A Tale Of Cocktails #61

South Side

Ingredients:

50ml gin
25ml lemon juice

25ml simple syrup
5 mint leaves

Taste: 8
Look: 7
Cost: 8
Name: 6
Prep: 7
Alcohol: 5
Overall: 7.2

Preparation: Gently muddle mint leaves and lemon juice. Add other ingredients and shake with ice. Garish with a mint sprig.

SURPRISE! We are EXTREMLY BRIEFLY back!

A south side is a mojito without the faff or the dead wood. Half the time, twice the strength. MATHS.

Gin And Bear It: 19th to 24th

  Dec 19th: Wilkins & Sons Rhubarb

Look. Just. C'mon, you know? C'mon.

0/10

Dec 20th: Sweet Potato Raspberry Gin Liqueur

Aha! More like it, Advent Calendar Of Booze! You have pleased me.

Not really sure if there's much to be said about this one. The raspberry works really well, balancing the sweet and tart you expect from the aforementioned cluster of juice-globes. Just a really tasty gin.

8/10

Dec 21st: Poetic License Fireside Gin

Eh, I don't think mulled gin really works. At least, it certainly doesn't work cold. You need some warmth to bring out the flavours of your chosen mulling agents - this is like drinking Gordons over a Sainsbury's spice-aisle spillage. 

I mean, you could heat it, I guess. That's not what the website recommends, though, and in any case, we already have mulled wine, and mulled cider, and hot chocolate with Baileys or Kahlua or Tia Maria. Or even egg-nog, apparently, though I've never actually come across it, and half-suspect it to be some kind of cross-Atlantic practical joke.

4/10

Dec 22nd: Malfy Gin Rosa Sicilian Pink Grapefruit

That took longer to type than to drink. Which is a good sign, I grant you. The grapefruit hits you before you even open your mouth, starting surprisingly sweet before reverting to type. Ah, grapefruit. Don't ever change.

8/10

Dec 23rd: Edinburgh Gin Plum And Vanilla

Piss OFF.

0/10

Dec 24th: Poetic License Fireside Gin

Well, merry FUCKING Chistmas. The gin advent calendar equivalent of a pair of ugly socks you already got for your birthday anyway.

Still, at least it means I can get this final post up before noon.

0/10

Gin And Bear It: 13th To 18th

Onward, to glory!

Dec 13th: 6 'o Clock Sloe Gin

Oh, that's weird. Inadvertently, we're immediately returning to the idea of how quickly I can get sick of a particular flavour of gin. Turns out, sloes don't bother me as much in consecutive slots as strawberries do with a week between them.

Is this an uncanny valley type thing? Like, give me a month between flavours and I'll have happily reset, and give me a day between flavours and I can determine the subtle distinctions between them. Stick 'em a week apart, and all I remember is my own review from the last time round.

Whatever the answer, this is sweeter than yesterday's sloe gin, and I appreciate the difference. After laughing maniacally at the deaths of doznes of berries, callously murdered so I could be faintly sarcastic about the aftertaste their broken, pulped bodies left in my mouth, I felt a tiny bit guilty. The sweetness of this gin lets me know the sloes got it. It's all good. It was a privilege for them to serve.

7/10

     

Dec 14th: Wilkin & Sons Rhubarb

This is a bit disappointing. I usually love rhubarb gin, but while you can definitely taste that flavour here, it's too far down in the mix. It's like you stirred a Gordons with a stick of rhubarb before tossing it away, mumbling about overdoses and poison and triangles. It's not bad, by any means, but it really should be better.

6/10

Dec 15th: The Lakes Sloe Gin Liqueur

Okay, this is maybe starting to feel a tiny bit lazy? Slow it down with all these sloes, I say, so very wittily.

I mean, it's not actually bad. I still can't tell the difference between a sloe gin and a sloe gin liqueur, but it tastes nice, and has a stronger mouthfeel than the last two sloe-related beverages.

I'm just starting to wonder whether it's been worth all the red juice on our hands.

7/10

Dec 16th: Edinburgh Gin Rhubarb And Ginger

I've had this before, I think? Not that it matters, because it's gorgeous. The rhubarb is just at the right height in the mix, slow-dancing with the juniper, rather than either cowering terrified in the corner of the disco or scaling the decks, demanding the DJ play a CD of their own mixes brought along from home. The ginger is more subtle, but lingers, warming you long after the initial burn of the alcohol has passed.

