Can't Win Every Time...

The tricky thing about cocktails is there are so many of them. I bet there was a time when books full of cocktail recipes weren't all that common, except behind a commercial bar, but that is a time long past. Today, there is no shortage of resources for anyone looking to whip up a few stout drinks. A quick search for "cocktail recipe book" on Amazon.com leads to 4,184 results, over five hundred of which were published in the last year. That's a lot of cocktails. Add in the thousands of apps, websites, blogs, and junk-you-wish-would-quit-popping-up-in-your-Facebook-feed, and the net result is a vast landscape of delectable, distilled distractions for even the most disquisitive dilettante. (Blogging Pro-Tip: Alliteration is endearing; calling attention to it, less-so.)

My point is: we really are spoiled for choice these days. It is the perfect time to start exploring cocktails, because the possibilities are nearly endless. I considered writing a blog post describing all of the different places I look to find new cocktails, but I'm not sure it would be that enlightening. You could probably guess most of it without any hints. 

No, seriously. Go on... Try it. 

Close your eyes and guess.

I'll wait.

...

Did you guess "some kind of book" and/or "Google"? If so, congratulations. I knew you could do it.

So I'm not going to write a blog post about all the different places I look for cocktails, but I do want to highlight one book, in particular. Partially because this week's cocktail comes from this book, but primarily because it is a major contributor to my obsession with mixed drinks.

Written by the apparently-legendary Jim Meehan (I say "apparently" because I'd never heard of him, but I'm like Jon Snow in this equation) and documenting the impressive selection of cocktails available at the Please Don't Tell speakeasy in New York City, the PDT Cocktail Book is a treasure trove of tempting titillations and tasty treats to tickle your taste buds. It's not always an easy book to mix from, due to how crazy and obscure the ingredients can be, but it is a heck of a lot of fun. Even better, it has a companion app that tracks your bar inventory, tells you what you can make with what you have on-hand, and even suggests the next bottle you should buy to best improve your selection. That latter feature is a real killer for someone like me, with a collector's mentality. I never really played Pokemon (except for the 17 minutes that Pokemon Go was popular), but in the case of weird booze, I evidently gotta catch 'em all. Thank you, Mr. Meehan, for that large bottle of saffron liqueur sitting at the back of my liquor cabinet wondering if it will ever be used again.

The flip side of all this experimenting is that not all cocktails can be winners. Whether classic, contemporary, experimental, or avant garde, there are drinks I will try that I will regret. It is inevitable (and, let's be honest, not really all that surprising--my inexperienced palate is about as refined as a bag of Cheetos). But, I've decided not to limit this blog only to cocktails I enjoy or would want to recommend. My intent is to document my journey, and it would be an incomplete diary if I hid the missteps that are bound to occur along the way. Plus, learning from mistakes is a thing.

Which leads us to this week's cocktail:

The Drink:  Purple Rain

Ingredients Used:

• Wild Turkey 101 proof Kentucky Straight Bourbon - 1.5 oz
• Madeira - 0.75 oz
• Rothman & Winter Creme de Violette - 0.5 oz
• Lemon Juice - 0.5 oz
• Pineapple Juice - 0.5 oz

Recipe Courtesy of:   PDT Cocktails Companion App, Jim Meehan, 2013

I had two reasons I wanted to try the Purple Rain cocktail. First and foremost, though I'm not a big fan of Wild Turkey bourbon, I bought a very large jug of it last November to use as a base for homemade bitters, and I wanted to find some bourbon cocktails to finish off the bottle (which means I was already in the kind of mindset where you make weird casseroles to empty your pantry and fridge). Second, I wanted something very colorful for the blog this week. In my last two posts, I shared cocktails that are quite distinct in character and flavor but look very similar. To anyone just visiting the blog for the pictures (ha!), it might even look like I featured the same drink two weeks in a row. Something clear, over ice, with lime.  

