bottle and I will take advantage of one of these offers to try something new.   It could be a restaurant we wouldn’t normally try or some activity we haven’t done before.  We have an upcoming zip line adventure and we have recently taken an archery lesson and had a Segway tour of our fair city (which really pushed the “don’t look like a jackass” threshold).  These skills will come in handy once the zombie apocalypse finally arrives as I ride at up to 12 MPH and pick off zombies with my bow and arrow.  Just like Katniss Everdeen.

Artist Concept

We recently received an offer that allowed us to try something new, save money (presumably), not look like a jackass (since it was online only), and do one of our other favorite things: drink.  It was for a molecular gastronomy cocktail kit from a company called MOLECULE-R (emphasis theirs).  In case you are unfamiliar with molecular gastronomy, it is when you take food that is somewhat natural and add chemicals to it so it becomes something unnatural.   Think of it like making a Dorito into a taco shell, only with different chemicals.

Our kit recently arrived and we decided to try it out.  The first step was to pick out a drink.  Unfortunately the kit didn’t come with a recipe book.  Instead it came with a DVD.  In case you are unfamiliar with DVDs, they are plastic discs that contain video recordings.  People used to use them to watch movies before FSM invented streaming.  We dusted off our DVD player and perused the choices.  That is, after we watched the mandatory 30 second musical introduction with no option to bypass.

It turns out that many of these recipes require either a lot of time, pre-planning, culinary whippers, or liquid nitrogen.   Since we didn’t have any of those items, we went with something simple, emulsification.  They have several drinks that featured emulsification but we only had ingredients on hand for two: the kamikaze and the margarita.  We have already featured a kamikaze in the blog, but our last two entries were both for margaritas we decided to go with the kamikaze.

Chemistry is messy business

The molecular gastronomy piece of this drink was lime foam. That meant adding soy lecithin to some water and lime juice and whipping it until it became foam. That was the theory, anyway.  Mrs. Bottle whipped the hell out of that stuff but it never really foamed up as much as it did on the DVD. I don’t know if the mix was a little off or if it was something else.  It is possibly related to the fact that chemistry was the only science class I didn’t like.  Too much memorization for my taste.  But I digress.

We were able to salvage a little foam from the top of the bowl and add it to our drink, though.  The rest of the drink is just vodka and orange liqueur.  Mrs. Bottle pretty much hated it.  It is all alcohol and we didn’t chill any of it so she found it kind of warm and gross. I sipped mine making sure to get some foam in each taste and thought it was decent.  If it had been cold it might have actually been pretty good.

Probably should take a lint roller to the backdrop, eh?

We remain undeterred, though.  As soon as my bottle of liquid nitrogen arrives, we will be trying again.

Overall Rating for Kamikaze

Taste: 3

Presentation: 3

Ease of Preparation: 1

Drinks Until Blackout: 2 - From whipping fatigue

Ingredients

Vodka

Triple Sec

Lime Juice

Water

Soy Lecithin

Drink 177: Some Of Our Best Friends Are Turkish

Today’s drink the Midnight Express is made from dark rum, triple sec, hashish, lime juice, simple syrup, and lemon juice*.  Whatever you do, do not smuggle this drink out of Turkey.  You will be tempted to try, though, if you happen to be in Turkey when you first have one. That’s because this drink was very good and you will want to have it again when you get back to the States.  The primary taste was citrus with a hint of dark rum.  It was a more complex taste than I was expecting and it was a pleasant surprise.  Mrs. Bottle and I both thought it reminded us of another drink.  Sadly neither of us could think of what it was. You are probably happy I shared that little tidbit.

We used the giant version of the image
 to mask the lack of content today

I was planning on writing some other stuff about the movie Midnight Express, which is one of my favorites (“Oh, Billy!”).  Then I read that a lot of the stuff in the movie wasn’t even true.  In fact, director Oliver Stone even apologized to the Turkish people for their portrayal in the film.  C’mon Ollie, stand behind your work even if it unfairly stereotyped an entire country.  You don’t see George Lucas apologizing for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace even though he should.  You certainly won’t catch us apologizing for anything we write on TBIAW.  Unless, of course, someone were to ask us to.  

