By Emily Gasser | Mental Mastication
Here’s something I don’t understand: We Swatties consider ourselves cultured, learned, probably better than you. We decry the lack of good food in the Ville, support the Good Food Project’s organic gardens, and whine about sausage bar. But the same people who you hear complaining about dining services can inevitably be found on any given Friday night sipping from a plastic cup filled with off-brand coke and the cheapest rum money can buy. We get mad when Sharples overcooks its rice, but when DU serves us something vaguely sweet and yellowish out of a plastic tub we go back for seconds. Why are we so demanding in our food and so willing to drink such crap?
Case in point: the Halloween party. Long a bastion of drunkenness and debauchery (I can’t blame ML for kicking it out), you don’t expect much from what’s served there aside from the ability to get you wasted, and fast. I took a cup of whatever was out on the bar, took a sip, and nearly spit it right back out. I understand the goal here was to provide vast quantities of drinks on the cheap, but Kool-Aid? That’s just uncalled for. Why not buy some cheap OJ, mix the vodka with that, and have a half-decent screwdriver? From the looks of things, people didn’t much seem to care, but at the least it’ll make finicky columnists like me and Aaron happy. Kudos to the International Club and others who’ve put some creativity (and real fruit juice!) into their offerings; to anyone else with a party permit, really, all I need’s a vodka cranberry and I’m set.
You don’t have to spend a fortune to drink well. While I appreciate a $60 bottle of Brunello as much as anybody, I spent $8.99 this weekend on a Mirassou Winery pinot noir from California that was just lovely, perfect for sipping on Parrish beach in the sun. For under ten bucks you can get a Little Penguin
But why stop at wine when there’s mixed drinks to be had? What the fancy distilleries don’t want you to know is that if you strain cheap vodka through some fishtank charcoal and coffee filters (or a dedicated Brita), your Bankers Club can come out tasting like Grey Goose. (And even if you can’t taste the difference, you’ll appreciate the less-obnoxious hangovers.) My first bit of advice to anyone hoping to move up the cocktail ladder is to invest in a copy of Old Mr. Boston’s Official Bartender’s Guide, probably the best couple of bucks I ever spent towards alcohol paraphernalia. Mixing a drink is like cooking; a good recipe book is invaluable. And once you’ve got the recipes, feel free to ignore them – I’ve substituted grapefruit juice for lemon, rum for brandy, and cranberry juice for blue food coloring and still ended up with some awfully tasty results; use what you’ve got. Unusual flavors can be surprisingly good – ouzo with orange juice, green tea with whiskey, almost anything with pomegranate. It’s nice to have a well-stocked bar of mixers, but a few Tarble meals spent on juice will serve you just fine.
Another thing to keep in mind is that vodka soaks up flavors like nothing else. Pour some into a water bottle, add flavor, soak overnight, and you’ve done Absolut Citron one better. A few drops of vanilla extract in a bottle makes for a smoother drink without all that obnoxious extra sugar Smirnoff’s throws in. Some things to try: orange peel, cinnamon, a slice of fruit, a teabag. I experimented with soaking some hot peppers to make spicy vodka and came up with the recipe below. We claim to be academia’s elite, now let’s start drinking like it.
Sugar & Spice Cocktail
1 part vodka in which dried chili peppers have been soaked
2 parts crème de cacao (or a dollop of chocolate syrup)
1 part milk
splash of amaretto (optional)
cinnamon
Mix well. Sweet at first, ends with a kick.
Published version: http://phoenix.swarthmore.edu/2007-04-26/living/17315