When I ran across the Purple Rain while flipping through PDT Cocktails, I knew I had what I was looking for. Bourbon base, check. Colorful, very. Just look at the recipe photo:

More red than purple, maybe, but that is an attractive drink! I wasn't really sure how the listed ingredients could possibly combine to make such a rich red-violet color, but I assumed the magic was in the mix. After all, the cocktail calls for Creme de Violette to help achieve its wonderful color, and that is a very purple ingredient:

Creme de Violette is an interesting liqueur. I bought it for the Aviation cocktail, but this week's cocktail is the only other place I've used it. It has a strong, floral violet flavor, which is odd, but it is nonetheless very appealing. My wife described it as "soap you would want to drink."  

Without a color wheel handy, I decided to trust Mr. Meehan and take the dive. Maybe brown + brown + yellow + violet = purple?

The Prep:

The Purple Rain is another simple drink to mix. All ingredients are added together to a cocktail shaker with ice, then shaken vigorously. Once shaken, strain into a chilled coupe glass and garnish with a brandied cherry (such as Luxardo's).

I shared the most important tip regarding cocktail shaking last week (i.e., smiling for your guests and looking cool), but maybe you're wondering why some cocktails are shaken and some aren't? Thanks to James Bond, everyone in the world knows cocktails can be shaken, or they can be stirred. I'm not sure why spies like to muddy up their martinis by shaking them, but here's the basic rule of thumb: If the cocktail has fruit juices or opaque ingredients, it is generally shaken; if it has only clear ingredients and no juices, it is generally stirred. Shaking the cocktail introduces a lot of air and will froth up the drink, and this is desirable for cocktails with juice. Conversely, clear, non-juice cocktails are best stirred because they maintain their clarity--both in appearance and texture. 

You may also hear people suggest that shaking a martini can "bruise" the gin, but I don't know anything about that. It adds a lot of bubbles and makes the drink less clear, but I've never tried a shaken martini that tasted like it was hurt. As far as I know my gins are completely healthy, and they've been shaken a lot. 

One more quick tip, while we're here: You may notice in the picture above that my cocktail glass is filled with ice. The Purple Rain cocktail is not served over ice, but it is still a good idea to leave some ice in your cocktail glass while you are mixing the ingredients. Pre-chilling the glass does wonders to keep your drink cold once poured, and most cocktails are intended to be enjoyed as cold as possible. Just drop some ice cubes into your glass before you start measuring and mixing your cocktail, and when you're ready to pour, drop the ice back into your ice bin. This will give you a nice, chilly glass with very little time or effort:

Some folks buy chillers for their glassware (which sounds excessive but awesome), but you can achieve the same results by using ice or popping the glasses in the freezer pre-pour. 

The Verdict:

Ah, so all of this sounds wonderful. Tasty ingredients, a colorful goal, a nice, chilly glass. Should have been perfect--what could possibly go wrong? 

Well, I invite you to look once again at Mr. Meehan's beautiful picture above, bask in that deep, red glow, recall my goal of coming up with something equally bright and colorful... and then, take a good long look at what came pouring out of my cocktail shaker:

  

... er, yuck.

Witness the reality of the Purple Rain. Far from the sexy, scarlet sip suggested by Mr. Meehan, the concoction I ended up with was more of a greenish-gray funk. Less "Purple Rain" and more "Actual Rain." Not exactly a good look (note my valiant attempts to add color by swapping the brandied cherry for a lemon wedge and using a purple-jeweled pick).

I am not entirely sure where this went wrong, but I actually did make it twice to confirm I hadn't screwed something up. I don't know why I thought doing the exact same thing twice would yield different results, especially since I already knew brown + brown + yellow + [really pretty much anything] would never = red or purple, but I tried it again, anyway. Same results. 