The perfect drink for winter, then. Or for people who don't hate pleasure. Either way. 

9/10

Dec 17th: Sweet Potato Lavender Gin

DAMN. I know lavender gin isn't for everyone. I know some people feel like they're sucking on alcoholic Palma Violets. Those people are wrong and are to be pitied, obviously, but they don't have to worry in any case. This is far sweeter than you'd expect form a lavender gin, with the floral elements quite far down in the mix. You feel less like you've raided a lush's candy store, and more like a honey bee with a taste for cocktails.

And who could resist feeling like that?

9/10

Dec 18th: Mason's Dry Yorksihe Gin: Tea Edition

Gin and tea: not just a terrible pun. I should work in advertising. You know, except for having a soul.

ANYWAY. The taste of this gin. No idea why this works, but it does. The tea in this is ludicrously powerful - you can smell it in the shot before it's gotten anywhere near your lips. And I guess you need that cut through something as powerful as gin is. Whatever the alchemy involved, it tastes great, and further links the gin and tonic to its heritage in British India. 

Which arguably just means this is just an artefact of British Imperialism flavoured with cultural appropriation but, y'know. Still fucking tasty.

8/10

Gin And Bear It: 7th To 12th

It's Stage Two of my attempt to drink my wway through a gin advent calendar as still retain the werwithal to describe what's going into my gullet at each stage.

Dec 7th: 6 o' Clock Damson Gin

6 o' Clock behind door number 7. See what they did there? I'm tempted to knock a point off on general principle. Any shitty jokes around here better be mine,

That'd be unfair, though. 6 o' Clock isn't a gin to set the boozer's world on fire, but it's pretty nice. Could do with more damson, I think, but I guess it isn't the distiller's fault that I haven't the slightest interest in subtlety. 7/10

Dec 8th: English Drinks Company Cucumber Gin

Sweet Bacchus, no. No, I cannot sign off on this. A slice of cucumber in a glass of Hendricks and tonic, that works. That's lovely. That's subtle. This is like drinking Gordon's from a hollowed-out cucumber, that is then hammered into my face by a mallet made of frozen cucumber which is then also hammered into my face.

To reiterate: no. 4/10

Dec 9th: Edinburgh Gin Plum and Vanilla

This is more like it! Not sure I've ever combined plum and vanilla before, even before you get to the juniper and ethanol, but it works beautifully - the kind of fuck-it-let's-have-pudding-AND-another-drink concoction that makes cocktails so satisfying. Nice colour, too.

8/10

Dec 10th: Whitley Neill Quince Gin

Confession time: I don't even know what quince is. I mean, I realise Google exists. I just prefer the mystery,

Whatever it is - I want so say some kind of pureed rodent organ? - it's very tasty. It's somewhat hard to discuss, though, since I've had this gin before, and also it tastes like nothing else that exists. Um... It's good? Yeah, that will do. Accuracy in reviews is important. DRINK THIS GIN. THIS GIN IS GOOD. REVIEW CONCLUDED.

7/10

Dec 11th: Poetic License Picnic Gin

Apparently, this is supposed to taste like peaches and cream. I could only taste the strawberries, which as previously mentioned already mixes with juniper and alcohol to taste like an energy drink for high-functioning alcoholics.

And I've done that once this Christmas already. I guess I'm like those film reviewers who knock a star off every time they see a car chase. I've drunk so much gin that what's nice is starting to mean what's original. Which I guess is a little depressing, but ultimately I can't get too worked up about the idea that I'm starting to not appreciat drinks that taste like vodka and Red Bull at seven times the price.

6/10

Dec 12th: Bramley & Gage Organic Sloe Gin

On the other hand, sloe gins still seem to be going down quit nicely, so I'm not sure what's going on. I guess it helps that this one is a little more tart than usual, like the berries involved resent you murdering them for their pulp just that little bit more. That's it, delicious juice-stuffed globes. Resent me as I consume you!

7/10

Gin And Bear It: 1st To 6th

So we bought a gin advent calendar this year, to compensate for the crushing sense of isolation and fulity that accompanies this Christmas (more than usual, I mean).

And since I'm drinking a gin a night, I ifgured I might as well do some reviews.

