Cocktail Tasting With the Unusual

Suspects

By Mme Dubonnet

Greetings darlings! With winter officially gone and spring heating things up, what better time to start planning little parties to celebrate! It’s not quite sangria season, but surely a few cocktails are in order to ease the time until summer vacations.

Our mission was to raid the sevvies and Carrefours and see what fabulous little treats we could mix up for a cocktail tasting.

But first, some background on the cocktail. A little research reveals that no one really knows how the word cocktail originated. Some say some bar somewhere ran out of swizzle sticks and opted to use a feather (a cock’s tail??) to mix and decorate the drinks and so people would know it had alcohol in it.

Seriously?
Something pulled out of a rooster’s what?
That can’t be right.

Others think it has to do with the tail ends of casks of spirits, which didn’t taste as nice as the rest of the casks and were mixed together and offered at dis count prices.

That doesn’t sound very tasty either….

Another account that is much more fun suggests that cocktails were morning drinks (yay!). They were meant to be the hair of the dog, maybe mixed a little lighter than their evening counterparts, to help straighten you out after a rough one. They were named after the rooster presumably because of the pounding head that both give you in the morning. There now, don’t you feel better about morning drinkipoos?

They’ve been doing it for ages!

Seems most cocktails were made from gin, whiskey, or rum, and that vodka is the new kid on the block, having only really arrived on the popular drink scene in the 70’s and 80’s. Purists won’t concede that vodka and vermouth is a martini, instead referring to it as a vodkatini or a kangaroo.

Another interesting little tidbit: apparently said purists also never shake a martini. This is purely an invention of Ian Fleming of James Bond fame. Funny thing, seems that shaking the booze “bruises” it, i.e. causes it to change colour because of air being infused in the shaking process, plus all the little bits of ice that get crushed up in there and water down your drink. We don’t want that, do we?

The proper way to make a (gin!) martini is to stir it with ice in a glass cocktail shaker, because even using a metal shaker can taint the taste of a proper martini.

Oh dear! All these rules and protocols! Who knew getting your tipples on could be so treacherous! And so, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the drinks!

A few words of advice when planning this sort of do: get organized, get your recipes, glasses, mixers and spirits all ready, clean your place or at least dim the lighting appropriately, invite fabulous and witty people and you’re off!

Best regards, santé!

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