21 Drink salute

Two variations on the Singapore Sling: gin, Benedictine liqueur, cherry brandy, orange liqueur, lemon juice, and... either some pineapple juice and grenadine if you fancy a fruitier libation, OR a splash of club soda for a lighter, bubblier cocktail. If there's one thing I've learned in all these years of doing my annual "21 Drink Salute to America" -- three weeks of cocktails between Flag Day and the Fourth of July -- it's that there's always more than one way to skin a proverbial cat. (Deepest apologies to my cat Edmund for that crass metaphor.) And since we never stop learning, kids -- even in the dog days of summer -- this year I'll be experimenting each day with variations on my drinks. Just an excuse to drink multiple cocktails each day? Perhaps. But life is short; why make excuses? I'm not a big either/or kinda guy... the fruitier version of this was sweet and delicious, the bubbly version was just the crisp refreshment I needed after mowing the lawn on a languid 100-degree summer day. So pick your poison... you can't go wrong with either of these. Cheers!

Spanish Coffee -- or "carajillo" to use its native nomenclature -- is just coffee fortified with booze, in this case brandy and a little splash of coffee liqueur. The hot version is sometimes garnished with sugar on the rim that is carmelized by a controlled alcohol burn prior to the addition of the coffee. I opted not to play with fire at breakfast, but I did make both a hot and cold version, crowning both with a dollop of creamy coconut whipped topping. Yum! And speaking of Spain, I learned today that Theodore Roosevelt had to wait 103 years to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his exploits with the Rough Riders in Cuba during the Spanish-American War in 1898. Who knew? Although I may think differently in the dead of winter, the cold version of this cocktail wins my medal of honor for Day 2 of this year's "21 Drink Salute to America." Cheers!

Today's "21 Drink Salute" mash-up features two Italian cocktails: the classic Negroni -- gin, sweet vermouth, and Campari -- against the Americano -- which substitutes sparkling water for the gin. I took the liberty of using the blood orange flavored San Pellegrino water for some added razzle dazzle in the Americano. For both cocktails, I splurged on some decent Cocchi Italian vermouth from the Asti region of Torino. If you're like me -- indulging in a little bitterness from time to time -- you'll probably prefer the Negroni's distinctive bite. If you're the sweet, effervescent type -- well, God bless your heart. Go ahead and guzzle down your light and bubbly Americano. Personally, I think there's no Campari-son: Negroni for this Americano. Cheers!

Cosmopolitan: vodka, liqueur, lime, and juice! Couldn't think of a more cosmopolitan person than my friend Susie -- fresh from her jaunt through London and Copenhagen -- to help me sample these super patriotic red, white and blue cosmos. The classic red cosmo features cranberry juice with orange liqueur. For the white version we used vanilla vodka, orange liqueur, white grape juice and coconut juice; and for the blue version we again used the white grape juice and swapped out blue curacao as our liqueur. We agreed the blue version -- although lovely to look at -- was a bit too sweet and syrupy. Susie said it reminded her of a thick Kool-Ade. The coconutty white version was a nice tropical riff on the original, and we both loved the classic cranberry red cosmo. Then we went and ate hamburgers... doesn't get much more all-American than that. Cheers!

It's a sweltering Day 5 of my 21 Drink Salute to America and I'm keepin' cool with a couple of spiked ice teas: one enhanced with a healthy pour of Limoncello lemon liqueur, the other featuring a big shot of bourbon and a little strawberry liqueur... both garnished appropriately with fresh fruit. Honestly, the lemon cocktail -- refreshing as it was -- didn't even really taste much like a cocktail; it just tasted like lemon iced tea. Meh. The tartly sweet strawberries, on the other hand, harmonized beautifully with the bourbon and gave a little burst of personality to my Tejava unsweetened black tea. Don't worry, I'll give Limoncello another shot before all is said and done. But for now I'm heading inside (where it's air conditioned) to slice up the rest of my strawberries and relax with another iced tea cocktail. Cheers!

I've gone NUTS.... coconuts! (Of course, we all know the coconut is a fruit, not technically a nut.) Both of today's frozen cocktails feature coconut milk and coconut rum. The top drink was a tangy Limonada de Coco, made with fresh lime juice and sugar; the second drink swapped out the lime for chocolatey creme de cacao and a shot of caramel syrup. The former drink was a delightful marriage of tart lime and sweet coconut; the latter drink kind of tasted vaguely like the inside of a candy bar. But both were quite good! It's Day 6 of my taste-testing 21 Drink Salute to America, and I haven't really had a bad cocktail yet. Either I'm getting pretty good at this mixology business or I really am just turning into a lush. Regardless... cheers!

