Friday, December 18, 2009

It's a Blizzard!

...or maybe it's not. Weather.gov is hedging. OK, I was exaggerating when I said blizzard, actually, but a pretty good snow-dump. Looks like said snow-dump will be whiting the joint out at our favorite time: over Saturday night, so that my organist/choirmaster of a husband--who was diagnosed with flippin' Lyme Disease this week (more on that in a minute) and I will have some extra fun getting the car moving early on Sunday morn as we depart the Potter Building for his job.

The good news: the doc gave him the antibiotics and Ken's knee, which was the Presenting Symptom that got him to go see said doc, is better--MUCH better. He can play the organ and everything; he's just limping at bit. Amazing the way this stuff happens just before Christmas so often.

But it's still going to snow, most likely, a fact I usually greet with joy (I'm one of those sickos).
This time, I'm a little less joyful. But the Potter Building is full of friends and family to help us out and so all should be well.

Meanwhile, we'll be making St. Louis Blizzards on Cocktails with Chris today:

2 oz. bourbon
3/4 oz cranberry
1 oz lemon juice
and one tablespoon bar sugar or simple syrup, to taste

Pour over ice in an old-fashioned glass. Stir. Stare out the window. Tune in at 4 EST to Randoradio.com!!

Friday, December 4, 2009

Rum Swizzle

The New York Times officially announced this week that it's OK for hipsters to drink rum instead of gin, especially if they use many bottles of aged and variously hued stuff and not the plain old corner-liquor-store Bacardi. I'm down with that, yo. And honestly, in some rum punches, although the gorgeous stuff you could sip is frankly better--Bacardi's is just fine to my palate. Or even some lesser-known silver or gold substance.

Maybe it's just that my taste buds take a looong time to get educated. I'm only just this last year or so getting snotty about gin, and everyone's already been a pill about that for quite some time now.

Anyway, I looked at the Times holiday drink article, its tiki-drink-in-bondage (for real) with habenero sauce in it and its gold rum and Benedictine martini-strength concoction and thought ew. There may be a reason that I usually prefer with classic drinks to the nouveau ones--test of time and all that.

But I do agree that rum is a Good Thing. Although it's used in many things we think of as summer drinks, there's something soothing about a rum cocktail that goes down well in December, something oddly appropriate about a Rum Swizzle in December. Let's face it: winter is when you start being able to get decent citrus fruits imported into the Swanky Neighborhood Near You if your non-virtual home is near the Potter Building.

Here's the link to the Wikipedia article on a Rum Swizzle:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_Swizzle

We talked Pineapple Swizzles this summer on Cocktails with Chris--but I like this more classic recipe better. And we get to use falernum! More about that and some good tunes on the air at http://www.randoradio.com today at 4 EST. Do join us!