The world is a difficult place to live in sometimes. Or most of the time. Or all the time. Pick your preference, it's all the same to me. When your country feels like it has descended into a collective psychosis, ultimately you feel the urge to go crazy yourself; or drink. People have found other ways to cope, and I applaud them for it, but those two are consistent favorites. I've tasted both myself, and I do enjoy mixing and matching. There's plenty to drive you to that point, such as the recent announcement that Norman Podhoretz has been named Rudy Giuliani's foreign policy adviser. A lot of candidates have been coy about their desire to bomb Iran, but here's a man who has come out and said he wants to bomb Iran, and I guess in that weird "respect your greatest enemy kind of way", you can applaud Podhoretz for saying what others are thinking, as much as it makes you want to reach for a strong drink.
That last sentence right there is what we call a segue, because I'm going to use that to move onto talking about alcoholic drinks, because if there's anything you need when the politicians are turning your trousers brown, it's a strong drink. As Charles Bukowski once said, “So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat.” So I present ten favorite drinks of mine. They're not ranked in any preference, because I can't even begin to rank them. I've tried many different things before my 21st birthday, which is coming up, and I'm just thankful to have them (as long as I can stomach them).
1. Gin and Tonic
I start things off with an oldie-but-a-goodie. Is there anything more perfect than a well-made gin and tonic? It's a king among summer cocktails, and even with its occasional reputation as an "old person's drink", I can't think of many who have tasted a well-made gin and tonic and have been above drinking it. If you feel you've lived a full life full of purpose and accomplishment, this is the perfect drink to kick off the apocalypse with, as you kick back in your lawn chair and watch two suns in the sunset.
2. Guinness
If you've never had a perfectly poured Guinness in Ireland than you simply don't know what living is. There are those who prefer stronger stouts, but they all lack what Guinness has, and that's the experience of Guinness. You simply cannot replicate it in America and what you can but at the stores will never give you the experience of drinking a Guinness in an Irish pub. Thicker than our piss-poor American beers with a heavenly layer of cream on the top, this is a beer for those who crave something old that is still good in this world of ours that is falling apart.
3. The Bitter Pill
This one is not as well known, and it was one that I discovered on drinksmixer.com, probably the best source for any adventurous mixologist. It's a very simple drink, just mix equal parts Jack Daniels and vodka and mix with Coke. The effect is very interesting, because when mixed properly, the Jack will disguise the vodka, making this beverage quite potent, as my roommate at the time and I found out one night. He observed "you can't even taste the vodka at all" and so on a whim we made these drinks portable and went scouring our liberal-arts campus in search of parties to crash, and by the time we had found one, the Bitter Pill had gone to our heads. The next thing we knew, we had crashed a party in a freshman room, where we entertained the eager-eyed first-years with tales of our college adventures and my roommate's family's tendency for penguin theft. The rest of the night was a flash-forward montage of devious plans, and ended with us waking up in our beds. My roommate wasn't alone in his bed though, and found that he was cuddling a large inflatable banana that we had nabbed at some point during the night.
4. 151 Reasons
151 Reasons is plain and simply a madman's drink. No sane person should be drinking Bacardi 151 in the first place. However, since I'm off on the cusp of madness, I guess I can get away with it at times. I often like to play with the recipe, but the basic recipe is here. The drink was a bit of a hit among my friends at our yearly toga party, and it's existence has become a bit synonymous with me, since I'm really the only one who makes it at the college. I never imagined that orange juice would mix well with any kind of lemon-lime soda, or lemonade, but apparently I was wrong, and when mixed properly it has a kind of tangy taste that really helps with the high-proof of the liquor. Don't expect to really remember anything if you drink more than a single cup of it though. I drank a little too much of it before a pirate themed party in one of the dorms, and the stories revolving around that night have become the stuff of legends.
