Girls' Night

When the girls caught wind of my liqueur stash, they wanted in. That sounded like a party! So we decided to each contribute an appetizer, and each make something from one of the liqueurs. 

Our first cocktail of the evening was a Kir Royale, made from crème de cassis and champagne, served in a champagne flute. Crème de cassis is made from blackcurrants. I loved this drink. It was like a fruitier, slightly sweeter champagne.

Our second drink was made from Wildberry Vodka, Chateau Monet (which is a raspberry-flavored liqueur like Chambord) and club soda, served in a martini glass. It was stronger and less sweet than I was expecting it to be. We added a little cherry juice to it, and I think that improved it.

Our third treat was a Frozen Grasshopper made from vanilla ice cream, crème de menthe, and crème de cacao. It was a lovely pale green and tasted like a milk shake for grownups. It reminded me of my childhood, when my parents threw parties and gave my sister and me each a plate of hor d’oeuvres and a blender drink before the guests came. Don’t judge. That’s just good old-fashioned parenting. Think Mad Men.

For my contribution I planned to make Black Forest Cake with Kirschwasser, a German cherry brandy. I found a recipe online that was quite complicated and would take several days to prepare, but it looked like it would be worth it. And I watch Food Network a lot, so I’m kind of an expert.

In fact, I was well along in the process when my cake literally fell apart. I was layering my Kirschwasser-soaked chocolate cake rounds with my Kirschwasser-laced filling and my Kirschwasser-marinated cherries when the top cake round cracked and separated and tumbled down the sides. I felt like a contestant on Chopped, like I was in the Chopped kitchen in the dessert round with $10,000 on the line when it all came crashing down. But I channeled my inner Chopped champion, grabbed some crystal glasses, filled them with cherries and cake chunks, and topped them with Kirschwasser-infused whipped cream. We’ll call it Black Forest Trifle. And it was wunderbar.

Absolut Mandrin Vodka Punch for the Neighbors

I love my neighborhood. If you’ve visited me, you might think it’s because of the lush foliage and vibrant blooming bushes and trees that greet you as you turn into our neighborhood streets with branches that meet each other across the road. You might think it’s because we’re close to downtown and convenient to the interstates while all the time feeling like we’re far removed from the hustle and bustle of the city. Or maybe because each of our homes was custom-designed by a different architect in the 1960s and looks like something out of Mad Men with features such as split-level layout, brick fireplaces, sunken living rooms, and rec rooms complete with wet bars. 

But no. If you are my neighbor, you know full well why I love it here. It’s because of the people! In the 15 years I’ve lived here with my family, we’ve gotten to know most of our neighbors. Many have become friends, some have become close friends, and a few are like family. Our neighborhood association (participation  and dues voluntary, no enforceable rules) exists mostly to foster the neighborhood social life. We have parties for holidays, for seasons, to meet new neighbors, to meet old neighbors, to discuss neighborhood business, and because we don’t feel like cooking dinner.

One of our favorite traditions is called “Saltshakers.” A volunteer organizer (this year: me) solicits participants then sorts them into groups of 6 or 8 or whatever, depending on how many people sign up. The couples and/or singles in each group then take turns hosting a monthly potluck dinner at each other’s houses. It’s a great way to meet new people and see each other’s homes – especially fun in our neighborhood where many of the houses are quirky and weird. 

My husband and I recently hosted one of these dinners at our house, and took the opportunity to use one of Dad’s bottles: Absolut Mandrin Vodka. I suppose flavored vodka is not really a liqueur, but it’s sweet and it’s alcohol, so close enough. This one is orange flavored. Is “mandrin” Swedish for “mandarin?” 

Mandrin Vodka Punch

Fill a highball glass with ice cubes. Add 2 parts Absolut Mandrin, 2 parts ginger ale, and 1 ½ parts pineapple juice. Garnish with a wedge of lemon and a wheel of lime.

This was delicious, light, and refreshing. Everyone loved it, even my husband. I loved welcoming the neighbors with punch. Very neighborly. 

As hosts, we (meaning Gerard) also provided the entrée (marinated, grilled chicken) and our guests brought salad, spinach quiche, green beans, and raspberry cheesecake with whipped cream. And everything was fantastic.

If you plan to host a Saltshakers dinner of your own, remember to set the date, time, and host for the next dinner before the night is over. That way, the fun never has to end.

Going for the Goldschlager

Goldschlager is a brand of cinnamon schnapps from Switzerland that has real gold flakes floating in it. It looks kind of like a snow globe for the rich and famous.