This is a seriously ugly drink, folks. Thoroughly unappealing. In fairness, I will point out that the PDT Cocktail Book does specify very particular ingredients for this one, including Blandy's Rainwater Madeira, Maker's Mark bourbon, and Creme Yvette (instead of Creme de Violette). But in my defense, the PDT companion app suggested all of my substitutions, and I'm not convinced a couple of different brands would have had much effect on the color of this drink. Especially not when one of those ingredients is actually called "Rainwater." 

The good news is the drink isn't really that bad, once you get past its looks. The combo of the pineapple and lemon juice makes it very acidic, and the lemon is right up on top of the palate, but it tastes okay. The Creme de Violette is completely lost, and I suspect it was just added for the color (hard fail), but the bourbon comes through as the backbone of the drink. If you like bourbon cocktails, this one might be worth a look. It is not a cocktail that really makes whisky shine (unlike next week's feature), but it's not awful. My biggest problem with it is it looks like I should wash dishes in it. 

Rainforest Expedition

Welcome to blog post #3, folks! Where the new and shiny has barely worn off, but the looming specter of consistent content begins to take shape. Considering a third post makes me realize there is still a lot I need to figure out. The first week was easy, since it was really just an introduction, and the second week followed suit with more background material and a really simple cocktail favorite. But, where to go from there?

The biggest decision I need to make is how to choose a cocktail for each week's entry. Do I go with a progression--i.e., start simple (check!) and then gradually increase in complexity from there? Or, do I focus on cocktails with the same base for a few posts before moving on to a different spirit? Do I make my choices really topical or focus on the calendar--seasonal cocktails, holiday cocktails, etc.? (Valentine's Day strikes me as a fantastic jumping off point for choosing a cocktail to write about, for example. And Valentine's Day is tomorrow. It's just too bad I'm not organized enough to have figured that out in time for this week's blog post.)

Alas, as you will learn as you get to know me, I am not very big on "forward planning" (see: no Valentine's Day cocktail, above). (You will probably also learn that I like parentheticals.)

(A lot.)

So, I'm not really making this decision right now. In fact, I think I am deciding it is a decision that doesn't need to be decided. During the lifetime of this blog, I'm sure I will adopt many of the options expressed above, and others. There will be seasonal cocktails, spans of time I focus on a single spirit, cocktails that vary in complexity, and even holiday cocktails (just not Valentine's Day). Heck, I already have my Halloween cocktail planned out, and it's been on the calendar for months.

More often than not, though, I'm just going to blog about what I drank the weekend before, and I'm almost always going to make that choice based on what I felt like drinking at the time. Not very scientific, but it should get the job done.

This past weekend, I felt like drinking something completely new. Not only a new cocktail, but also a base alcohol I hadn't tried before--I wanted to experiment. I also wanted to drink something bright and cheery to complement the Spring-in-the-middle-of-Winter weather we are currently enjoying down in Southeast Texas. After a little bit of digging through my various cocktail books and iphone apps (more on those in a future blog post), I found exactly what I was looking for:

The Drink:  Caipirinha

Ingredients Used:

• Novo Fogo Cachaça Orgânica Silver - 2 oz
• 1/2 Lime, quartered
• 2 demerara sugar cubes

Recipe Courtesy of:   Charles Schumann, Tropical Bar Book, 1989

On one of my recent trips to the liquor store, I was drawn to a curious bottle in the rum section labeled "Cachaça." At the time, the name sounded vaguely familiar, but I had no idea what it was. I was actually looking for something called "rhum agricole" for a different cocktail recipe, but the bottle of Cachaça was too appealing to pass up. (I still haven't figured out what rhum agricole is, so you and I can explore that together at a later date.) From the Novo Fogo website:

The purest representation of organic sugarcane from Southern Brazil, this silver cachaça proves that terroir matters. The aroma of bananas immediately present, followed by pleasantly floral rainforest notes that shine through the spirit. Sea salt balances the cachaca’s tropicality, adding a savory quality and settling the overall impression to a mouth-watering sweet red pepper. This cachaça is rested in chemically-inert stainless steel tanks for one year to smoothen it without changing its flavor.