5. Finlandia
When people ask me what my favorite vodka is (and I do love vodka), the answer I'll most often give is Finlandia. Scratch that, because my favorite vodka is a vodka that for the life of me I can never find (it's called Priviet Vodka, and because of how hard it is to find in my college's area, the vodka has become a bit of a much-desired commodity after I gave it the one-time introduction to the college), so really, my favorite vodka I can find is Finlandia. I love it because it's affordable and it's pretty good as far as vodkas go (if you can't handle drinking vodka straight, than the quality of the vodka really doesn't matter a whole lot in the scheme of things, but I do drink it straight). I also have a strong preference for Finlandia with Lime, which is a couple of dollars cheaper and is infused with my favorite fruit. It's actually been a long time I've had it, and I think in order to celebrate my 21st birthday, I may need to pick up a bottle of it.
6. Arrogant Bastard
I don't think I could do Arrogant Bastard any justice, so I'll let it speak for itself:
"This is an aggressive beer. You probably won't like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appericate an ale of this qualtiy and depth. We would suggest you stick to a safer and more familiar territory-maybe something with a multi-million dollar ad campaign aimed at convincing you it's made in a little brewery, or one that implies that their tasteless fizzy yellow beer will give you more sex appeal. Perhaps you think multi-million dollar ad campaigns make a beer taste better. Perhaps you're mouthing your words as you read this."
It has a high alcohol percentage of 7.2%, traditionally comes in a single 22 oz. bottle, and really, you have to love craft beer to love this strong ale. It is very tasty though, and a wonderful treat after a long week.
7. Cran Vodka
Often times the best drinks are the simplest ones. Cranberry juice and vodka. Simple, to the point. It was actually after trying a cran vodka that I started drinking cranberry juice in the morning. I had an aversion to cranberry juice due to some bad association I had with it, but when I unknowingly tried a cran vodka, the tangy taste of the juice itself won me over. This is an everyman's beverage, something that is cheap and easy to make which anyone can enjoy. This is the drink you drink when the trendiness of our culture reaches ridiculous heights. At the end of the day, you sometimes just need familiarity. Delicious familiarity.
8. Long Island Iced Tea
A classic. I don't know many people who drink them these days, but my father had a pretty humorous story about drinking them when they first became popular. My mother has been a bartender for many years, and she used to know a lot of other bartenders, and when my parents were younger, my father was waiting for my mother at a bar that a friend worked at. The bartender asked my father if he wanted to try a Long Island Iced Tea, and my father did. He drank the first one down and asked for another, telling the bartender to actually put some alcohol in it. My father didn't know anything about Long Island Iced Teas at the time, and after the fourth one, he went to grab his coat, and spent about a minute reaching for it. He hadn't realized that he had gotten drunk on them and had lost all motor skills. My mother had to walk him to the car and drive him home.
9. Tequila Sunrise
I don't even know if I would call this a favorite drink. I hate tequila. I like it in Long Island Iced Teas, but I hate tequila other than that. It's something out of the foulest depths of hell. Somehow though, I became reluctantly fond of tequila sunrises. It's not something I would prefer to drink often. I've found that certain liquors have different effects on me. Wine makes me pensive, gin makes me effervescent, rum and beer make me jovial, vodka is a bit of a wild card and tends to just amplify how I've been feeling the whole day, but tequila makes me very angry. Actually, the only reason it probably made this list is because through it, I've become fond of the tequila sunset. I'm not keen to drink a tequila sunrise until the sun rises, but I do like drinking a tequila sunset when the sun sets on our "new empire in rags" (apologies to New Pornographers).
10. Disgruntled Elf
The last drink is one that my former roommate turned a lot of us onto at the wedding reception for two of our bars. With an open bar at our disposal, he gave to us the Disgruntled Elf. 1 oz. each: Triple Sec, Gin, white Rum, blanco Tequila, 2 oz. of granny smith green apple syrup, and 6 oz. of Sprite. It's a mighty mean drink and it was a hit at the reception. It seems to have the right proportions and it tastes very smooth. The green tint of it also makes it that much more appealing, since it's well-known that color has a strong appeal in what we eat and drink.
Well, after typing all of that, I really want something to drink now.
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