We decided to drink this straight so we could see the gold floating in our glasses. We only took one sip because the cinnamon and the alcohol (43.5%!) are both so strong. To make it less harsh, we added Kahlua. That helped, but not enough, so we added some half and half. The end result was sweet and creamy enough to drink, but we still didn’t like it very much. And by then, we couldn’t even see the gold flakes anymore.

I know you have questions:

Are there really gold flakes in the bottle? 

Yes. It’s real 24k gold, weighing about a 10th of a gram total. At today’s gold prices, it’s worth about $5. A 750 ml bottle of Goldschlager costs about $15 more than a generic bottle of cinnamon schnapps. 

Why would anyone put gold flakes in a bottle of liquor?

Good question. For the novelty, I suppose. It does look cool. Or just to be decadent. I can afford to drink gold! Or, I am carefree and not bound by conventional notions of material wealth! 

Is it safe to swallow gold flakes?

Yes. You can buy edible gold leaf, which is what’s in the Goldschlager. It’s also used to fancy-up desserts and other food. For example, the $1,800 “Glamburger” boasts black truffle, Kobe Wagyu beef, lobster, beluga caviar, venison, a duck egg, and an edible gold leaf. 

A rumor has it that swallowing the gold flakes in Goldschlager results in microscopic cuts in the throat (or stomach, in another version) to speed absorption of alcohol so you get drunk faster. This is false according to snopes.com, which is my favorite mythbusting source. Also, it’s just plain ridiculous. Gold, especially 24k gold, is very soft, which is why it’s useful for making jewelry. It is, however, probably easy to get drunk quickly on Goldschlager (if you can stand to drink it, that is.) Maybe it’s the high alcohol content!

In fact, the gold just passes through your system and has no effect on your body. 

Can you taste the gold?

Nope.

PERNOD, or, HOW TO HANDLE THE FRENCH

This is a guest post by Brian Bouldrey. Bouldrey wrote guest blogs for Stacy Simon before blogs were called blogs and instead went out as newsletters and suchwhat. They lived in the Humanities Residential College at Northwestern back in the early 80's and experimented with liqueurs then, too. Brian's latest book is The Peasant and the Mariner.

I was in Michigan this weekend visiting my grandmother and staying with my brother and his family. He has two children and is a former Marine drill sergeant and a prison guard, so he is constantly dishing out orders and instructions.  He was trying to give me directions in our home town about how to get to the pizza place because grandma still likes her pizza.  “You take Park Drive to Francis and take a right on Cooper and pass that one tree—“  I had no idea what he was talking about.  I have not lived in our home town for 35 years.  I have been in FRANCE more than I have been in our home town in the last 35 years.

They love to adhere to procedures in France, too, just like my brother.  You stand in one line to get your groceries, and then take a ticket to a second line to pay for them.  Do not take your shoes off anywhere.  Spinach must be cooked, never eaten raw.  Do not put ice in your wine, what are you, a monster? Dipping your bread in the sauce is gauche.  Gauche means left-handed, which is what I am.  While hiking through France on the road to Santiago de Compostela one year, I started a separate section in my journal called “How to Handle the French”:

• -          Don’t tell them you are Americain.  Tell them you are from the land that brought Charles Bronson to the French.
• -          Make them laugh by imitating the British by asking for “un nuage” (a cloud) of milk in your coffee.
• -          Compliment them on their backyard diorama of Lourdes, which takes up the entire back yard and is not at all weird.
• -          Don’t expect Irish whiskey in the “Irish Bar”.  Or Guinness.  But they will have a television with French tough guys boxing. And French boxers sport the 80’s mullet.
• -          If you are lost or need help, don’t say, “I’m lost” or “I need help”.  Say, “J’ai une probleme”: I have a problem.  The French love to help you solve a problem.  You’re lost?  Get out a map and say “I have a problem.  I need to get from here to here.”  They will practically walk you there.

But let’s face it: the French have a lot of nice things, and it’s worth learning how to handle the French in order to enjoy their nice things. It was while hiking from Vezelay to the Pyrenees that I learned to love Pernod, one of Stacy’s father’s liqueurs.  It’s actually an anise or anisette, one of those things that taste like licorice, so popular in southern Europe (along with Basque pacharan and the notorious green fairy, absinthe).  In bars and cafes in France, I had better luck ordering “anise” and then they would ask whether I preferred “Ricard” or “Pernod” because every time I said, “Pernod” or “Ricard”, they couldn’t understand what the heck I was saying.  So I would say, “I have a problem.  I need an anise.”  Then they’d say “Ricard? Pernod?” and I would point at my nose on that second choice. I’d be served about a jigger of it in a tidy little glass and presented with my own private carafe of water, like this:

It’s very nice with ice, but the French think ice is gauche.  Have you ever had a French waiter stand over your glass with those dang tongs and a bucket of ice, reluctantly dropping tiny cube after tiny cube as you beg “un otre?” over and over again, humiliating yourself?  The waiter makes you beg for each one, rolling his eyes.  This is not how to handle the French. Try it without ice.