Dec 1st: Wilkin & Sons Raspberry Gin

Man, with the mouth-feel and everything? Also, raspberries, which are a fruit. Already a contender for best gin of the festive seaon. 8/10

      Dec 2nd: Malfey's Blood Orange Gn

This is less of a drink than a magic trick. It starts off tasting like citrus and victory, but halfway through you glance at what you're drinking, and it turns into dentist's mouthwash. Senses are weird, right? I am not a fan. 7/10

       Dec 3rd: Lavender Gin

I mean, OK? I can believe it tastes like lavender. I definitely needed to be hold, though. F, meanwhile, hates the taste of lavender, and says this tastes OK to her. Which I guess is a kind of a success. When the best you can say about a flavoured gin is that it isn't even flavoured enough to piss off people who explicitly dislike that particular taste, though, I'd argue there's something of an issue. 5/10

Dec 4th: Wilkin & Sons English Strawberry Gin

Whereas with this one, even the label is no help in trying to figure out what it actually tastes like. I *think* it most resembles an energy drink diluted with soda water. Which it turns out to not be an unpleasant experience, but still one that disappoints. 6/10

Dec 5th: Sweet Potato Orange Gin Liqueur

Fortunately, only the last 60% of the name actually describes what you're drinking. Sweet potato makes for miserable fries and mash that's essentially a hate crime. Imagining the blasphemous un-drink one could squeeze from rotting yams in defiance of all laws of God and Nature makes me feel physially sick.

So does the fact I really like this actually speak to its quality? Or am I just so relieved that this doesn't taste like some unholy mixture of cheap vodka and gone-off carrot juice that it couldn't help but clear the bar I've set for it? 7/10

Dec 6th: Wilkin & Sons English Strawberry Gin

Um, fuck you? 0/10

Booze Me Baby: Cherry Beer Edition

So I bought some cherry beer and drank it. Then I wrote down THOUGHTS and FEELINGS.

Liefman’s Fruitesse

The standard Belgian fruit beer against which all others are measured. Or they are for me, anyway, given they sell this both on campus and one of my most regular haunts in Birmingham. A nice balance of sweet and sour, and not too strong to make ordering it pints particularly inadvisable.

Mort Subite: Kriek Lambic

As sour as the word “lambic” suggests. But this is cherrytown, Jack. Sour is the currency we’re trading in here. It works well, is what I’m saying. Plus the wee cork makes me feel like a giant at a wedding each time I open up another bottle. Pop pop!

Timmerman’s Kriek

Delighted to learn that “Lambicus” is a thing that somehow exists. As fun as that name is, though, there's not much there. Well, OK, that's not fair. The "problen", emphasis on the """", is that I don't think I'd have any chance of distinguishing this from Leifmans if I were blindfolded, or distracted by a squirrel, or whatever.

But that's fine. Leifmans is good. But its also slightly stronger, so, you know. Doesn't feel like I need two of you, Lambicus.

Grisette Bio Fruits Des Bois

This is borderline undrinkable. Tastes like Ribena and backwash, diluted to an extent you could fairly call homeopathic. Serve only to your worst enemies, who are at your house for some reason.

 

 

Cherry Chouffe 

A bit darker and richer than the other offerings here. Also ludicrously strong, so be advised. It’s a good job the bottles have such a low centre of gravity, because I was gesticulating wildly within minutes. Best paired with a sense of creeping shame the next morning.

 

 

Sam Smith's Organic Cherry

I was semi-secretly hoping I'd hate this, given Sam Smiths pubs have gotten themselves a reputation recently for being hotbeds of bullshit ableism.

You can imagine my disappointment at how absolutely gorgeous this beer is, then. Like the ideal blind date for the worst man you've ever met, the sweet:tart ratio is almost perfect. It's light enough to go down easy, and not *quite* strong enough for that fact to be a danger to public health.

Thank Cthulhu that the name is total shit, then. BOO, Sam Smiths. BOO! You're an embarrassment! BOOOOOO!

A Tale Of Cocktails #60 (Easter Special)

Mini Egg Martini

Ingredients:

3 oz vodka
2 oz chocolate liqueur1 1/2oz Irish cream

Taste: 8
Look: 5
Cost: 7
Name: 6
Prep: 6
Alcohol: 7
Overall: 6.7

Preparation: Crush a few chocolate mini eggs with a pestle and mortar. Rub the rim of a glass with honey, and press into crushed mini eggs.  Shake all ingredients with ice and strain. Add more mini-egg pieces and serve.