I mean... come on. You want to drink that immediately, don't you? The back of the bottle made it sound even more appealing, with its description of a quiet, coastal distillery nestled on the edge of a Brazilian rainforest. All natural, pressed and juiced from sugarcane cut by hand with a machete (no, seriously, it is all cut by hand), and fermented within 24 hours using organic yeast cultivated on site... That just screams adventure, right? I may never have an opportunity to visit the Brazilian rainforest, but I'd be damned if I was going to go another day without drinking my share of fermented, Brazilian sugarcane. I was certain it would be a life-changing experience.

In reality? My first sip of the Novo Fogo Cachaça, neat, was not life-changing. In fact, it tasted a lot like rum. Specifically, it was similar to an unaged, silver rum my wife and I picked up on our recent anniversary trip to Jamaica. The Cachaça was certainly much better, overall--something I could even see myself drinking on the rocks--but it was more familiar than I'd hoped. It had that same kind of "funk" that molasses-derived rums have, which was kind of surprising. I expected sugarcane to have a much different flavor profile than molasses. Luckily, though, Novo Fogo Cachaça was also fruitier than expected, with a ghostly hint of bananas, and I liked that. Further sips convinced me this was not a spirit to be written off as "just another rum," and I'm now quite fond of the funky, tropical notes contained in this bottle. 

But wait... I was supposed to talk about a cocktail, wasn't I? 

The Prep:

Making a Caipirinha is not much harder than mixing up last week's Gin & Tonic. There are only three ingredients, and they literally get mixed together and tossed into a glass. Simple. In fact, it may be more difficult to order a Caipirinha at a bar (pro tip: it's pronounced KY-pee-ree-nya) than it is to make it at home. 

The first step is to take your lime half and cut it into quarters. (If you don't have a lime half available, take a whole lime and cut it in half. Now you have two lime halves... zing!) You can also cut the lime into slices, as suggested on the Novo Fogo website, but I like the way the quarters hold their shape and float like green-scaled icebergs in the glass. Next, drop the quartered lime into your cocktail shaker and add two cubes of demerara sugar. If you can't find demerara sugar at your local grocery store, it is readily available online, though "Sugar in the Raw" is a decent substitute. Demerara is similar to Sugar in the Raw, but with more caramel flavor and less brown sugar-molasses.

The next step is to muddle the limes and sugar together in the cocktail shaker, which is very satisfying. Make sure you get all of the juice out of the limes, but also take care not to be too rough. If you blindly mash this cup, you will end up with a ton of lime pulp in the finished drink. This is fine if that's what you're after, but I prefer to limit the pulp, if I can. Once your limes and sugar are suitably combined, add two ounces of Cachaça, ice, and then shake vigorously to combine everything together. 

Have you ever wondered what people mean when they say "shake vigorously"? I have, too, but it's what people say, so I'm stealing it. In practice, I think the common rule of thumb is to shake it pretty hard and continue until the metal cup is cold enough that your fingers kind of hurt. At that point, your cocktail is ready. If people are watching you prepare the drink, shake it even harder and even longer, and don't forget to smile at them while pretending your aren't even paying attention to what you're doing. This will impress them and convince them you are really cool.

Unlike most cocktails I've tried, a Caipirinha is poured directly from the cocktail shaker into your drinking glass--in this case, a standard rocks glass (also known as an "old fashioned" glass). Just pour it all in--booze, limes, sugar, ice... everything. 

The Verdict:

Boy howdy, this is a delicious cocktail! I did not think the limited ingredients would lead to such a complex and eventful drink, but I was very happy to be proven wrong. The noob in me would like to say the drink is, overall, not dissimilar to a Margarita on the rocks--the sugarcane funk is reminiscent of the agave twang present in most tequilas (and, obviously, they both have a big lime thing going on)--but I think that description sells the cocktail short. Not because Margaritas are bad, but because the Caipirinha has a character all its own. More tropical and, for my money, more refreshing. It's kind of like what I think a Margarita would taste like if a Margarita went on vacation to Brazil, spent some time on the beach, overindulged in bananas and sweet drinks, met an exotic woman who loves board games, and then got lost on a self-guided tour of the rainforest, without its cellphone, never making it back to civilization.  