*Does not contain hashish

Overall Rating for the Midnight Express

 

Taste: 5

Presentation: 3 – It ain’t pretty

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 4 – 26% Alcohol

Ingredients

1.5 oz Dark Rum

.5 oz Triple Sec

.75 oz Lime Juice

1 splash Simple Syrup

1 splash Lemon Juice

Drink 169: Seven Silver Spiders Swam Silently Seaward

It does look silver

When we first started this blog one hundred and sixty-eight cocktails ago we thought the majority of the posts would just be a description of the drink and a rating of said drink.  Today we finally realize that goal with the Silver Spider, a shooter made from vodka, rum, triple sec, and crème de menthe.  This drink tasted mostly like alcohol with a bit of mint.  It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t anything special.  One thing it will do is get you drunk.  There you have it. 

Overall Rating for the Silver Spider

Taste: 3

Presentation: 3

Ease of Preparation: 3

Drinks Until Blackouts: 3 – 33% Alcohol

Ingredients

.5 oz Vodka

.5 oz Rum

.5 oz Triple Sec

.5 oz Crème de Menthe (white)

Drink 167: Slop Sloppy Joe

Today’s drink is the Sloppy Joe’s Cocktail No. 1, a mix of rum, triple sec, dry vermouth, grenadine, and lime juice. According to the USDA’s MyDrink, a cocktail should never be more than 23.3% lime juice.  This is an improvement over the outdated Tipple Pyramid’s maximum of 34.0%.  Regardless of whether you follow the old-school Pyramid or the new-school MyDrink, the Sloppy Joe’s Cocktail No. 1 exceeds the limit since it is 38.7% lime juice.

Seems strangely specific

Note: I literally spent hours working
on the video in Sunday's blog. Since
no one actually watched it, I decided
to spend no more than three minutes on
any future customized pictures for TBIAW.
This is the type of quality to expect
going forward.

Due to the high concentration of lime juice, the primary taste of this drink was tartness. In fact wasn’t the just the primary taste, it was the only taste.  It was so tart that if we had tried the SJCN1 during the first few weeks of our journey, we would have probably given it a rating of one.  Since we have become more accustomed to these sour assaults we were able to up the rating all the way to a two. There was some extra credit given because the lime juice thankfully overwhelmed the vermouth.

Not Sloppy

It also didn’t help that the drink called for only a quarter teaspoon of two of the other ingredients.  Pouring a quarter teaspoon is kind of a pain. You can almost justify the quarter teaspoon of grenadine since it makes the drink a pleasant pink tint. The quarter teaspoon of triple sec is another story. It isn’t enough to add any sweetness or orange flavor to the drink.  It is as superfluous as this picture:

Image:  scottchan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Overall Rating for the Sloppy Joe’s Cocktail No. 1

Taste: 2

Presentation: 4

Ease of Preparation: 2

Drinks Until Blackouts: 7 – 17% Alcohol

Ingredients

1 oz Lime Juice

0.25 tsp Triple Sec

0.25 tsp Grenadine

.75 oz Light Rum

.75 oz Dry Vermouth

Drink 165: Blue Friday

The Wallis Blue Cocktail isn’t what you might expect. Namely, it isn’t blue.  This is due primarily to the fact that none of its ingredients are blue.  Instead they are gin, triple sec, and lime juice.  Think of it as a gin-based Margarita, but a bit sweeter. We liked the traditional Margarita a lot, but the Wallis Blue Cocktail was better.  The extra sweetness was the tipping point, perfectly balancing the tart lime juice.  The sugar-rimmed glass probably helped, too.  Has there ever been a beverage that wasn’t improved by a sugar-rimmed glass? Actually, yes.

As far as I can tell, not blue

It has been a while since we have had a bad drink. In fact, we haven’t had a drink rated lower than a three in over two weeks now.  This streak is long enough that I’m beginning to get nervous.  There will surely be an epically bad streak some time in the future providing karmic retribution.  It will likely feature several drinks with Scotch, Galliano, and prune juice.

Now we clumsily transition back to the drink at hand.  I was curious about the name of the cocktail so we launched a massive TBIAW investigation.  One of our iReporters quickly discovered that a fashion designer named Main Bocher created a color “Wallis Blue” named for Wallis Simpson and used it in her wedding dress. The dress doesn’t look blue to me, so that might explain why the drink isn’t blue.  Maybe the absence of blue is a statement on the patriarchal nature of pre-World War II society. 

