Showing posts with label brandy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brandy. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

#22. Brandy Cocktail

This isn't even really a cocktail. Brandy, plus two dashes each syrup and Angostura bitters. Do you like brandy? I don't. Do you like brandy when it's been barely modified with the faintest whisper of bitters and sugar? No? You think it basically tastes exactly the same as straight brandy, only colder, because you shook it with ice?

Yes. That's what I also think. I need more tail in my cocktail. This just lingers in your mouth, with a super-strong, hot, alcohol taste that's just too strong for it to taste like anything. I feel like this sort of drink is the booze equivalent of putting way too much wasabi on your sushi. It's fun, but at a certain point, it just tastes like wasabi, and you forget that any other tastes were involved. (I'm assuming you're drunk when you're eating the sushi. That's why you're so forgetful. It's only fair that you be drunk when you eat the sushi, like I'm drunk now, so that the phenomena are equivalent.)

I want to say that this might be a drink you'd like if you really liked brandy, but on second thought, if you were a brandy connoisseur, you wouldn't put up with your brandy being adulterated, so this drink is for no one.

I chose it because I'm drinking alone, and I like saving the stuff that seems like it could actually be good for when friends are around. When you're drinking alone, you shouldn't drink anything too tasty. That makes it too fun. Drinking alone needs to be a little unpleasant. Just to be safe. For safety.


Friday, August 20, 2010

#20. Phoebe Snow

Phoebe Snow? Who's that, you say? Well, according to wikipedia, she's an American singer, born in 1952, far too late to have Ensslin name a cocktail after her in 1917. So maybe she's named after the cocktail?

Also according to wikipedia, she was originally a character in adverts for rail travel, starting in 1900, so that's probably where the drink actually originated. It's 1:1 Dubonnet to brandy, with a little absinthe.

Not bad. My friend, he of the Maker's Mark, I think called it the worst thing ever, but he laughed so I'm not convinced he meant it.

I don't know anything about brandy, so the brandy I got is probably horrible, so my Phoebe Snow is probably inferior to yours. But, the Dubonnet again proved itself a lovely, mellow mixer, and I like absinthe no matter what anyone says. So, Phoebe Snow gets a pass. I probably won't make it again, but it's not bad.