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Drinkify!

I guess when you spend a lot of time passed out, the world marches on and all the great ideas come from other people. That’s okay with me, because I barely have two brain cells left to rub together.

Case in point: drinkify.org. “Created in twenty-four boozy hours,” by Lindsay Eyink, Hannah Donovan, and Matthew Ogle, Drinkify “automatically generates the perfect* cocktail recipe to accompany any music.”

What a brilliant idea! In my house there’s always music on, and I don’t always feel qualified to pick the exact right libation to go with it. Perhaps Drinkify could help me take my drinking up a notch.

So…right now we’re playing the ATLAS SOUND. Let’s see what Drinkify recommends…

  • 1 Brooklyn Lager -Serve cold.

🙂 Awesome!!!

Now I’m typing in BJORK.

  • 1 Blue Paddle -Serve cold. Garnish with fire.

☻ OMG, so awesome!!!

Let’s try something different…I’m typing in WAGNER.

  • 1 Pilsner -Serve cold.

😦 Hmmmm…not so sure about that. Let’s try something else on the dramatic side. Typing in TOM WAITS.

  • 1 Sierra Nevada Pale Ale -Serve cold.

😦 😦 No way. Inadequate. Let’s try one more….ROLLING STONES.

  • 10 oz. Rum -Serve on rocks. Garnish with cocktail onions.

😀 Now that’s more like it!!!

Okay, let’s try something that actually plays a lot in my house: THE WIGGLES.

  • 2 oz. Old Rip Van Winkle Bourbon
  • 2 oz. Coco López
  • 4 oz. Rum

Combine in shaker and strain into cocktail glass. Serve.

:DD My faith is returning. For a second I thought randomness was playing a role in Drinkify’s selections. But this last selection can be no accident—the people at Drinkify must realize that when the WIGGLES are playing relentlessly in your house, copious amounts of alcohol are called for.

*May not actually be perfect.

DIY Irish Cream

My Fellow Inebriates,

This bear plays with fire.

As my friend Blackie often reminds me, it’s bad for us bears to get involved in cooking because we’re so easily mistaken for the oven mitt. Now, this might just be liquored-up paranoia, but it’s been enough to keep me away from the stove since we moved to our house. I don’t have anything to do with that thing. In fact, when it’s on I cower in the liquor cabinet.

But an urge is coming over me to make my own Irish cream liqueur, or at least order my mum to make some. She’s a real lush when it comes to high-cal liqueurs, so it shouldn’t be a hard sell. But what recipe do we use, people? There are HUNDREDS of them on the net, and I have no idea what to go with. Some of them use full cream, some half; some use raw eggs; some use coffee, some don’t…I have no idea how to pick the right recipe.

My second problem is lack of appropriate booze. We don’t have any whisky in the house, Irish or otherwise, so my question to you is: Is it okay to substitute Malibu? Will I still end up with something reasonably like an Irish cream? Or what if I use Bacardi Big Apple?

Ultimately it doesn’t matter because I’ll drink whatever results and then engage in all kinds of nighttime wildness. But I figure if I’m going to give some of my homemade hooch away to pals for the holidays, I should try and get it right.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite Irish cream recipe?

BROKER’S GIN

My Fellow Inebriates,

I need to score some BROKER’S GIN. I just realized my local liquor store no longer carries it—OMG!! I took it for granted; I thought it would always be there. Even when I wasn’t thinking about it, somewhere inside I had the comforting notion that it would be there when I decided it was gin-and-tonic time.

Yes, I did rhapsodize the other day about BEEFEATER, an awesome gin and the definitive choice for juniper fans. I love BEEFEATER, my peeps, but there’s a time and a place for it. BEEFEATER is for lurching around with older relatives at weddings and wakes. It’s great for sipping in a martini while you listen to loud, loud music. It’s fantastic at an airport when it could be 7:00 a.m. or 2:00 p.m. for all you know because you lost your watch in the toilet. I totally love the stuff.

But I have to tell you about BROKER’S. Compared to BEEFEATER, it is a cheeky upstart—but an upstart with a mission to create an unapologetically old-fashioned gin bespeaking London and its heritage. Using quadruple distillation, the fourth pass going through a copper pot still, brothers Andy and Martin Dawson combined their solid business acumen, their creativity, and some funny hats in 1998, to create a memorably dry, full-bodied gin.

SO WHY THE HELL CAN’T I FIND IT IN MY LIQUOR STORE ANY MORE? Seriously, I want to ask Andy and Martin what’s going on…why BROKER’S was in my liquor store and isn’t any more. Are they okay? OMG, is BROKER’S okay? Are they still making it? Are they doing great but have cut Canada off? Do they think Canadians are hooligans? OMG!

BROKER’S has captured dozens of international awards for its fresh, dry and slightly floral gin. I know we swill a lot of Molson Canadian here in the Great White North, but there must be animals and humans besides yours truly with a bad-ass jones for this crystal-clear elixir.

Did I mention it was cheap compared to other premium gins? Given the labor-intensive production methods the brothers use to make the stuff, this didn’t even compute when I first bought it, but it didn’t matter, because I had my heavenly gin. Where, oh where, can I get a bottle of BROKER’S? Dear followers, please help me.