Blueberries, as named by Main Bocher

In case you are not up on your anglophilic studies, Wallis Simpson was an American woman who tried to destroy the English monarchy using only the power of her femininity and almost succeeded.  For you youngsters, think of her like the Monica Lewinsky of the 30’s. Coincidentally Lewinsky is also known for a blue dress. But we recommend that you stay away from the Monica Blew Cocktail.

Overall Rating for the Wallis Blue Cocktail

Taste: 5

Presentation: 3

Ease of Preparation: 3

Drinks Until Blackouts: 6 – 21% Alcohol

 

 

Ingredients

1 oz Gin

1 oz Triple Sec

1 oz Lime Juice

Drink 154: Crocodile Rocked

The flamingo straw
was not explicitly
specified but we felt
it was a nice touch

So after missing my regularly scheduled post, Mrs. Bottle is finally here to talk about Sunday’s drink. On Tuesday. Just so you don’t think I was being lazy and not properly devoted to all eleven of you readers out there, let me give a brief background on what happened. You may remember that we recently added two kittens to the household count. This has nothing to do with them but it has everything to do with our 13 year old cat, Mrs. Fatty Needs-A-Lot McCrankyPants (Mrs. FNM for short - formerly known as Bottle Wonderland Cat). She got a little sickly last week and after picking her up from the vet, turns out she has developed an even pickier palate than she already had. After turning her nose up at her normal prescription food that costs half of TBIAW estate’s mortgage payment, Mr. Bottle went in search of any food that might interest her taste buds. The result was that I spent most of Sunday sorting through a bag of Friskies Surfin’ Turfin’ Favorites picking out the pink fishies and brown drumsticks for her to eat from our hands every few hours. This was in between playing referee while Mr. Bottle wrestled her to the ground to force pills and syringes of medicine down her throat. But we are determined to get Mrs. FNM back to her normal finicky but still eating self.

Found some!

And speaking of finicky taste buds, let’s talk about today’s drink. The Crocodile Cooler is made with citrus-flavored vodka, melon liqueur, triple sec, simple syrup, lemon juice and lemon-lime soda. I was a little skeptical because of the melon liqueur, but it turned out to be quite tasty and the Bottle’s delicate taste buds were singing. In fact, we even had a guest try it who we’ll call Mrs. Older-than-Mrs. Bottle. This is what she gets for not reading the blog. Anyway, even though Mrs. OTMB also doesn’t like melon liqueur, she did enjoy the drink as well. Luckily for her I didn’t make her sort out the melon liqueur from the rest of the drinks and then serve it to me from her hand.

Overall Rating for the Crocodile Cooler

Taste: 5

Presentation: 5 – Extra points for not being the real color of a crocodile

Ease of Preparation: 4 – Lots of ingredients or it would rate a 5

Drinks Until Blackout: 10 – 11% Alcohol

Ingredients

1.5 oz Citrus-flavored Vodka

1 oz Melon Liqueur

0.75 oz Triple Sec

1 oz Simple Syrup

1 oz Lemon Juice

Lemon-Lime Soda

Drink 152: Labor Pains

If you don’t follow sports you may not have heard that the NBA is officially locked out today.  What does a lockout mean, exactly?  I don’t really care but I do know that it means there won’t be basketball until the lockout ends.  The NFL is locked out, too, so this winter it is looking like the only pro sports option will be hockey, which apparently has a pro league.  Who knew?  I hope someone starts a Calvinball league to fill the void. 

In both the NBA and NFL the lockouts are about the same thing: Money.  This is surprising to me because in a million years I never would have thought money could cause a disagreement.  We decided to pay tribute to money by having a green drink today.  It is called the Jade and it is made from rum, green crème de menthe, triple sec, lime juice, and simple syrup.  We’ve already covered that the only difference between regular crème de menthe and green crème de menthe is some food coloring.  Therefore we just used our regular stuff and some Rit dye. I was skeptical about the Jade’s combination of mint, rum, orange, and lime but it actually worked.  The mint and lime balanced each other like they do in a Mojito and there was a nice hint of sweetness from the triple sec and simple syrup. 