General Comments: OK, so I guess it doesn't look great. Maybe I should've used a less runny honey; the visual impact of pieces of brown chunks sliding down the inside of your glass, leaving glistening yellow/brown trails, is not necessarily a feast for the eyes.

But it tastes absolutely great. The cocktail itself is sweet and thick, though not too thick thanks to the vodka. Add in the chocolate and the honey, though, and you end up with what can best be described as a boozy Toblerone smoothie. If that isn't your thing than I quite simply don't think this blog, or this planet, has anything to offer you. Indeed, if this thing has a weakness, it's that the vodka thins things out too much. I can easily imagine myself playing around with the mix to provide more delicious gloopiness.  Or at least, I could if it wasn't such a bloody pain to make in the first place.

(And yes, I realise it's more than a week too late for this to really be an Easter special. I was ill as balls over the actual holiday. I'm celebrating on behalf of all the bunnies that didn't get any fucking in during the first week of spring because they were tucked up in their beds having weird dreams about Marxist Gundam suits, or whatever the lagamorphic equivalent is of same.)

A Tale Of Cocktails #59

Brazilian Bellini

Ingredients:

4oz cava
1oz cachaca
2 oz passion fruit juice
1 tsp sugar

Taste: 5
Look: 6
Cost: 9
Name: 7
Prep: 7
Alcohol: 3
Overall: 7.2

Preparation: Combine all non-sparkly ingredients and stir. Add the cava, very slowly otherwise it will react with the sugar and overflow. Add quarter of a passion fruit as garnish and serve.

General Comments: I think really this should use passion fruit syrup rather than juice plus sugar, but the final result is pretty similar, just a bit less thick and a lot easier to source. Whether you want to source it is another matter, of course; as is so often the case with cocktails containing cachaca, the best thing you can really say about its inclusion here is that it doesn't do too much damage to the taste. Cachaca is even worse than vodka in this regard; you don't add it to drinks to improve them, you do it to get rid of cachaca you've somehow ended up with if you find the smell too unpleasant when using it to scour your floors. [1]

Still, the passion fruit is nice (though the chunk floating towards your face each time to take a drink is a little disconcerting), and its low-level tartness is offset by the sugar. Bubbles, as usual, are fun and ticklish, and the whole thing is pretty cheap. Really, though, there's nothing here to recommend this over other sparking white-based cocktails, especially since it's a little more hassle than most.

[1] I should really note here that we only have cachaca because some friends of ours were ludicrously generous and brought a bottle of it to one of our cocktail parties (which are rather more free-form and shouty than that phrase typically implies: dress code is casual/vomit-stained). They weren't to know I would take so utterly against it, and we remain grateful for any and all additions to our booze supply AKA the Magic Cupboard.

A Tale Of Cocktails #58

Bramble

Ingredients:

1 1/2oz gin
1/2 oz creme de cassis
3/4 oz lemon juice
1 tsp sugar syrup

Taste: 5
Look: 7
Cost: 9
Name: 8
Prep: 6
Alcohol: 6 (For, like, twenty seconds)
Overall:  6.7

Preparation: Combine ingredients and stir. Fill glasses with crushed ice and pour in mixture.

General Comments: I've never been a fan of drinks that require you to fill a glass with crushed ice, and this hasn't changed my mind. Every time I get a drink like this I either have to drink it at extreme speed (not the best idea given its high alcohol content) or experience the cocktail getting worse with every sip as the ice melts and dilutes the taste.

Not that the taste is all that amazing to begin with; it's basically a French 75 with a blackcurrant twist replacing the fizz. Which isn't a bad idea, really, but combined with the surfeit of ice the switch leaves you with a flat, almost dead drink, neither tasty enough to chug nor worth the effort of savouring, even beyond the issue with the ice. It's also a pain to make if like me you don't have sugar syrup or crushed ice to hand. Really the ice is only there to lessen the impact of the alcohol; I'm wondering whether replacing the ice and syrup with lemonade wouldn't both improve the drink and simplify its prep. Still, this is the recipe the BBC gave me. Looks like its grotesque conservative bias isn't its only idea for making the world worse.

