Casa de CocktailnerdAs you probably know, there was a catastrophic ice storm in the Oklahoma area in early December that knocked power out for a huge percentage of the population during sub-zero temperatures. As one would expect, trying to prepare, serve, and drink quality drinks in the dark is a heady challenge that makes one appreciate ice makers, lights, and neat Scotch (in just about that order – and I love me some good Scotch). So, in the midst of 8 days without electricity and spending it with the in-laws (as Casa de Cocktailnerd was hovering around 40 degrees) I was called upon, in the daunting face of such dire ice-less and candle-lit circumstances, to mix drinks. Here’s what I learned:

  1. Making an Aviation by candlelight is seriously risky business, and making the second or third, even more risky (alcohol and candles can become…illuminating)
  2. Making an Aviation or Gin & Tonic without ice, even when leaving the bottles outside to chill and cutting it with a bit of water to match the dilution shaking would create, pretty much leaves with a drink tasting in the Sterno category of flavors.
  3. Don’t use the ice outside to compensate. Ever.
  4. Drinking gin neat is similar to trying to have sex with the flu, the body’s willing, and you know you like it in principle, but it just ends badly.
  5. No matter how many glasses of Sterno Gin & Tonics you have, you will decide against having sex with only one wall between you and your in-laws and no television in your room.
  6. Drinking Egg Nog and Champagne together is a really fucking horrible experience.
  7. Liquor stores that open without electricity and run two registers and a couple of work lights from generators deserve your continued patronage. Saints, those people.
  8. Sitting around by candle and battery-powered lamplight and singing Christmas Carols and drinking wine is great fun until one of the following happens:
    • The batteries run out on the lamp mid-carol and you’re walking around with your guitar, drink, and a candle trying to figure out in a strange house where any other batteries may be.
    • You and your playing partner take turns accidently knocking over glasses with your guitars and cleaning them up in really piss-poor lighting.
    • Someone requests ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’
  9. When power returns and you decide to try out Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s Wassail recipe, be sure the crockpot you use has an actual ‘Warm’ setting and not just a ‘Low’ setting. Apparently ‘Low’ is actually a cooking temperature and, well, you get Egg Drop Wassail when the egg proteins start to bond and it becomes, to most people, unpleasantly chunky33 .
  10. Monopoly is still boring, and no amount of alcohol (or fancy electronic credit card thingy) will ever change that.

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  1. although a few people nominated for best drink they’d had all year, partially based on the chunks333

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