The emptiness of the glass symbolizes the
gap between the owners and players

We debated whether it should get a four or five but we reached an impasse.  I thought it rated a four but Mrs. Bottle questioned why it wouldn’t be a five.  I then explained to her that we must have a hard rating cap so the small market drinks like the Jade can compete fairly with the big market drinks like the Cuba Libre. She countered that the careers of these drinks can be short so they need to maximize their ratings when they can.   We are now firmly entrenched in our positions and I don't know when we can resume rating drinks. 

Overall Rating for the Jade

Taste: 4 or 5

Presentation: 5 – Hard to beat a fake green hue

Ease of Preparation: 2 – Lots of half teaspoons

Drinks Until Blackout: 5 – 27% Alcohol

Ingredients

1.5 oz Light Rum

0.5 tsp Crème de Menthe (green)

0.5 tsp Triple Sec

1 tbsp Lime Juice

1 tsp Simple Syrup

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

Drink 148: Throwing Stones

What is up with that orange?

It’s Sunday so that means it’s time for Mrs. Bottle to wow you with another fabulous review of a mediocre (at best) adult beverage. Today’s drink is the Glass Tower, a combination of many, many ingredients. First, you throw in some vodka, followed by peach schnapps. Next comes rum and then triple sec. Finally you add sambuca and finish it off with some lemon-lime soda. In case you haven’t kept count, that’s six ingredients. But don’t forget the last touch of the garnish, which is an orange slice and cherry. So technically you have eight ingredients. I just want to say, that’s a lot of crap to throw into a drink and still expect something tasty to come out in the end. Maybe that wasn’t the expectation, and if that’s true, then it actually DID live up to expectations. Did you follow that logic?

Since my parents are here visiting the sprawling TBIAW estate, I’m going to keep this relatively short. Here’s the reaction from Mr. Bottle, my folks and myself after tasting this drink, in no particular order: “That’s weird”, “It’s just weird”, “I don’t like that. Tastes weird”, “How can this only taste like Sambuca with all these ingredients?? I’m not drinking this weird thing”.  So I like to compare the results of drinking the Glass Tower to a moment from the 70’s blockbuster movie, The Towering Inferno. As he looks up at his Glass Tower building in ruins, Paul Newman tells Faye Dunaway that maybe it should be left as a symbol of all that is wrong in society. What? Maybe that’s a little strong, but at the very least the Glass Tower should remain as a symbol of all that’s wrong with society thinking it’s ok to have so many ingredients in one drink. It’s just too weird.

Overall Rating for the Glass Tower

Taste: 2 – Mr. Bottle said he could drink it if push came to shove

Presentation: 5

Ease of Preparation: 2 – You did see the ingredients list, right?

Drinks Until Blackout: 7 – 17% Alcohol

Ingredients

1 oz Vodka

1 oz Peach Schapps

1 oz Rum

1 oz Triple Sec

½ oz Sambvca

Lemon-lime Soda

Drink 131: Mademoiselle, Your Roots are Showing



Dirty Blonde



Oui, it is moi, Madame Bottle, here to discuss today’s drink. Monsieur Bottle needed some nap time so I stepped up to the keyboard and am pinch blogging on this beautiful Saturday. A day when I could be outside soaking up some rays, playing my computer games, or napping myself. I’m that selfless. But not selfless enough to write an epic blog. This will be a shorty.

Today’s drink is a shooter called the Parisian Blonde. It consists of equal parts light rum, Jamaican rum, and triple sec. So shouldn’t this be the Kingston Blonde or the Montego Bay Blonde? I’m tres stumped. What also confuses me is why it’s called a blonde. Doesn’t that indicate it would be a light golden color? As a natural blonde myself, I happen to be familiar with this look coupled with a few (possibly artificial) highlights. Monsieur Bottle even mentioned his luscious golden locks that he had when he was young before it turned brown and all fell out he shaved it all off. One more thing that troubles me about this drink is what I found during my Google search. It appears that the Parisian Blonde is actually a drink that many folks made with heavy cream instead of Jamaican rum. At least with the cream I get why it would be a blonde. I’m not sure where Monsieur Boston developed this recipe but I really question the accuracy.