Sort of.  

      


    

Brief History & Simple Cocktail

As mentioned in last week's introductory post, I planned to share additional background information about myself this week. I'm still struggling with the idea of justifying a blog, and it seemed like knowing more about me would help explain why I'm writing a blog about booze. There is a popular school of thought that holds connecting with your reader in pretty high regard. Also, I have what I think are some really funny, self-deprecating anecdotes about drinking (because no one else has any of those, surely). 

But... is any of that really necessary? I mean, I'm sure readers would like some context for all of my future posts, but I think I already shared my most important credentials for writing a cocktail blog: 1) I really like cocktails, and 2) I have a blog. There will be ample opportunity to share more personal information as time goes on, but it would be pretty self-absorbed of me to assume anyone wants to read an entire blog post about my background or how I became fascinated with mixed drinks. 

So I'm adjusting my plan. No longer must you suffer through my long-winded, slightly clever, 650-word biographical essay. Instead, you will witness the pictorial illustration of "My Life with Alcohol," using copyrighted imagery I shouldn't be appropriating and cute, pop-culture references that I will #hashtag in an attempt to shamelessly increase traffic to my blog (I have no idea if inserting hashtags into a blog post does anything at all, but why not?). I do this only because I promised, and because I actually am kinda self-absorbed. If this sounds like a terrible way to spend the next ten minutes, please feel free to skip down to Part 2: The Cocktail.

My Life with Alcohol - A Pictorial History

Ages 0 - 15

This portion of the history can pretty much be ignored. Unless you're living in a Lifetime movie, ages 0 to 15 should be pretty alcohol-free. Maybe your dad gave you a sip of beer, or maybe your grandmother accidentally let you get drunk on Malt Duck at the K.C. Hall, but if you're like me, there's probably not a lot here that's blog-worthy. Pretty much everything I knew during this time came from the movies, and drinking never really seemed to lead anywhere good:

#StarWars #PoorPonda #DrankTooMuch #BeMoreTolerantNextTime

#RaidersoftheLostArk #Indy #CreepyGuy #Don'tGrabHotArtifacts #ItCouldBeWorseMyFaceCouldBeMelting

#Superman #SupesGoneBad #NutBullets #RichardPryorWTF

Ages 15 - 30

Traditionally, ages 15 to 30 should be more relevant. Maybe only a little experimentation during the under-21 years, but afterward, a whole bunch of partying should kick in. I'll be honest, though: while some of those self-deprecating anecdotes occurred during this period, and I did find the first cocktail I actually enjoyed (the "Tom Collins"), drinking was still a pretty rare thing for me (as in, once-every-few-years-at-a-party rare). It usually just seemed too alien or too loud. 

#ThisIsAlien #StarTrek #10Forward #ClearlyNotRealBooze

#ThisIsLoud #AnimalHouse #TooOldForCollege

Ages 30 - 44 (present)

...and, the Renaissance. No clear reason why I reversed course at this point (mainly in the last few years), but I chalk it up to the following, shorthand equation: Law school + bar exam + practicing law = "Hey, what's that you're drinking?" That, plus wandering into a posh piano bar in downtown Nebraska late one night two years ago, in the bitter cold, and sampling generously from the crazy-cool (and tasty) craft bar menu.

And, of course, cocktail culture has been experiencing a real resurgence in the last few years. Fine spirits and cocktails are making a mainstream comeback--no longer necessarily loud or alien, they can also be classy, inventive, and provocative. And I am giddy at the prospect of discovering all of them. Just like these people (except in moderation and with an actual human soul): 

#MadMen #MinusTheCigs #NotLoud #NotAlien #NotNecessarilyGoodPeopleTho

Part Two: The Cocktail

So that's my best attempt at a summary, and I didn't do a great job at condensing it, anyway. Really, it's all in the title of the blog. I'm a cocktail noob, and I'm on a mission to drink some cocktails and blog about it. 

