cocktails

Blackberries are over? Damn you, global warming!

Looks like we’re not the only freegans in Langley. Mum and Miss V went blackberry picking the other day and found the bushes stripped of fruit. What remained was shriveled or festooned with spider webs, and they came home with only half a bucket for their troubles.

“What the hell are we going to make margaritas with?” I asked Miss V, who promptly put me in a dress and forced me to attend a “bear wedding.”

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Blackberry season started early this year thanks to a hot, dry summer and/or climate change. My mum only discovered the berries were ready by accident when she emerged from the bank three weeks ago and collected a bucket’s worth in the parking lot within 15 minutes. It was the first time we’d ever received something free or even worthwhile from the bank, but instead of making blender drinks she made jam, crumble, and cookies. When I asked about daiquiris, she said “Next time, LB.” Can you believe it? Complacently then, she waited two weeks to go back for more berries. And they were gone.

If you had more sense than my mother and picked while the picking was good, here are your fabulous prizes.

♦

Blackberry Bellini

Ingredients: - 5 oz Procescco - 2 oz blackberry puree - 1 oz creme du mure Garnish: whole blackberry and mint leaf Pour in the blackberry puree and creme du mure into a champagne flute. Top of with processco. Finish with a mint leaf and whole blackberry garnish. (Cocktail created by Brian McGrory)

Ingredients:
– 5 oz Procescco
– 2 oz blackberry puree
– 1 oz creme du mure
Garnish: whole blackberry and mint leaf 

Pour in the blackberry puree and creme du mure into a champagne flute. Top of with processco. Finish with a mint leaf and whole blackberry garnish. (Cocktail created by Brian McGrory)

♦

Blackberry Mojito

Ingredients: 12 large blackberries 12 mint leaves 4 teaspoons sugar 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice 1 Tablespoon fresh lime juice 3 ounces light rum (you can substitute vodka if you like) Ice Club soda Lime wedge, mint, and blackberries for garnish Chill two glasses. Put the mint and the berries in the bottom of a cocktail shaker with the sugar. Use a wooden spoon to muddle (bruise) the mint and crush the berries. Add rum, lemon and lime juice. Fill with ice. Shake until well chilled. Put mint leaves in the bottom of the glass. Add ice. Strain the cocktail over the ice. Top with club soda for a little sparkle.

Ingredients:
12 large blackberries
12 mint leaves
4 teaspoons sugar
1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 Tablespoon fresh lime juice
3 ounces light rum (you can substitute vodka if you like)
Ice
Club soda
Lime wedge, mint, and blackberries for garnishChill two glasses. Put the mint and the berries in the bottom of a cocktail shaker with the sugar. Use a wooden spoon to muddle (bruise) the mint and crush the berries. Add rum, lemon and lime juice. Fill with ice. Shake until well chilled. Put mint leaves in the bottom of the glass. Add ice. Strain the cocktail over the ice. Top with club soda for a little sparkle.

♦

Blackberry Fruittini

Ingredients: • 1 part ABSOLUT Kurant • 1 dash Dry Vermouth • 1 dash Sugar Syrup

Ingredients:
• 1 part ABSOLUT Kurant
• 1 dash Dry Vermouth
• 1 dash Sugar Syrup

 

And if, like my mother, you weren’t organized or didn’t bother to get blackberries so your little bear friend could enjoy blackberry cocktails, your fabulous prize is that you get to go out and buy your little bear friend a bottle of vodka and watch him pound it.

 

ASTROLIQUOR for December 7-13—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

Aries, you’ll have unexpected expenses this week and through the New Year, so stay away from expensive artisanal gin and find yourself some rotgut. You’ll make hotel reservations, only to have them fall through when you reach your (expensive) destination. Hope it’s a warm area of the world; you might be bedding down in cardboard. This could be good for your love life.

Taurus, you feel introverted, causing your friends to wonder what’s wrong with you. The world is heavily skewed toward extroverts, and we can’t all be naked-dancing-lampshade-wearing-Mike’s-hard-lemonade-swilling entertainers, so just own your need for a little quiet and privacy this week. Any friends who can’t respect it are dildos.

