kill vehicle

So I went to San Francisco last week for a conference, and happened to be staying at a hotel close to John Walker & Co. I figured I’d stop in and see if they had any Crème de Violette, because I can’t get any locally thanks to the PLCB. I’d picked up a bottle at a little corner liquor store the day before, but wanted to get another one for PeterB since he’d tried and failed to order us a few bottles through the PLCB’s terrible SLO program a while ago.

Turns out I left with a bottle of Rothman & Winter Crème de Violette, a bottle of Peychaud’s bitters, a bottle of Regan’s orange bitters, and two bottles of Compass Box whisky that, uh, fell into my arms.

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I’ve been meaning to post about this for a while, but finally getting around to making the homemade grenadine mentioned at Tea Leaves jogged my memory and reminded me to mention it.

There’s a bar near my house called Kelly’s that we go to sometimes, especially after work. It’s a little hole-in-the-wall place that happens to have surprisingly good food and cocktails. Notably, they actually know how to mix real cocktails instead of just looking at you dumbfounded if you order anything more complicated than a rum and coke. For example, they’re about the only place I’ve found in town that can make a decent Sidecar.

During one post-work happy hour, they had little drink cards at the tables from LUPEC, ’Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails’. Laura ordered a Firefly from it, loved it, and I’ve been pressed into service making them ever since.

It’s a simple drink, but quite tasty:

• 1 1/2 oz vodka
• 2 oz grapefruit juice
• 1 tsp of grenadine

Shake it up with ice, and strain into a rocks glass with crushed ice.

I tend to make them as spritzers, topped with some club soda.

They’re good with fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice and the Stirrings pomegranate grenadine, but absolutely great with homemade grenadine.

For the grenadine, I basically followed Pete’s recipe, but cooked it to 225 degrees instead of 230 so it wasn’t quite as sweet.

Mmm.

Laura and I are at the hockey game, and during a TV timeout a couple minutes ago they do a little ‘Iceburgh Goes To School’ segment where the team mascot goes to a local elementary school with a cameraman in tow and asks the various adorable moppets questions.

Okay, fine, cute enough.

So the first question is “Where do penguins live?”

Sure, that makes sense, the team mascot’s a huge freakish cartoon penguin.

But then EVERY SINGLE KID says “up north where it’s cold!” or “the north pole!”

Not one knows the answer.

So I ask you: is our children learning?

I think weblog posting from a new iPhone is near-mandatory, yes?

So far I’m about as happy as I expected to be, which is very.

First: Laura made a delicious asparagus curry with chickpea pancakes for dinner tonight. Highly recommended if you like Indian food. And, well, if you don’t, what the hell is wrong with you? Indian food is delicious.

Second: I picked up a bottle of Tanqueray Rangpur gin, which is a newish gin distilled with Rangpur limes, ginger, and bay leaves. It’s stunningly good in a simple gin and tonic, and it also made the best martini I’ve ever had:

• six parts tanqueray rangpur gin
• one part dry vermouth
• one-half part orange bitters

I tend to like my martinis on the wet side (as my friend Peter would say, otherwise it’s just a big glass of gin), and I’ve recently fallen in love with the old-style addition of orange bitters. The slight lime flavor of the Rangpur mixed incredibly well with the orange, and the whole thing is just wonderfully smooth and tasty.

Definitely pick some up if you can.