This Berlin Blonde also has some color issues
img: musicdump.ucoz.com 

I guess the most important thing about this drink is the taste. Sacre bleu! It was mighty potent so I was glad it was just a shooter. The flavor wasn’t too bad though, but it really just tasted like liquor with a tiny bit of orange flavor from the triple sec. I think that cream version sounded better. Maybe for the next cream week, after I get a coupon.

Overall Rating for the Parisian Blonde

 

Taste: 3
Presentation: 3 – Dirty blonde at best
Ease of Preparation: 5
Drinks Until Blackout: 3 – 35% Alcohol

Ingredients

¾ oz Light Rum
¾ oz Triple Sec
¾ oz Jamaican Rum

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

Drink 99: Bad Cocktail Reason No. 1 (and 2 and 3 and 4)

East India Cocktail Pick No. 1

Mr. Bottle isn’t feeling it today so I offered to fill in (I'm Mrs. Bottle for those first time readers out there- all none of you). Today’s drink is the East India Cocktail No. 1 and it’s made from brandy, pineapple juice, triple sec, Jamaican rum, and the all important dash of bitters. Basically this drink sucks. There are many reasons so let me get on with the enumeration.

No. 1: There is only ½ tsp. each of the pineapple juice and triple sec and 1 tsp. of the rum. What the hell is the point of that? All you can taste is brandy, brandy, brandy. This is like getting a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup and there being a tiny pin-headed dot of peanut butter in the center. Might as well just have bought a Hershey’s bar. In this case, you would have poured yourself a shot of brandy.

No. 2: This whole idea that it’s ok to have a recipe with a tsp. or ½ tsp. of this stuff is absurd. It’s not easy to pour these amounts from a liter sized bottle. And you certainly won’t find those marks on your shot glass so have fun pouring into those tiny little spoons. So why put yourself through the pain for what No. 1 points out above. You can’t taste a ½ tsp. of anything.

This chart will help you see what I mean

No. 3: Brandy is not tasty. Not to get repetitive, but I cannot emphasize enough that as No. 1 points out, a ½ tsp. of a liquid is not going to impact the flavor of the drink. Sadly this resulted in a big swig of burning brandy down the gullet. I guess this point doesn’t apply if you like brandy but this is my list so it stays.

No. 4: The name of this drink is too long. And there’s no East India Cocktail No. 2 so I don’t get it.

Overall Rating for the East India Cocktail No. 1

Taste: 1 – Brandy, brandy, brandy
Presentation: 4
Ease of Preparation: 1 – Those teaspoons ruined it
Drinks Until Blackout: 3 – 37% Alcohol

Ingredients

1.5 oz Brandy
1 tsp Jamaican rum
½ tsp Pineapple juice
½ tsp Triple sec
Dash of Bitters

Drink 98: Who You Gonna Call?



We have found the answer to the
question: "What are two things
you won't do on Sundays this fall?"



The Florida is a mix of gin, kirschwasser, triple sec, orange juice, and lemon juice.  Both Mrs. Bottle and I are both somewhat at a loss as to how to explain the flavor.  The primary component was orange but there were hints of the other ingredients.  When they all came together it just tasted kind of odd.  It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was nothing so amazing that I would seek it out.  I might have it again though, since it is one of the few drinks that call for kirschwasser and we have a whole bottle of that stuff to drink.

I had an idea to call James Hetfield, lead singer of Metallica, and ask him if he knew any good drinks that featured kirschwasser.  I don’t have James’ number, so I just dialed 1-800-METALLICA since that seemed like a logical choice.  Much to my surprise, that was not only not the phone number for James Hetfield, lead singer of Metallica, it was a phone sex line. After a quick session of dirty talk, I became curious as to why 1-800-METALLICA led me to hot one-on-one chat.

James Hetfield,
lead singer of Metallica

It turns out that there is a company that is buying up toll-free numbers and redirecting them to phone sex lines.  According to this article, over 25% of all 1-800 numbers in the US and Canada are owned by PrimeTel Communications and most of them lead to a phone sex service.  Once the customer gets redirected to the phone sex line, he has to give his credit card number before he gets charged.  I feel safe using the pronoun “he” in this context instead of a gender neutral one.