When you mix lager and stout in the same glass, Gemini, you feel empowered to do whatever the hell else you want to do too. Moreover, you get the sense that everyone admires you and would like to mate with you. In psychiatric parlance this is called narcissism, and many Geminis enjoy it. The important thing is that you radiate positive energy. You emit  bright sunbeams, even if you think they’re shining out of your shorts.

Cancer, new people enter your life this week—a good thing, since you burned a few bridges in November. You may end up traveling with your new friends and learning about new societies and cultures. You may start drinking Yellow Chartreuse with cognac. All this will be very expensive, but don’t worry about the bruises on your credit card; you’ll win the lottery later in the week.

Leo, you don’t feel like working this week. Instead you’ll fantasize heavily about future plans, watch a lot of porn, and hit on strangers. In other words, this will be a fun week, but it will come back to haunt you in February, depending how many people you piss off. Still, it is in the stars, so you can’t exactly elect not to misbehave. Champagne for you.

Staying home alone may appeal to you, Virgo, but it will actually end up sucking, especially since you’ll miss out on meeting someone special. Not only that—if you mix with other people, someone might offer you a job. However, if it’s not a job but a “lucrative business partnership,” run! The last thing you need is to get financially reamed before the holidays. You need money for vodka, rum, brandy, and amaretto.

Libra, responsibility is the last thing on your mind. Your life has been very mundane lately, and you’re itching to go berserk. Will you make it until New Year without shaking up a 4-L jug of creme de menthe, Frangelico, and vodka? If you restrain yourself, you’ll become very moody at work…. Best to work drunk and happy. Your colleagues like you better that way, and so do you.

What a boring week lies ahead, Scorpio. It’s like you’re in a little pocket of weak celestial influence. You’ll get restless on Wednesday and mix this:

  • 5 oz rum
  • 5 oz pear liqueur
  • 5 oz orange juice
  • 5 oz pineapple juice

You may wish to hollow out a pineapple or a coconut and adorn this amazing drink with umbrellas and whatever weird things you can find. Consuming it should take care of Thursday (who does anything on Thursday anyway), and then on Friday you’ll need to explain some kind of accounting slip-up at work that’s concatenated throughout your department. Rum is really the worst spirit for doing math.

Sagittarius, you’re getting excited about your birthday. Even if it’s already happened, you may feel you didn’t get enough gifts. Why not make yourself a calendar featuring nude pictures of yourself? It will be an interesting conversation piece for a whole year, and you’ll still have money left over for Sailor Jerry. Make sure you go grocery shopping every day if you want to have a hook-up this week.

Your popularity continues, Capricorn. Go with it—an evening with friends will boost your spirits. Make it an inexpensive one, though; find a cheap dive and drink the house beer. This way you can restock your liquor inventory (Frangelico, Haagen Dazs cream liqueur, Grand Marnier, and Kahlua—yes, you need these). Make sure you don’t go to any musicals. No handling livestock either.

Aquarius, you have to fight for your rights this week. The battleground is information. Be suspicious of everyone. If you think you’re being surveilled, it’s because you are. When it comes to drinks, think odorless and colorless. Despite your current vodka-fueled paranoia, you’ll look back at the week with a sense of accomplishment. Except for the part where you bump into an old friend who defrauds you in a get-rich-quick scheme.

Pisces, you need liberty this week. Off with those confining clothes; it’s time to run around in a thong. Surprisingly, your friends won’t interfere. Be thankful for them, but keep things platonic; the stars call nix on any sort of rutting or matting. Turn your tongue and internal organs blue-purple with some blackberry schnapps.

ASTROLIQUOR for November 23-29—What the stars say you should drink!

My Fellow Inebriates,

Here’s your booze horoscope:

Aries, you’d like to make love to a movie star or news reporter. No luck there! You will have a hook-up on a downtown bus, though…late at night, with a vagrant reeking of Beefeater. Soak up the experience! It will shake you to your core. You’ll find yourself daydreaming about it the next day…in the grocery store, at the gym…. Better buy some Beefeater. After all, smell is the sense most tied to memory.