On the other hand, as my northern friend observed, at least it's named after a bramble and not one of those shitty southern blackberries. So at least it gets a mild spike in score for some petty jingoism.  That's a nice note to end on.

A Tale Of Cocktails #57

Blue Hawaiian

Ingredients:

2oz white rum
1oz blue curacao
2oz pineapple juice
1oz coconut cream

Taste: 6
Look: 7
Cost: 8
Name: 6
Prep: 6
Alcohol: 5
Overall: 6.5

Preparation:  Add crushed ice to ingredients and put it through a blender. Add cherry and pineapple garnish and serve.

General Comments: What a difference a shade makes.

Obviously, this should be called Aunt Beru's Blue Milk.  No wonder Luke was so tetchy on Tatooine; the poor bastard must have been constantly hungover. But you can see why she was so into it; this is fairly tasty. It's much sweeter than its Casablanca cousin, which helps the pineapple settle in with the coconut cream. The thickness now feels much more reasonable too; it really does taste like a shake now, rather than some abominable "health" drink designed to suck your will to have fun. The only way this is a step down from its predecessor is it's slightly less interesting name, though I can hardly deny its appropriateness, at least at the stereotypical level which is all I have the knowledge to consider.

Anyway, tasty, even if I suspect that were I actually in Hawaii, this might be too thick of a drink to really cool me down.

A Tale Of Cocktails #56

Casablanca

Ingredients:

3oz white rum
4oz pineapple juice
2oz coconut cream
Dash grenadine

Taste: 3
Look: 7
Cost: 8
Name: 7
Prep: 6
Alcohol: 4
Overall: 5.6

Preparation:  Add crushed ice to ingredients and put it through a blender. Add cherry and pineapple garnish and serve.

General Comments: Well, this is awful. Just a pina colada - which I'm already not much of a fan of - with coconut cream replacing the milk, making the whole thing thick and cloying and savoury; just this big lumpen boring mess. A milkshake for self-flagellating alcoholics, or for deep-sea divers wanting something to reduce buoyancy whilst they tipsily search through shipwrecks. The fact that it looks so tasty and creamy just makes things worse; presumably the cocktail umbrella is for scraping the vile mess from the insides of your throat so you can breathe and feel joy once more.

It doesn't even taste nice out of my nice new seasonal goblets.

A Tale Of Cocktails #55

El Diablo

Ingredients:

2oz tequila
3/4oz creme de cassis
1oz lime juice
ginger beer

Taste: 7
Look: 6
Cost: 8
Name: 9
Prep: 8
Alcohol: 3
Overall: 7.1

Preparation:  Shake all non-fizzy ingredients, pour into iced-filled glasses and top with ginger beer.

General Comments: Hail Satan!

What with the most wonderful time of the year rapidly heading towards us, Fliss and I decided to seek out an appropriately themed cocktail. Unfortunately, most of what we found we didn't have the ingredients for (having not yet fully replaced the stock used up at our last ludicrously debauched cocktail soiree-cum-orgy), but we were able to slap together this thing.

I'm not much of a fan of ginger beer, and I actively dislike tequila, so hopes here were decidedly not high. And yet this really does work. The ginger beer takes the edge of the tequila, and the lime in turn prevents the ginger from going too far, as well as limiting the sweetness from the creme de cassis, which is doubtless good news for those who find my usual cocktail choices too sugary. The end result is a cocktail that should kick in about four different directions, but, like some clever trick of Newtonian physics, ends up perfectly balanced.  And with a kick-ass name, too.

Hail Satan!

A Tale Of Cocktails #54

Henley Skullfucker

Ingredients:

1 bottle of Smirnoff Ice
1/2 pint of cider
50ml Pimms
35ml gin
35ml grenadine
50ml lemonade
50ml soda water

Taste: 7
Look: 7
Cost: 6
Name: 9
Prep: 7
Alcohol: 2
Overall: 6.5

Preparation:  Mix all ingredients together into a jug, add orange and lemon slices, and serve. Serves four. Well, it makes four cocktails. How many that serves is none of my business.