The trick is to sit with your journal or a good book and slowly water down the Pernod, first, until it is “un nuage” (a cloud), and then drink it off just as slowly.  Drink a sip, pour in a little water.  Sip.  Pour in a little water, sip.  Like you’re making a homeopathic cure for what ails you (your love of ice cubes, apparently). If you can enjoy the taste of anise, you can make a shot of Pernod last as long as three hours!  On a warm evening in a small French town after a long day’s hiking, on a pilgrim’s budget, this is heavenly.  That’s a lot of people watching, in France.   You also get to look like a native.  People smile from the next table as if to say, “I am also a person who drinks Pernod and is not a financially advantageous customer in bars!” As if to say, “I also love the films of that genius, Charles Bronson!”

You can also put a half a shot of Pernod into a flute of champagne, as one would do with kir or (try this!) pomegranate molasses.  Oh, and since Stacy has a proper recipe in each blog post and because Stacy, like the French and my prison guard brother, loves to give orders and directions:

1 part Pernod

6 parts champagne

Or something like that—do I look like a food scientist?  This does not really have a name, so you can name it yourself.  I like to call anise in champagne, “Where’s Brian’s Pants?”  The bubbles of champagne go “straight to your head”, as they say, and if you’ve fortified it with a stronger alcohol like Pernod or pacharan or absinthe (Hemingway called an absinthe-champagne cocktail a “Death in the Afternoon”, after the bullfighting poem and the fact that you will die from drinking this), it is impossible to get no kick from champagne.  The nice thing is that champagne blows off quicker than hard liquor and even wine, at least in my system.  I may be delusional about this, let’s not do the science.

By the way, I'm guessing Stacy's husband Gerard will dislike Pernod.

Suze

My father and stepmother bought this liqueur while they were on a cruise in France. They learned about it when an inspector arrived by barge to inspect their ship. Officials supplied the inspector with a bottle of Suze while he was writing his report. They passed inspection! In those days, Suze could not be purchased in the U.S, which made it even more desirable.

Suze is made from the root of an herb called gentian that grows in the mountains of Switzerland and France. It tastes sweet, bitter, and citrus-y.

We tried this on the rocks, which is how the French drink it and we both liked it. We also tried this (and liked it too):

White Negroni

In a mixing glass, combine 1 1/2 oz gin, 3/4 oz Suze, and 3/4 oz bianco vermouth. 

Stir with ice and strain into a rocks glass filled with fresh ice.

Garnish with a lemon twist.

Orange Curacao: A Riddle

What's the difference between Orange Curacao and Blue Curacao?

Answer: the color

Curacao liqueur is made from the peel of a fruit similar to the orange that's found on the island of Curacao, located in the southern Caribbean Sea. Fun fact: A synagogue on the island dates from the 1600s and is the oldest surviving synagogue in the Americas. 

You can buy different colors of Curacao liqueur thanks to the miracle of food coloring, but they all taste the same. Blue and orange are the most widely available. I'm not sure whether any recipes are printed on the label, because it's in Dutch.

We tried three different cocktails.

Six Bells

Mix in a cocktail shaker with ice: 1 oz dark rum, 1/2 oz Orange Curacao, 1/2 oz fresh lime juice, 2 dashes Angostura bitters, 1 teaspoon sugar.

Strain into a cocktail glass. 

Oops, we used a martini glass. I liked this a lot, and it was my daughter's favorite. It was sweet and tart at the same time. My husband didn't like it. I realize I keep writing this. My friend Brian says it's a trope, which is a literary convention (he's a writer) in which a phrase is repeated for effect. But I'm just faithfully reporting what has actually transpired. Life is like that sometimes.

Sweet Memories

Mix in a cocktail shaker with ice: 1/2 oz rum, 1/2 oz dry vermouth, 1/2 oz Orange Curacao. Strain into a cocktail glass.

I liked this even better, and my husband liked it too. It had a richness Six Bells didn't have. Also, the name is fantastic. You can say, "Let's make Sweet Memories tonight" or "Remember last night when we made Sweet Memories?"

