Sparkling Ginger Cocktails

Lately, it seems like everybody I know is having babies. Not in the weird millenial way, where you get a pet and then tell everybody you know that you have a baby, and then when they find out it's actually a pet they have a weird combination of emotions containing pity, disgust, and the urge to punch you in the face. Real babies. The kind that you can claim as dependents on your taxes. Apparently fecundity is the new fashion of the season (Winter), and everybody's getting on board. So celebration is in the air! And since I can't really post a recipe for cigars, a cocktail to raise is the best I've got.

Ingredients:

Ginger Ale
Grapefruit Juice
Prosecco

As you may have noticed, there isn't exactly an extensive ingredient list. That's a good thing. The first rule of making any sort of cocktail is that the more people you're making it for, the simpler it should be. Especially when the celebration is for a birth. If it takes a team of experienced bartenders 30 minutes to traverse your drink (with the aid of experienced sherpas), then by the time everybody's gotten one, the baby will have grown up, gotten married, had a kid of their own, and then you'll have to start the whole process over again. It's a vicious cycle. So let's get started! Get something to put the drink in. It can pretty much be anything, though a glass with a stem is preferable so that your grubby hands don't heat up the drink while you're holding it. If you happen to have the skull of a vanquished enemy lying around, I've heard that making a toast out of that is supposed to ensure that the baby grows up to be a mighty warrior. But it doesn't have a stem, so there are pros and cons.

Fill up your drink receptacle 1/3 of the way with your ginger ale. Then add in a splash of grapefruit juice, and top it off with your prosecco. Then add in garnishes to fancy it up, if you feel like it (strawberry slices go great with the skulls of vanquished enemies. Prove me wrong!) It seems simple, right? That's because it is. Remember that part about keeping cocktails simple that I said literally a minute ago? Yeah, this is your payoff. Congratulations! And yes, I know that "a splash" of grapefruit juice isn't exactly....exact. Go complain on your own blog. The grapefruit is there to help balance the sweetness. If you're a fan of excessively sweet things, use less. If you like things a little more tart, add in more. If you really hate even the faintest bit of sweetness, go suck on a lemon in the corner. Isn't it fun when weird insults from the 1920s have actual literal applications? That sounds like cause for celebration to me. Happy child rearing!

4 Shots of the Fruit-Pocalypse

Artist's rendition: Me this morning

So yesterday I was at a wedding. It was pretty awesome. Happy people dancing, band playing music, awesome food, the whole deal. Also, there was a bunch of booze floating around. I was talking to a friend about my plans for this week's entry, which was gonna be an alcoholic drink involving chocolate, cream, sugar, bailey's, pure joy, and milkshakes. Sounds awesome, I know, but she was lamenting the fact that she wouldn't be able to try it until she was off of her wedding-diet. Which got me curious. That's always a bad thing. Curiosity and weddings mix badly. But I got inspired by the fruity nonsense drinks flying around the place to try and make a delicious simple drink that, while isn't exactly diet-friendly, is much more so than 1,000 pounds of cream, sugar, and chocolate all vying to make your face explode with happiness. Happiness, and also the daily caloric intake of Guatemala.

Ingredients:

2 shots of Peach Schnapps (Technically, a shot is 1.5 ounces. So this would be 3 ounces. Or you could have just taken a shot glass and filled it up twice, instead of making everything difficult)
1 shot Triple Sec
1 shot Vodka
1 20 oz. bottle of Ginger Ale
Limes! 
Ice!
Maraschino Cherries!

Warning: do not consume without first making a toast, laying
on a beach, or screaming out the roof of a limo.

This is a recipe that involves absolutely no cooking, and not much in the way of assembly either. If you can't figure this one out, you may want to just call in sick for the rest of the decade rather than risk the daily puzzle that is tying your shoes. The first thing you're gonna want to do is take your peach schnapps, triple sec, vodka, and ginger ale, and mix them together. Then slice your lime in to...slices of lime. Lay a couple lime slices upright in a glass, and then fill said glass with ice. Ice is key for any cocktail. Even heathen peoples who like warm beer, and will be rightfully punished by the gods for their blasphemy, acknowledge that cocktails need ice. So find some way to get some ice, and plop it in your glass. As you fill up the glass with ice, throw in some cherries and more lime slices along the edge of the glass, because we're classy goddammit. Then fill up your glass with your booze mixture. And that's it! You've got delicious fruity nonsense that's not as terribly caloric as it might have otherwise been. You know, if I was left to my own devices. My chocolatey, delicious devices. Enjoy.