🍹 drinkie poo - just a few things i drank on the trip 🍹

unicorn mimosa at hope breakfast bar in edina, minnesota

bloody mary with a beer sidecar at the lowry in minneapolis

exsw margarita with tahin rim at palma, phoenix

desert cactus margarita and blood orange margarita with tahin rim at papi gordo's, arcadia neighborhood, phoenix

cold brew coffee at hula's modern tiki, phoenix

a very spicy bloody mary at hula's modern tiki in phoenix

mango margarita at hula's modern tiki, phoenix

pickle bloody mary at the attic, arcadia neighborhood, phoenix

board & bottle at the original postino's in phoenix's arcadia neighborhood

cider flight at six byrd cider co. in phoenix's arcadia neighborhood

oyster shots at casey's moore's in tempe on my birthday

so many great happy hour experiences. not pictured - whole bottle of bubbles at sun bar for bunch on my birthday, all the starbucks drinks i got - the blackberry sage refresha with coconut milk was so yummy, a black & tan at casey moore's on st. paddy's day and loads of bubbles at ruby's parents' house in scottsdale on sunday. 

if this was indeed my last trip to the us (which i consciously thought about the whole time i was there), at least it was a good one. 

a to å challenge : d is for drinking

i've had this post open for hours. i've had a hard time deciding what "d" is for. is it death? divided? downpour? depressed? diamonds? downward facing dog? i know it's not a regular dog, since i'm a cat person. and then it hit me...drinking. (i had to use this photo because it includes both a cocktail and a cat, which, i realize, both start with c, not d.) 

back when i got my first job in denmark, i remember being very surprised that there was beer at lunch in the canteen for those who wanted it. it was next to cokes and fizzy water and milk and people did occasionally take one. of course, i was surprised there was a canteen at all, since in the states, we'd go out and grab some lunch somewhere, but in denmark, it's very normal that there is a work canteen and that you pop down with your colleagues, eat lunch, talk and then go back to work, taking about 30 minutes together to eat. alas beers in the canteen are no longer the norm (not that i ever recall taking one). but, even still, in general, danes have a very relaxed attitude towards alcohol.

the same cannot be said of norwegians. i've been doing photoshoots of late and have had to work around a norwegian law that mandates that norwegians cannot even see alcohol in an advertisement. apparently it's too dangerous for them. so even photos of a wine or whisky tasting have to feature empty glasses, leaving the alcohol to the imagination.

and i would maintain that that just makes things worse. like with teenagers, the thing you forbid is the most attractive. so when norwegians get access to alcohol at reasonable prices, they go a little crazy. much like south dakota teenagers on a saturday night when someone of age has bought them some beer and they sit in their cars(!) drinking it.

here in denmark, we also have a relaxed attitude to young people and alcohol. the drinking age is 18 (to buy alcohol), but most young people drink at parties long before that and to be honest, it's their parents buying it for them. as i see it, this is a good thing, because then you know how much the kid has and where it's come from. there are these shots that are very popular "the small sour" they're called - they come in a variety of flavors and although they are ostensibly vodka-based, they are only 16% alcohol (rather than the usual 40% vodka boasts) and they, along with soda-sweet ciders, are what the young people want to drink at their parties. frankly, they are foul and i think they serve to put the young people off alcohol more than encouraging them to drink more.

interestingly, the relaxed attitude towards alcohol seems to make the young people more sensible about it. it's not forbidden and therefore much less attractive. we are always more compelled by the things we cannot have. 

* * *

i do not buy this argument that the way the rest of the friends treated ross signaled the beginning of the end of western civilization. ross was an annoying, mopey, whiny git from the first episode. he was the least appealing friend and quite frankly, he wasn't that intelligent. i never bought him as a paleontology professor.

* * *

and on that note, has the art world also gone to hell in a handbasket?

* * *

j.k. rowling's twitter is putting people off her work.