This business model raises a couple of questions.  The first is: Who calls 1-800 numbers anymore?  Between Google and text messages, I thought talking on the phone had had been eliminated.  I suppose there are rare occasions when I might have to call someone, like when my power is out or if I am very lonely. 

Even if you do call one of these numbers, who stays on the line for phone sex when they called 1-800-MINOLTA to ask a question about a camera?  How does that thought process work?  “Oh, I was trying to find out how to set the aperture, but go ahead and tell me what you are wearing.  You can fit your whole fist in your mouth?  That’s a good thing because I have a wide angle lens, baby.”  But I digress.   

I guess enough people do it to make it worth their while.  It seems to me that getting business through trickery is the devil’s work.  I think I will call 1-800-WORSHIP to talk about it.

Overall Rating for the Florida

Taste: 3

Presentation: 1

Ease of Preparation: 3 – Lots of measuring

Drinks Until Blackout: 7 – 17% Alcohol

Ingredients

.5 oz Gin

1.5 tsp Kirschwasser

1.5 tsp Triple Sec

1 oz Orange Juice

1 tsp Lemon Juice

Drink 89: Haiku? Haiku! Gesundheit

Photo Caption

Our one hundredth post

But only eighty-nine drinks

It does not add up

To honor this day

We are posting in Haiku

Bastardized Haiku

There is no Kigo

No Kireji to be found

Screw it, here we go: 

The Little Devil

Lemon, Triple Sec, Rum, Gin

Sour Explosion

Overall Rating for the Little Devil Cocktail

 

Taste: 3

Presentation: 2

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 4 – 32% Alcohol

Ingredients

.75 oz Light Rum

.75 oz Gin

.25 oz Triple Sec

0.5 oz Lemon Juice

Drink 88: eeZ Like Sunday Morning

Served in a martini glass
instead of a punch bowl

You may have heard of our next drink, the Margarita.  You may have even had one. If you’ve only had them in restaurants or out of a bucket, though, you probably haven’t had a traditional Margarita, which is made from tequila, triple sec, and lime juice.  The traditional Margarita is not nearly as sweet as your typical restaurant version, which usually has some sour mix (actually sweet!) or other sweetener.

There are a couple of reasons for this.  One is that a super-sweet margarita can be made with any tequila, no matter how terrible it might be. The second is that people love sugar.  If you believe in “evolution” you might even argue that sugar craving is a trait developed over tens of thousands of years of natural selection.  Of course if you don’t believe in evolution, you know that God wants us to eat sugar by design and a grande Margarita from On the Border fits the bill.  I am not saying which view is correct, I just teach the controversy.

We really enjoyed the traditional Margarita.  It was definitely tart, but the triple sec added a little bit of sweetness.  The overall effect was a refreshing drink that won’t leave your throat coated in a mucous-y film.  Mrs. Bottle and I are not opposed to the restaurant version of a Margarita, though.  Case-in-point, we had a meet-and-greet with some of our fans this past Friday at a local establishment called eeZ Fusion & Sushi.  Between addressing the fan concerns about blog frequency and answering some behind-the-scenes questions, Mrs. Bottle had their version of a Margarita called the Margatini.  The Margatini added both sour mix (actually sweet!) and orange juice to the mix.  She thought it was good, but she did comment at the time that it was a bit too sweet.  Take that, natural selection!

Also ambiguous

One could argue that ordering a Margarita at a Japanese restaurant might not be the most successful strategy, but we didn’t have time for such in-depth analysis at the time.  It was much more important for us to figure out how to pronounce “eeZ”.  Why would you name your restaurant something so ambiguous? Is it “ease” or “easy”?  This is the type of thing that bothers me, and I am the kind of person who is so eeZ going that I rarely get bothered.  I was leaning towards “easy” because of the capital Z, but our dining companions pronounced it “ease”.  Since they go to eeZ enough to actually have a strategy to maximize their portions by utilizing bowl geometry and a carrot, I have changed my mind and now I’m going with “ease”.

It’s as eeZ as that.

Overall Rating for Margarita

Taste: 4

Presentation: 4 – No lime wedge?

Ease of Preparation: 4

Drinks Until Blackout: 6 – 24% Alcohol

Ingredients

1.5 oz Tequila

0.5 oz Triple Sec

1 oz Lime Juice