General Comments: This absolutely shouldn't in any sense work. The ingredients list looks like it was compiled at random from a dipsomaniac's wheelie bin. But somehow it's actually really pleasant. Everything shows up in the taste, and nothing overwhelms. The basic refreshing hit of the Pimms is still there, but the grenadine adds a touch of sharp sweetness and the cider adds depth even though it really shouldn't. Plus it takes no skill to make, and with an alcohol content equal to strong beer, you can safely drink it in some volume whilst outside on a hot day. Not that we did drink whilst outside on a hot day; we drank it on a cool evening while yelling at the television. But I assume the experience is transferable.

Plus, I love that name. Nuts to your Slippery Nipples/Sex on the Beaches.  If you want to give a cocktail a sex-name with some chest hair, you go the full Ostrogoth.

(Apologies to any actual Ostrogoths in the audience if I am misrepresenting your people. For all I know the Ostros of Gothia were best known for their skills at flower-arranging and for inventing the barbershop quartet. Skull-fucking might have been at most a passing trend.)

A Tale Of Cocktails #53

Puppet On A String

Ingredients:

1 oz vodka
1/4 oz hazelnut liqueur
5oz pear juice
1/4 lemon juice
Peeled pear

Taste: 7
Look: 5
Cost: 8
Name: 7
Prep: 6
Alcohol: 2
Overall: 6.2

Preparation:  Peel pear, then peel strips from the flesh and cover them with the lemon juice. Shake the alcohol with ice and strain into glass. Add pear juice and lemon-soaked pears and serve.

General Comments: It occurs to me that that score might be a little harsh. This isn't actually a bad drink. But it doesn't come by its quality honestly. It piggy-backs on memories, conjuring up the feeling of eating hot spiced pears at the end of a winter meal. That's clearly cheating,  On top of which, it takes some effort to make, it's pretty weak, and whilst I appreciate the name's Eurovision reference as much as the next man, it doesn't make much sense beyond the pear peelings being a bit string-ish in a way maybe.

So harsh, yes, but fair. Like the Tories. Except for the fair bit, obviously. Also, this review isn't an array of guffawing murderous shit-bags.

I may be wandering off the point a bit. Um, drinks. Drinks are good. I like drinks. They do some small good at numbing the pain.

A Tale Of Cocktails #52

Screwed Banana

Ingredients

1oz creme de banane
1oz peach schnapps
4oz orange juice

Taste: 7
Look: 5
Cost: 9
Name: 8
Prep: 9
Alcohol: 2
Overall: 6.8

Preparation:  Fill hi-ball glass halfway with ice. Add ingredients and serve.

General Comments: Apparently you're supposed to stir this, but I don't hold with such nonsense. If you stir it you spread the creme de banane through the whole drink; far better to let it pool at the bottom and let this get steadily thicker and sweeter as you go.  Oddly, this also has the effect of making the first half of this drink almost indistinguishable from pineapple juice, albeit with some of the tartness replaced with alcohol.

That's a trade-off I, at least, am prepared to make. As to other factors; well, it's a bit dull to look at, and it's not very strong. On the other hand, it's the work of seconds to make, and I love the name, which combines standard pointless cocktail filth with a play on "screwdriver", the vodka and orange combination this beats into the rancid mashed potatoes it always was.

A Tale Of Cocktails #51

Eggnog 

Ingredients

1oz whisky
1oz rum
5oz milk
2oz cream
1 egg yolk
60g Sugar
Pinch cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
Pinch nutmeg

Taste: 6
Look: 6
Cost: 8
Name: 7
Prep: 2
Alcohol: 2
Overall:  5.7

Preparation:  Beat egg yolks until light and fluffy, whilst adding sugar a little at a time. Heat milk, cinnamon and nutmeg until near boiling. Add to egg yolks and whisk furiously. Add mixture to remaining milk, stirring continuously over heat until it thickens. Remove from heat and stir in cream. Leave to cool for one hour, then add in alcohol and vanilla essence. Then chill.

General Comments: DO NOT DRINK THIS WARM! Don't make the same mistake we did. Warm egg nog tastes like risotto thrown into a blender. I have an almost unhealthy love for risotto, but even I realise that it should only be served al dente, not fluid.

Drunk when sufficiently chilled, however, and with enough nutmeg, this isn't too bad. It's sweet and thick and creamy, which is always a good combination, though it tastes so bad when warm I can't help wondering why people bother with it at Christmas. Really though, it's nothing above average, and considering the quite ridiculous level of preparation required to get it into my belly, I submit we all have better things we could be doing, or at least pummelling our internal organs with more readily assembled drinks.

