Day 16: Sucks and the City

Cherry Bomb

Neither Mrs. Bottle nor I had heard of most of the drinks we have tried so far, so for today’s drink we decided to go with something classic, the Manhattan.  The Manhattan consists of whiskey, sweet vermouth, and Angostura bitters. It tastes more like it is made out of ass.

Okay, that may be a bit harsh (just like this drink…rim shot!).  We suspect that we didn’t like the Manhattan because we don’t like whiskey.  We both thought the drink mostly tasted and smelled like straight bourbon.  In order to test this, we poured a little Wild Turkey into a glass and tried it straight.  It turns out that the Manhattan is much better than straight bourbon, similar to the way a punch in the stomach is better than a punch in the junk.

I wondered how this drink became a classic so I did some research and it turns out the Manhattan was invented some time in the mid to late 1800’s.  Then it became clear to me: The people of the late 1800’s had no idea how to have fun.  A popular leisure activity of the time was hoop and stick.  Wee! No wonder this drink became popular.  It bested the current champion, Gin and Soot.

Time for a Game of Hoop and Stick

We still hope that we can develop a palate for whiskey.  Obviously a lot of people like it so it must be possible to enjoy it.   Until that happens, it will be tough for any of the whiskey drinks to earn a high score.

Luckily for us, there are at least two more variations on the Manhattan left for us to try.  We can hardly wait.

Overall Rating:

Taste: 2 – Only because we are giving the benefit of the doubt to whiskey fans.

Ease of Preparation: 4

Presentation: 4 – It has a cherry!

Drinks until blackout: 4 – A little over 35% alcohol

Ingredients:

2 oz Whiskey

.5 oz Sweet Vermouth

1 dash Angostura Bitters

Day 4: Whiskey A Go Go

So pretty!

Mrs. Bottle and I wanted to mix it up a bit today, so we decided to try a drink called the Scottish Guard.  It consists of Bourbon Whiskey, orange juice, lime juice, and grenadine.  Why is this mixing it up?  Because neither of us really like nor drink whiskey.  During this journey we are going to end up drinking a lot of it.  Therefore we will either acquire a taste for it or end up having a lot of drinks we hate. Let’s hope for the former.  I think the latter is a given considering some of the drink recipes we’ve seen in the book.

This drink is visually a lot more interesting than our prior ones.  It is one step ahead of the others already since it is served in a cocktail glass. It is hard to go wrong with a nice cocktail glass.  It also has a bit of grenadine for some color.  What is grenadine?  I’m glad I asked.  It is a sweet syrup generally made from pomegranates.  Since we didn’t have any in our bar  I went to the store and bought a bottle of Rose’s Grenadine ($3.85)  Looking at the ingredients, it is mostly corn sugar high fructose corn syrup. And water.  I don’t see pomegranate listed anywhere.  Maybe it is in the “natural flavors”.

Red 40 - Blue 1 was also the 2010 election result

For today’s bourbon, we chose Wild Turkey. Primarily because it was the only bourbon we had that was already open. I can’t say how it compares to others because I’ve never met a bourbon that I liked.  Oh well, maybe someday.

I thought it smelled good, pretty much like fruity bourbon.  Mrs. Bottle’s first reaction was "it tastes like bourbon with juice in it” so the smell wasn’t misleading.  She then proclaimed, "It's better than drinking straight bourbon."  I concurred.  Barely.  It might be a while before we acquire the taste for bourbon.

Scotchgard protects your carpet from stains.  A Scottish Guard could very well lead to fresh carpet stains.  Think of them as yin and yang.

Ratings on a 10-point scale:

Taste: 3

Ease of preparation: 7

Presentation: 8.5

Drinks until blackout: 5 – This one comes in at 22% alcohol but it tastes like it is 90%.  We doubt either of us could make it to 5 of these.