Dos Margaritas: the classic version with tequila reposado, orange liqueur, agave nectar and lime juice -- and a watermelon marg with a little less lime juice and a lot of sweet, sweet watermelon juice -- both served up with a salted rim. My mom used to sprinkle salt on watermelon in the summer, and I always thought that was the strangest thing to do. Then again, I was a super picky eater and almost never tried new things. I'm not sure how Mom kept me alive subsisting on peanut butter sandwiches all those years. Honestly, the salted rim on today's watermelon margarita may have been the first time in my life I've tasted this exquisite marriage of salty and sweet... and as so often happens -- even ten years after she passed on to her eternal reward -- I'm realizing that my Mom actually knew a thing or two. I'm sure she's smiling down from heaven knowing that it took a dang cocktail to get me to taste and appreciate a flavor combination that she always loved. Sending up a heart-felt toast to Mom today... cheers!

Quick: name three cocktails that feature fresh sprigs of MINT. If the mojito was on your list, well... sure, but that didn't make the cut today. Sorry. A routine trip through the produce aisle this afternoon provided the inspo for Day 8 of my 21 Drink Salute to America -- mint! I was content to buy the little sprigs in the plastic containers; but imagine my delight and surprise when I found a display of potted hydroponic mint for just a dollar more. It's like I'm drinking a houseplant! I may have run a few red lights on Center Street as I hurried home to whip up a classic mint julep -- just bourbon muddled up with mint and sugar -- and a cucumber mint gimlet, which is gin and lime muddled with mint and cucumber. Both were minty and refreshing and absolutely delicious. Now I just need to figure out how to keep the cat away from my mint plant. (By the way, kids, remember that "gimlet" begins with a hard G sound, while "gin" and "julep" both begin with a soft G sound. I learned this the hard way the first time I ordered a "jimlet" at a bar and was promptly corrected by the gruff but gallant guy or girl who was giving me guff while going to get my goddamn gimlet. I'm always learnin'.) Cheers!

It's called a Gin and Tonic... not a Tonic and Gin. So is the T in your G and T really such a BFD? Continuing the theme of experimentation for this year's 21 Drink Salute, I decided to sample a variety of tonic waters for today's libation. It really wasn't that hard to find a good half dozen different tonic waters; I paired them all with my go-to gin, Hendrick's. My drinking buddies and I tried four of them. We noted slight differences in taste and carbonation, with one having a more pronounced medicinal aftertaste. Our hands-down favorite was the Fever Tree "Mediterranean" tonic water. You could drink that stuff without the gin. (I'm not sure why you would... but you could.) The other tonic waters -- despite their catchy names and clever bottling (and high-fallutin' price) -- were not appreciably better than a basic inexpensive store brand tonic water. I mean... quinine is quinine, right? So if you're a person of means -- by all means splurge on the Fever Tree. But if you have to make hard choices when it comes to your hard drinking... spend your hard-earned money on a quality gin rather than a gimmicky tonic water. Oh, and fresh limes. Always. Cheers!

Kiwi Cocktails! We're going green for Day 10 of this year's 21 Drink Salute to America, with two cocktails featuring freshly muddled fruit from the globe's seedy underbelly. The Kiwi Martini is just vodka and simple syrup, shaken (not stirred) with our muddled fruit. The Green Goddess is gin and elderflower liqueur, shaken up with lime juice and simple syrup in our mashed kiwi, topped off with some bubbly club soda. Two deliciously simple drinks more or less guaranteed to make your beer-swilling friends green with envy. Cheers!

In honor of Wimbledon... and passing the halfway point of this year's 21 Drink Salute... it's the Pimm's Cup! A Pimm's Cup is lemonade or some kind of soda with Pimm's Liqueur -- which is basically a glorified gin and tonic (see Day 9). The drink is even more glorious when you can make it at home with all the fixins: strawberries, lemons, fresh mint, and cucumbers! A bartender ain't got time for all that... so the version I got at my favorite English-style pub this evening was understandably less fancy -- but still quite serviceable. At home earlier, I also sampled a version with lemon-like soda instead of the ginger ale that we usually use around these parts. Very refreshing! If you're drinking your Pimm's Cup courtside in your finest seersucker suit, the lemon-lime soda is probably the way to go. Cheers!