A Tale Of Cocktails #50

Lemon Raspberry Fizz

Ingredients

8 oz champagne
2 oz limoncello
Raspberries

Taste: 7
Look: 7
Cost: 7
Name: 5
Prep: 7
Alcohol: 5
Overall: 6.6

Preparation: Place three crushed ice cubes in a champagne glass along with the raspberries. Mix the champagne with limoncello from  the freezer and pour into the glass.

General Comments: This is the most dangerous type of cocktail, one that reminds you of a drink from childhood. Well, not a drink, exactly; one of those lemonade ice lollies I used to tear through on the days we'd run out of Mars Bar ice-creams. But then, they were always best when they were on the verge of melting, so it was never far from being a drink, not if you timed it right. As wonderful as they were, though, I always had the sneaking suspicion they could be fairly cheaply replicated at home, thereby freeing me forever from the terrifying thought that this time I'd be too late and the electronic "Greensleeves" remix would recede whilst I was still busy wheedling a fifty pence piece from my harassed mother.

And lookit! Turns out you can, indeed, generate this stuff domestically (sorry it took 28 years to work that out, mum).  With alcohol, no less. There's even raspberries in there for a nice snack once the cocktail is done, though the champagne and limoncello make the fruit rather bitter.  Nothing wrong with that in moderation, obviously, and whilst the vagaries of fate led to me trying this in the depths of winter, it's not hard to imagine this being a smart choice when the sun decides to kick off its next brief tour of the country.

A Tale Of Cocktails #49

Sex in the Water

Ingredients

1 1/2 oz blue curacao
3/4 oz vodka
3/4 oz peach Schnapps
8 oz lemonade

Taste: 7
Look: 6  
Cost: 9
Name: 6
Prep: 8
Alcohol: 2
Overall: 6.7

Preparation: Pour ingredients into collins glass one after another, then add ice, and a lemon slice to garnish.

General Comments:You don't call it "Sex in the Water", obviously. It's "SEEEEEX! IN THE WAAAR-DUH!" in one's best Ian Gillan bellow, a fact which makes this cocktail's name fully two points better than that of its cousin, the unbearably named "Sex on the Beach".

Alas, the brief amusement had by bellowing this drink's name is probably the most fun you'll be having with it.  It's not that it's bad, by any means.  It's sweet and bubbly, and everything works perfectly fine together (though if you're not careful it's easy to overdo the lemonade and drown the other flavours), but it lacks the bite of say, the cranberry juice in a Woo Woo. There's an obvious void here which is just a little bit frustrating.

A Tale Of Cocktails #48

Easter Bunny

Ingredients

1 1/2 oz crème de cacao
1/2 oz vodka
1 teaspoon chocolate syrup
1 teaspoon cherry liqueur

Taste: 8
Look: 6  
Cost: 7
Name: 8
Prep: 7
Alcohol: 8
Overall: 7.3 

Preparation: Shake all ingredients over ice and pour.

General Comments: Well, this is rather tasty. The vodka is perhaps a little heavy in the mix, but the various chocolate flavours still come through easily, and the sweetness of the syrup offsets any sourness from the cherry liqueur.  Like all the best chocolate cocktails, this is almost as easy to imagine as a dessert sauce as a drink, though the fact this includes chocolate syrup renders that observation rather redundant.

But yeah, tasty drink.  I like the name as well, too, as it combines the two best elements of Easter; the pre-Christian celebration of spring (cherry blossoms) and the post-Christian celebration of far too much chocolate.

A Tale Of Cocktails #47

Mel's Swing

Ingredients

1 oz Midori
1 oz crème de cassis
4 oz grapefruit juice

Taste: 4
Look: 4  
Cost: 8
Name: 6
Prep: 8
Alcohol: 3
Overall: 5.3

Preparation: Shake all ingredients over ice and pour.

General Comments: Dear me, no.  There's an art to get sweetness and sourness working together, and it takes more than adding something ridiculously syrupy to something sour.  Rather than working together the crème de cassis and the grapefruit juice create some kind of hideous comment on Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle; you can't identify the mediocre sourness without losing it in cloying syrup, and vice versa. Occasionally the midori shines through, presumably as an attempt to apologise, but it's nowhere near enough.

Oh, and it looks terrible too. Avoid.