Sing Sing

Half fill a mixing glass with ice and add 2 oz Scotch, 1 oz Orange Curacao, and 1 oz sweet vermouth. 

Stir and strain into a champagne glass. Garnish with a twist of orange rind.

This sounded awful, but it was the only cocktail I could find that called for a whole ounce of Orange Curacao instead of just half an ounce, and I have my priorities. In fact, however, it wasn't bad. Even my husband said so, and we all know what he's like.

Blueberry Schnapps Cures the Blues

I had a busy day at work. My job is to write stories about cancer for people who want to lower their risk so they can try not to get it, or for people who already have it, to better understand their treatment options, or for people who've survived treatment, to learn how to deal with life as a cancer survivor.

I talked on the telephone to a man who was diagnosed with colon cancer 5 years ago and got better, but had gone through chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, and had to have a colostomy. He was charming and funny and told me how handsome he was. He was a pilot who had retired from the military and considered himself a real tough guy. But he broke down and cried when he told me how he struggled to accept that he couldn't control his cancer, or his fate, or his life.

I also wrote a story about a new drug approved by the FDA to help treat neuroblastoma. The new drug helps patients live longer, which is great. But to write about it, I had to learn all about this type of cancer. It occurs most often in children under age 5. The drug has very scary side effects, and it's used in combination with a lot of other treatment, including chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, and stem cell transplant.

So it was especially nice to come home to something as frivolous as a blueberry schnapps cocktail. We researched all our options, and decided to go with the recipe printed on the back of the bottle:

Bluesberry Cooler

Fill a collins glass with ice.

Add 2 oz blueberry schnapps.

Fill with club soda.

Add a splash of orange juice.

Blueberry schnapps is clear, not blue. At first I was disappointed, but quickly realized that it's a good thing, because otherwise my Bluesberry Cooler would have turned out green. Instead, it was a pretty light yellow. The drink was refreshing and light. I loved it. My husband did not like it, but was willing to imagine that it might be nice on a hot, sunny day. It's been raining here all week.

Chambord

If you read my previous post, you know I am working my way through my Dad's liqueurs, which he gave me as part of his efforts to downsize. Now I need to downsize too. Choosing the first bottle was a no-brainer: Chambord.

Chambord is a raspberry-flavored liqueur that comes in a very fancy bottle that's shaped like a sphere. It takes up a lot of space, and our bottle had only a few ounces left. Plus, I love raspberry.

First we tried a Chamtini: 1 oz vodka and 2/3 oz Chambord in a chilled martini glass. I thought it was delicious. It tasted like a raspberry lollipop. My husband was not a fan. He says it tasted too much like Chambord. (Too delicious?)

Instead, he fixed himself a French Manhattan: 1 1/2 oz bourbon, 1/2 oz dry vermouth, 2 teaspoons Chambord. It was awful and he threw it out.

He settled on a Chamtini with gin instead of vodka. He said that muted the Chambord nicely, and he enjoyed it. I liked the vodka Chamtini much better. But I really enjoyed throwing the empty bottle into the recycle bin.

Downsizing

My 78-year-old dad recently downsized from a gigantic house for 2 people into a very comfortable house for one person. It was a complicated ordeal involving high-level talks, precise organization, multi-state transportation, and lots and lots of color-coded stickers.

His new place looks great, and because it's much closer to my house than his old place was, I get to see a lot more of him. I also get to be on the receiving end of all the additional downsizing he does. Which means upsizing for me. Among other things, I now have an extra set of dish and glassware in a basement closet earmarked for my daughter when she moves out and gets a place of her own, a flat screen TV on the floor in my exercise room, and a couch butting up against the desk in my office.

Last week, Dad decided he no longer needed his stash of liqueurs. He used to like to have all sorts of different liqueurs to offer people as after-dinner drinks when they visited, or just so that if anyone were to say, for example, "Can you make me a Fuzzy Navel?" he could say, "Sure!" But he doesn't have many visitors these days. He and his senior friends just hang out at the pub in their retirement community.

So one day, my husband, kids, and I loaded up our car with all the bottles and brought them home. There were fruit and candy flavored vodkas and schnapps, regional specialties from exotic places, creme de this and creme de that. The excitment of our new goodies soon turned into a dilemma over where to store over a dozen bottles. Only one solution, then: drink them. The only questions were when, how, and in what order. Because my main goal is fewer bottles, I decided we should start with the ones that have the least left in them. My husband is more interested in attacking first the ones he is most interested in trying. So, we'll do some of both. Stay tuned.