To kick things off, I figured I would start with one of my favorites. It is one of the cocktails I started with at the very beginning, even before I thought of it as a "cocktail." I was really just looking for an easy drink with a pleasant taste that I could order while out on business or socializing with co-workers. After a very brief search, I landed on the classic Gin & Tonic.

The Drink: Gin & Tonic

Ingredients Used:

• Plymouth Gin - 2 oz
• Fever Tree Indian Tonic Water - 2-4 oz
• Lime - 1-2 wedges
• Ice

According to Douglas Adams, 85% of the worlds in the known galaxy have invented a drink named, in some form or other, the "Gin & Tonic" (source: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe). No wonder, then, that the Earth version of the drink is an enduring classic, having been around since approximately the 1700s. According to multiple sources, it was first introduced by the British East India Company as a means of preventing malaria outbreaks among British soldiers in tropical climates. Quinine, one of the ingredients in tonic water, was apparently helpful in combating the disease, and field doctors would mix the quinine with water, gin, lime, and sugar to make it more palatable. And, despite Wikipedia's attempt to diminish this origin by citing bothersome studies debunking the medicinal value of a good ol' G&T, I am happy to feature a health beverage as the first cocktail on my new blog. 

One of my favorite things about this cocktail is that it is dead-simple to prepare. Even at one of those industry lunches where the "open bar" is really just a makeshift podium with an old bottle of wine and a stack of yellowed napkins, the barkeep on duty is likely to have what's needed to mix one up. All you need is a glass, some ice, a good gin, and some tonic water. Depending on your tastes (and, to a greater extent, the gin used), you probably also want to have a lime wedge handy. 

To make the drink, fill a highball glass with ice and let it chill. Next, add two ounces of gin, then top with tonic. The amount of tonic used really depends on personal taste. Until recently, I was using the pretty standard tonic waters you can find in any grocery store--either Canada Dry or Schweppe's. Despite many people claiming they taste awful, I think they work fine for this drink if you are also adding lime. However, this past weekend, I splurged and bought a few bottles of Fever Tree Indian Tonic, and I have to admit it is a much tastier tonic (likely because it uses all natural ingredients, including pure cane sugar, but also maybe because I spent more money on it). I may be a bit of an outlier because I prefer roughly equal proportions of gin and tonic in my G&Ts, and that should also be taken into consideration when listening to my opinion regarding tonics. In the typical 2-3 parts tonic : 1 part gin ratio, the grocery store tonics may indeed be awful. They're certainly not pleasant on their own, whereas Fever Tree has a nice flavor straight-up.

I actually like to use a rocks glass when mixing a Gin & Tonic, which is traditionally considered a "highball" cocktail. Highball cocktails are a class of cocktails that contain more mixer than spirit, but since I go very light on the tonic, I don't need the extra height. The derivation of the term "highball" is evidently unsettled--it could refer to anything from the size of the glass, to railway signals, to the Irish descriptor "Ball of Malt" (for a glass of whisky). 

On the use of lime, I regard it as a taste preference, though it is a staple of the drink. While I don't think I've seen any recipes for the cocktail that eschew the lime, I've started omitting it when I'm using a gin that has an incompatible flavor profile or deserves to have the starring role to itself. For the mix above, I used Plymouth Gin, which is a great, citrus-forward gin that paired easily with the lime. It was my first time drinking Plymouth, and I am now glad to have it in my bar. When I'm using something more distinctive, such as Hendrick's Gin (with its cucumber notes) or Barr Hill (which is finished with honey), I usually ditch the lime and enjoy the gin flavors on their own.