On Day 12 of this summer's 21 Drink Salute to America, our favorite lemon liqueur makes a glorious return with two tart cocktails. The Devil's Punch is Limoncello lemon liqueur with tequila, orange liqueur, sour mix, and a dash of grenadine for some devilish intrigue. The Limoncello Lemonade is a frozen cocktail with just lemon liqueur, vodka, and orange liqueur blended together with a bunch of ice and some Minute Maid lemonade. I preferred the Devil's Punch... the tequila gave it a little depth and complexity that the lemonade lacked. But both were great, and after Limoncello's poor showing on Day 5, I thought it was important to give it a chance to shine on its own. And shine it did. If you don't have a bottle of Limoncello on your shelf, you're really not committed to this summer thing, are you? Cheers!

During the first half of 2022, it seems my investment portfolio is down 10.37%. Bummer. Then again, the S&P500 is apparently down something like 20%, so I guess I haven't lost as much money as some people? Whatever. As I sat nervously ruminating about the economy this evening, I thought it might be a good idea to drink. So I greedily gulped down two Manhattans -- the cocktail named for the island that was home to a 17th Century Dutch fortification whose imposing wall gave us the name of that all-important Wall Street... where my retirement nest-egg is currently getting scrambled. (Maybe it's time to embrace my Dutch roots and try my hand at speculating in tulip bulbs?) The classic Manhattan cocktail is just rye whiskey with sweet vermouth -- which is a fortified wine. My brother David recently suggested I try mixing up a Brandy Manhattan, which replaces the rye whiskey with brandy -- a distilled wine. (He also informed me that the word "brandy" is derived from a Dutch phrase that means "burnt wine.") OK, so double the wine? Just what I needed to forget about my double-digit financial woes... after all, past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Cheers!

It's a mango-riffic Monday here on Day 14 of this year's 21 Drink Salute. I was fortunate enough to find myself with a substantial quantity of fresh, ripe Manilla mangoes from Mexico today, so two of them found their way into my belly and my cocktail repertoire. The Mango Collins is gin shaken up with mango puree and lemon juice, topped off with some club soda. It was just OK. The gin was fighting with the mango... and fighting to an unsatisfying draw. The frozen Mango Daiquiri, on the other hand, was an absolute winner. Remember, a Daiquiri is what, kids? That's right, rum and sugar and lime juice. Toss that plus some ice and a cubed mango into your Ninja blender and see if it doesn't tickle your taste buds. Cheers!

Is there anything more American than Coca Cola? As we enter the home stretch of this year's 21 Drink Salute to America, I felt inspired to mix up a variety of cocktails made with The Real Thing. The classic Cuba Libre is Coke with rum -- in this case some wonderful Barbancourt Haitian rum -- and lime. The Dracula's Kiss (I'm renaming it the Dra-cola Kiss... duh!) is Cherry Coke with vodka -- I used a basic vanilla vodka -- and blood-red grenadine. Be sure to drive a wooden stake through your garnish! Finally, the Jager Coke Float is made with Coke, Jagermeister and Irish Cream liqueur -- creating a unique taste reminiscent of a boozy rootbeer float. Yum! Honestly, I can't really stand Coke on its own... but it does seem to be the perfect medium for an All-American Cocktail. Cheers!

Got a bunch of tonic water cluttering up your fridge? Maybe because you bought a bunch recently for an online experiment that involved sampling different kinds? Want to use up your tonic water for something OTHER than a Gin and Tonic?! Well, fear not, you've got plenty of options. I enjoyed two good ones today: a Tequila Tonic -- don't forget to salt that rim! -- and a Whiskey Tonic, made with a sweet, smooth blended Irish whiskey, garnished with fresh lemons rather than limes. I was skeptical (as is my nature) that these other liquors would pair well with the mildly bitter and medicinal taste of the tonic water, but both of these were quite nice. Best of all, when all the other nobodies are ordering G&Ts at the bar, you can stand out and impress your bartender by ordering something quite simple but just a little bit different. Tell him (or her, or them) Mister Westra suggested it. Cheers!

Battle of the Blues! Had a bit of Blue Curacao liqueur to use up, so for Day 16 of my 21 Drink Salute, I mixed up two blue-ish cocktails. The Blue Hawaii combines two spirits -- rum and vodka -- with our blue friend and pineapple juice... giving it more of a greenish hue than a true blue. The Blue Lagoon is just vodka with lemonade in our blue liqueur... simple and pure and reminiscent of that awful 1980 film by the same name. I liked the Blue Lagoon (the drink) a lot; the Blue Hawaii was a bit too fruity and sweet and obnoxious for my palate today. Fun fact: Blue Curacao is an orange liqueur that is dyed blue for the purpose of creating colorful, gimmicky cocktails like the two we tried today. I guess vibrant blue is a really hard color to actually find in nature. Good thing we can get it in our cocktails. Cheers!