Taurus, where is this new independence and responsibility coming from? Not only are you kicking ass at work; you’re contemplating self-improvement seminars and community education—possibly even a cult. Your newfound self-sufficiency even extends to love. Once upon a time you’d have jumped at the chance to have sex with a gin-soaked derelict on a moving bus. But this week…you have no problem saying no.

Maybe it’s the tequila, Gemini, or possibly the Blue Curacao, but I see you in a Turkish bath surrounded by sweaty moobs. This joyful living peaks on Wednesday, when you emerge from your communal nude-fest, go to work after a long and inexplicable absence, and make your boss notice you. You can do no wrong, Gemini!

Cancer, have you forgotten what a screw-up you were at work last week? Apparently so, because you’ve taken that disciplinary talk your boss gave you and applied it to all your colleagues. Tattle-tales will get you nowhere, and doesn’t everyone take Wite-Out home? Instead of being an insufferable douchebag, make yourself a treat:

  • 3 oz white chocolate liqueur
  • 3 oz Galiano
  • 1 oz Kahlua
  • Milk to taste (I’m having “none”)

Leo, you’re rebounded from last week’s insecurities in a characteristically manic way. You radiate confidence and everyone notices. Now’s the time to boost that inner glow with a big-ass bottle of UV Blue vodka. What is that flavor, you wonder? OMG, it’s raspberries! Blue raspberries! Just like in nature. The artificiality just about makes your head split open. You should definitely drink the whole bottle.

Don’t speak your true thoughts, Virgo, or you’ll end up getting your ass kicked at the pub. Keep critical thoughts to yourself while your brain cells are swimming in Malibu. True enough, Malibu is a veritable truth serum, but if you make an effort you can control it at least as well as you control your bladder. No? Maybe you should stay at home, at least until Friday. Too bad they don’t make Depends for your mouth.

Libra, when you behave superficially you attract people, so keep it up. You’ll hook up with a colleague this week, which should feed the gossip machine. Most star charts would advise discretion, but not this one. You should have a blow-out party and invite everyone from work, dramatically illuminating your crazy new relationship and obviating the need to fill out one of those disclosure forms with HR. Here’s your party punch:

  • 1 bottle Everclear
  • 1 bottle vodka
  • 1 bottle tequila
  • A bunch of Red Bull, Sunny D, and Hawaiian Punch
  • Fresh floating fruit (for the vitamins)

You consider meditating this week, Scorpio. Maybe there’s something to this spirituality stuff, right? After about 10 minutes you come to your senses and pour a big pitcher of Goldschlager, Jack Daniels, and Aftershock…ahhh! That’s a much better way to your Third Eye. No gambling this week unless you’re totally sure you’re going to win. Uh, yeah. Right.

Sagittarius, normally you’re good at keeping the peace with your partner, but this week you turn into a maniac. That’s what comes of lengthy teetotalling (the stars say you gave up the bottle for a good five days). Oh no! You had nothing but crap in your liquor cabinet, so when you decided abstinence wasn’t for you, your only bender ingredients were some nasty old vermouth and apple brandy. No wonder you were so testy. Go out and buy some proper booze.

You’re suddenly inundated by friends, Capricorn. You’ll make tons of new contacts, some charming but most boring. You’ll need a lot of vodka mint martinis to make them seem interesting! The one exception will be a Scorpio—possibly a friend of a friend, possibly a hobo on a bus. Be open-minded and go with it 🙂

Aquarius, a fortnight-long misunderstanding gets cleared up this week. It’ll be nice to be out of custody and breathe some fresh air. Avoid buses, police stations, Virgos, pragmatists, lemons, and expensive Scotch. You need a cheap blend while you put your life back together, friend. Come to LBHQ and have some Wisers.

Pisces, make no decisions this week about anything. Your choices typically involve Bacardi 151, and you know how that works out. No driving, either, this week! At the best of times you have no business being in a car, and you’ll have a lot more fun if you eliminate the temptation to drive. BTW, the stars say there’s some fungus on your body but they don’t say where.