* * *

on motherhood and the hard truths of messy, wonderful, full lives.
"When we lay our struggles and our worst selves bare, we help others feel less alone.
It takes a village to help us retain our sense of self."

i think i needed to read that sentence today in light of my revision to this post.

gin soaked

i found a new premium gin today - it's called whitley neill. i hadn't heard of it before, but i was won over in a second when it said "inspired by africa. made in england." because we all know how much i love cape town. on top of that, they give 5p from each bottle to tree aid, so you might even say it's green gin. it has a spiciness that's different from the coolness of usual gin. a cinnamony ginger undertone. it's absolutely perfect with my homemade tonic.

because yes, i made tonic! i followed this recipe. i had to order cinchona bark powder. i was very pleased with the quality (as little as i know about it as of yet, but there's no bitterness that some of the comments complained of, so i interpret it as good quality) and how quickly healthy village sent it. one pound of it will last me a long time, so i'm pleased with it. homemade tonic ends up rather reddish in color because of the cinchona bark, but once i strained it (several times through coffee filters), it got quite clear, even tho' it was still red. it's just something we have to get used to.

and it's so delicious that it's easy to get used to. we served it to guests the day we made it and they wanted a second cocktail, so it must have been good. and the slightly stronger taste is really gorgeous with the whitley neill gin.

the gin blog recommends trying it with honey, so that's next on the list, since, as you know, we have our own honey (45 kilos we recently harvested!). 

cheers!

friday cocktails

wine during the week, but cocktails on the weekend.

it's friday. at last. and although it's dreary outside and raining and it's only about 8:30 a.m., i find my thoughts turning to cocktails. friday will do that to you. it's the end of a long week and on friday evening, you feel you've earned a little drinky pooh. or at least you do if you're me and even if you spent most of the week in your pajamas in front of the internet. that can be hard work too. tho' i didn't spend my week like that this week, what with the gainful employment and all. but now back to the cocktails.

i surprised a twitter friend the other day by knowing that the smoky whisky she was tasting was an islay. i think she was surprised because girls don't usually know that stuff, do they? whisky tends to be a man's drink. but i do know my islays and have a couple of different laphroigs, an ardbeg, a bowmore and a lagavulin or two in my liquor cabinet. i love that smoky, almost lapsang souchong element that the islays have.

at our house, i tend to like the usual boy's drinks and husband tends towards the girly ones. he recently polished of a bottle of thickly sweet peach schnapps that our neighbor brought back from turkey. whereas i'm much more likely to sip a hendrik's gin & tonic with a thin slice of cucumber in it. husband likes the hendrik's too (who wouldn't, it is the best gin ever and loved by a small handful of people, all over the world), but he mixes it with schweppes lemon (oh the horror!).

he's also likely to commit the blasphemy of mixing the 8-year-old bacardi, which should just be sipped on its own, like a fine whisky, with cocio, a chocolate milk product we have in denmark. again with the horror. and the girliness. and i won't even go into the abuse of alcohol that he committed one day with the beautiful patron that extranjera brought to blog camp. i guess i should be grateful that husband is so in touch with his masculinity that he's not afraid to indulge in feminine drinks, but sometimes i do wish that when we sat gazing into the fire on a friday evening, he would join me in a glenmorangie, rather than sipping bailey's. oh well, he's a keeper anyway, so i guess i'm off to stock up on drinks umbrellas for fruity cocktails.

what cocktail is on the agenda at your house tonight?

singapore sling

this is a singapore sling:

it only looks good in this tiny version, but i thought this poster version of it, which i found on google images, fit tangobaby's romantic notion of it as a retro drink, which it surely is. i've had one at the long bar (on my first trip to singapore lo so many moons ago), but didn't want to order one just in order to photograph it, as it's a bit sweet for me. tho' it contains gin and is sometimes called a singapore gin sling and we do know that i adore gin. however, it's just a bit too fruity.

it was invented sometime between 1910 and 1915 by a guy named Ngiam Tong Boon at the Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel. it contains gin, cherry brandy and benedictine. it's a tad fizzy, so i think it also must contain some club soda or perhaps even 7-Up, but the recipe i read in some visitor's guide didn't really say that. it's always got a big bunch of fruit slices on the side and is served in a glass much like the one in the picture above. unless you get it on singapore airlines, in which case it's in a smaller more airline-y glass.

don't say i never teach you anything here on moments of perfect clarity. :-)