vodka

Jolly Rancher Vodka—get some ready for breakfast!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Jolly Ranchers Vodka: mixthatdrink.com

You may have been weirded out by the off-putting opacity of Skittles Vodka. It makes sense that people might wish to see through their candy-styled vodka infusions, and if you’re one of these clarity fans, then here’s a shiny, translucent variation: Jolly Ranchers Vodka—yeah!!

Jolly Ranchers have long been regarded as a lens into overlapping realities. With a mind-blowing assortment of flavors, they’ve historically been the preferred side dish of acid-tripping synaesthetes who love to merge taste and smell with sound and color. Aficionados say Jolly Ranchers can make an LSD trip all-singing and all-dancing all night.

It kind of sounds like one of those made-up geezer stories you hear from forty-somethings like my parents who like to wax on about their lives “BC”—you know, when they used to read two books instead of one and stayed up until 11:00 instead of 10:00. But I honestly doubt my parents have ever done anything more heart-pounding than miss their stop on the SkyTrain.

Boring parents aside, this lovely Mix That Drink recipe seems like a nice nod to the role Jolly Ranchers may or may not have played in altered consciousness. You have to know I’ll never be allowed to devote a bottle of Grey Goose to it, but I hope you will, my friends, and tell me all about it.

Taste the rainbow

My Fellow Inebriates,

I’ve always wondered what Skittles were for. They are so bright and shiny that it’s hard to trust them. But here’s a nifty use for them: Skittle-Infused Vodka.

Shocking colors! Vodka for the bored.

What a shocking color! They’re sexy, they’re vivid…But why would we do this? What on earth are we doing to perfectly good vodka?

First of all, what do Skittles taste like? Plenty of Skittles came home in the old Halloween bags this year, so I had a chance to sample them.

Skittles are super-sweet, pseudo-fruity little pebbles, chewy with hard shells. Main constituents:  “sugar, corn syrup, and hydrogenated palm kernel oil along with fruit juice, citric acid, and natural and artificial flavours.” Mmmmm!!

So of course I’m ready to devote a giant bottle of Stolichnaya to the creation of Skittle Booze. Aren’t you?

Taste the rainbow if you dare.

It all raises the question of the age group liquor is marketed to. Certainly I’m on board with the whole idea, being a Skittles-generation bear, but my parents are too old to consider it. It’s too fun for them, too hip, too young. It crosses the line into candyland liquor that they can’t reconcile with a very dry gin martini.

Basically, they’re being killjoys again and telling me I can’t make Skittles Vodka. So I want YOU to do it, friends, and tell me all about it!

 

SMIRNOFF Vodka

My recent adventure with my good friend Glen Bear and a mickey of POLAR ICE vodka was certainly a good time. Enormous Glen, who could probably take down a baby walrus, totally lost control in our house and caused a lot of damage. So I thought I’d include him in my next vodka tasting because it was so much fun.

Next on my list: SMIRNOFF vodka, a new-world product based on an old-world recipe. A readily available and affordable vodka.

But first I needed to Glen-proof the house. You see, my parents had told us they don’t want to go to JYSK to replace things that we wreak while inebriated. They just want our house to stay peaceful and keep standing. They really didn’t want Glen involved. To be honest, they didn’t want me sampling vodka either, but I told them I was going to get famous as a vodka reviewer and make them rich. I said I was going to be a Useful Animal and monetize my website by featuring thoughtful reviews that people would seek out.

They countered that I might do better to peddle my ass downtown.

I countered that I do not even have a working anus.

And so I was allowed to have a vodka tasting, as long as I kept it civilized and avoided breakage. They urged me not to include Glen Bear, but I really like him, so I promised we’d be careful. But you know how polar bears are.

Actually, polar bears are in deep trouble. Two-thirds of them are expected to disappear by 2050 due to habitat loss caused by global warming. They are officially a Threatened Species under the Endangered Species Act.

I wasn’t sure if this was a reason to give Glen vodka or not, but the SMIRNOFF bottle was sticking innocently out of its paper bag, calling to us. It was the one with the red label, the bottom-shelf variety that’s ubiquitous at bars and restaurants.

So how does it taste?

The first sip is inoffensive and almost flavorless but is followed by an acrid, saliva-evaporating throat-burn. It demands a mixer, so we get ourselves some Tang. I look at Glen and think about his habitat getting inexorably warmer. A bear like Glen just wouldn’t know what to do about the ice floes receding, and vodka can’t help.

We continue to drink and find ourselves accepting SMIRNOFF’S bitter notes, almost savoring them now that we’ve lowered our expectations. It does taste fine with Tang, and in a pinch you could use Mountain Dew or lemonade—anything with a sweet tartness to offset the bitterness. I wouldn’t do a greyhound, though.

SMIRNOFF has been pretty intuitive about the flavors it needs to mask, producing a full line of flavors that include citrus, blueberry, black cherry and who the hell knows how many others. The SMIRNOFF people know what they’re doing; they know their vodka isn’t top-tier, so they’ve made it pocketbook- and user-friendly. They’ve also tapped into the marketing genius of variety whereby competition can be harnessed within their own brand. When I think of this principle I think fondly of Malcolm Gladwell’s talk on marketing. I like his hair so much; it is at least as undisciplined as my fur.

So, what kind of shape is our house in?

Well, it looks like a freaking bomb hit it, but that’s because my mum is too busy doing my typing to clean properly. She has to; my paws are more like little nubs than hands, and I don’t have any patience. I just want to be famous, one drink at a time. Oh, yeah, and my mum is lazy.

And how is Glen doing?

Glen lumbered off after one or two cocktails. He wasn’t too excited about SMIRNOFF, but worse still, he’d had no idea about polar bears being threatened, and he was totally freaked out when I told him. I said the two of us should do something for polar bears, like send them money or tell people about global warming. A big guy like Glen Bear, who can pack an Arctic seal under one arm while yanking at a helicopter pontoon, shouldn’t be lying around cowering and retching up orange-tinted SMIRNOFF. We should be parlaying our web infamy into charitable activities.

So we’ll start by encouraging our readers to click on the World Wildlife Fund widget on the right. It’s one small action to show we care about the environment. Go ahead—do it! And then grab yourself some Tang and SMIRNOFF.