I'm making a note here, HUGE SUCCESS

[pmb]

I turned 30 yesterday, and there was a huge party, in which I fully engaged geek social fallacy #4. And it was wonderful! I think that I will declare it to be the best birthday party I have ever had! I made a cheesecake, Tracy made a lemon bundt cake, and we had lots of chips and dip and a chocolate taste-off. People played Ricochet Robots (recently reissued, now available near you! It's as good a geek game as Set!), Perudo (with my brand new Perudo dice from Erin! She individually wrapped ALL 30 DICE), and Jenga. The last cubes of ice are only now melting in the sink. We were set up to serve 4 drinks: manhattans (the them of the party was "Manhattan"), martinis, not-quite-a-sidecars, and kirs. The last two were pretty darn popular, so here is the recipe for each:

Not-quite-a-sidecar - adapted from something ouro made us
2 parts Applejack
1 part lemon juice
1 part triple sec
1 sprig rosemary

Put it all in a shaker and shake vigorously. Strain and pour and garnish one of the cups with the bruised-yet-still-vibrant sprig of rosemary.

And here is the recipe for the kir:

Kir - not quite a real kir, apparently, but everyone loved them so that's good
1.5 oz Creme de Cassis
Soda water

Put ice in a class, pour the Creme de Cassis over it, and and fill the rest of the glass with soda water. Light and refreshing!

The chocolate tasting that single-blind, but everyone wrote their favorite on a piece of paper that anyone could read. So there were confounding social factors that prevent it from being SCIENCE, and merely make it scientific-ish. I will post the results later today, because the single-blind aspect of the experiment prevents me from knowing what chocolates a, b, c, and d actually were until Tracy gets home from work with the "lab notebook".

I hope everyone had fun at the party: I know I definitely did!

Comments

[pmb.livejournal.com]

I tend to trust ouro. He has a whole blog all about drinks - http://www.boozecouncil.org/ Also, he has a tendency to put lots of strange botanicals in drinks. But there's also a long history of this sort of thing - gin, for example, is basically vodka infused with pine berries and lots of other crap, and there are lots of other drinks (chartreuse, jagermeister, and aquavit are all examples) that get all their flavor from weird herbs and spices.

Faced with this long tradition of herbs in alcohol, rosemary no longer seems like quite so fucked up a choice. Also, it grows wild in our yard in many large bushes, so it was an ingredient in search of a supporting drink.

[ouro.livejournal.com]

Anyone can have a blog. It's my liver that drives me to typing.

Apples cooked with rosemary is pretty tasty (slice potatoes and apples, pile in a bread pan, bake with cider and rosemary and salt). I was shooting for that kind of savory with this garnished Apple Cart.