The question of which gin to use is also a matter of taste, but that's another great thing about this cocktail. It really exists solely to highlight the gin you're drinking, so the "right" gin to use is the gin you like best--or, at least, the gin you're hankering for at the moment. A good Gin & Tonic is bright, crisp, and full of the flavor of your favorite gin. An alternative to Plymouth, if you're interested in a citrus-y gin, is Beefeater London Dry Gin. I like it a lot, and I don't understand why it is sometimes considered a "bottom-shelf" gin. It's not expensive, but it's quite good--a perfect entry point, in my opinion, if you're wanting to start exploring gin drinks. For something more floral, with heavy juniper, go for the Hendrick's, which is another favorite of mine. 

Verdict:

If it wasn't already obvious, I'm a big fan of this cocktail. Easy to make, full of wonderful gin flavor, and a great way to test out a new-to-you gin. I may be biased because the G&T is the drink that ushered me into my cocktail craze, but this is a favorite. Simple, but nearly perfect. 

By Way of Introduction...

So, hey, Internet. Welcome to my blog. 

Fair warning: I'm not sure precisely what the first post of a new blog is supposed to look like. I don't frequent many blogs, and I've never created one myself, so this will all go up in smoke in a hot, New York-minute if we're not careful. So let's play it by the book and do what seems natural: maybe a few words of introduction to get us started? Enough for you to get to know me, but not so much that you start to feel an urge to leave. 

The good news is I'm a pretty easy guy to sum up. My name is David, I'm forty-something years old, and I'd rather play an attorney on TV than be an attorney in real life (since I live in Texas and not California, you can probably figure out how that preference panned out). Piña coladas are fine when on a beach, getting caught in the rain is awful, and I'm usually pretty-tired-but-not-that-tired by midnight. If it would help you to have a mental picture, you can imagine shadowy eyes, a rugged frame, a silky voice, and--most importantly--a glorious, full head of hair. That picture won't be me, but imagining things is fun and it'd be nice if you played along. 

Assuming I've now hit the right balance between casual curiosity and slight disinterest, I should probably get down to explaining what this whole blog thing is all about. The "nutshell" is pretty simple: Over the past year, I've discovered I have a real passion for, and interest in, boozy concoctions. It's a new hobby for me, and I thought it would be a lot of fun to keep track of the things I'm trying and the experiences I'm having. My wife thought the same thing, with the added twist of letting everyone else in the world read along, and... yadda, yadda, yadda, I'm a blogger. 

I'm vaguely aware of the fact that there are about a bajillion cocktail/drinking blogs already out there, and it would be fair to question my ability to bring anything new to the mix. If I thought very much about that question, I would probably avoid this endeavor altogether. Instead, I'm choosing to ignore my own redundancy and forge ahead into the great unknown. Because most of this subject is the "great unknown" to me. In my next post (See? I've already planned what my 2nd post to my first-ever blog will be! If that doesn't scream "professional," what does?), I will explain why so much of this is new to me. But, for now, you can interpret the title of my blog as my mission statement: To blog about cocktails from the perspective of an absolute (or, at least, relative) noob. 

I really don't want to overstay my welcome on my very first post, so I will close here with a hint of what to expect. I plan to post to the blog at least once per week (and rarely more than that). In each post, I want to talk about a single new cocktail I tried, giving some background about the cocktail, why I tried it, and what I thought of it. I may also devote an occasional post to a particular spirit rather than a specific cocktail. I don't promise to have any information you can't find somewhere else, but I do promise to try to make it entertaining and share my own perspective. My target audience is:

1. People who are new to cocktails and want to explore along with me;
2. People who are cocktail pros but think they might enjoy following someone else's journey;
3. People like the #2 people, but who really just want to make fun of the noob; and
4. People so bored at work they can't stand it and would rather be anywhere else.

If you've stayed with me this far, maybe you're one of my people. Or maybe you're just hate-browsing, which is okay, too. In any event, I sincerely thank you for your time, and I hope you will return.