In these hard economic times, a buck just ain't what it used to be. Unless we're talking about a buck cocktail -- which is a spirit (and assorted other stuff) topped off with ginger ale or ginger beer. The ever-popular Moscow Mule is a buck made with vodka. Today I've mixed up a Kentucky Buck (or, as I like to call it, the Gentleman Buck) which is bourbon with muddled strawberries, lemon juice, and a little simple syrup... and a New Orleans Buck, which is light rum with orange juice and a little lemon juice. Both cocktails were topped off with Summit brand non-alcoholic ginger beer. (The difference between ginger ale and ginger beer, apparently, is that ginger beer tends to have a stronger ginger bite to it than the soft-drinky ginger ale.) I loved the Gentleman Buck, but the New Orleans Buck was OK, too. Pictured with my buck cocktails are some coveted Westra Bucks. I used to give them out (sparingly) to students who did or said something truly noteworthy in my class that warranted the lavish approval of their favorite teacher. The first printing of Westra Bucks -- some 15 years ago -- was in one buck denominations. The second iteration was two bucks... by last year inflation had brought the face value up to five bucks. Your bartender may not appreciate getting Westra Bucks for a tip... be sure to throw around some of the legal tender ones, too. Cheers!

Ventured out tonight to try a couple all-American cocktails... SOUTH American, that is. You have until the end of this caption to guess which two bordering South American countries these drinks hail from. On the left is a Caipirinha, featuring a liquor called cachaça (distilled cane sugar) with lime and simple syrup. The taste was Brazilliant! On the right is a Pisco Sour; pisco is technically a kind of brandy as it's fermented and distilled fruit juice, mixed here also with lime juice and simple syrup... and egg white to add that distinctive foam. (I really had to Peruse my sources for information on this drink.) We had some nice ceviche -- fish pickled in lime juice -- and plantain chips with our drinks. Two amazing drinks from two bordering Amazonia countries: Brazil, and Peru. Cheers!

It's Day 20 of this year's 21 Drink Salute, so we're rapidly running out of opportunities for boozy learnin'! Today's lesson: highball nomenclature. The other day we learned that a "buck" cocktail is a base liquor with ginger ale/beer. More broadly, any cocktail topped with a carbonated, nonalcoholic mixer -- whether ginger ale, tonic water, cola or club soda -- is called a "highball" and is usually served in one of these tallish cylindrical glasses. Today we're trying a couple highball variants made with gin that also have several non-gin variants. Gin with club soda, lemon juice, and sugar is called a Tom Collins. There are many oddball cousins (and crazy uncles?) in the Collins family of highballs... but they all basically have lemon juice, sugar and club soda. I really liked how clean and refreshing this tasted; it was a nice change of pace from the usual Gin and Tonic. Next we removed the sugar, used lime juice instead of lemon, but kept the gin and club soda, and -- voila! -- had ourselves a limey Gin Rickey. Just as with the Collins family of highballs, there are many relatives in the Rickey family of highball cocktails... but all Rickeys feature club soda and lime. (Interestingly, both the Tom Collins and Gin Rickey are apparently named for real people... whose families were presumably as proud of them as the Westra family undoubtedly is of this sotted correspondent. Perhaps someday there will be a Westra-named cocktail?) So, let's review kids... all Rickeys and Collinses and Bucks are highballs; Collinses have club soda with sugar and lemon, Rickeys have club soda and lime, Bucks have ginger ale. All of them, again, are what? That's right... highballs! Good job. We'll see you all in class tomorrow where we'll finish up this year's curriculum with a deep-dive into that most quintessentially quirky cocktail mixer -- beer! Until then... cheers!

Happy Independence Day! To finish up this year's 21 Drink Salute to America, I'm testing out two beer cocktails: a nice Mexican Chelada -- Pacifico beer on top of a bunch of fresh lime juice, with a dusting of tajin on the rim -- and a Limoncello Shandy, which is a Boulevard wheat beer poured over lemon liqueur, lemon juice, and a dash of honey. The Shandy is dandy, but the Chelada is muy encantada. In either case, you are 100% entitled to enjoy your beer cocktail with plenty of ice... especially when it's a scorching 97 degrees out like it is right now in Nebraska. It's been fun experimenting with cocktail variations this summer. As my sister has pointed out, this has really been more like a 42+ Drink Salute! But, gosh darn it, if that's what it takes to learn some things, then I'll do what I have to do. Hope you've enjoyed a drink or two with me. Cheers!