Someone got me a bottle of Stoli Cranberry vodka (for a baby shower of all things; I have odd friends). I'm not a vodka drinker as a general rule, and flavored vodka generally makes me violently upset/ill, so I'm at a total loss. I figured a little bit of vodka, a lot of fresh lime and club soda... NOPE. Disgusting. It just tastes like artificial sweetener and shame. It'd probably go well in a cosmo, but I don't have any Cointreau on hand and I'm loath to seek out ingredients (especially costly ingredients) just to rid myself of shitty booze. So I'm guessing I'll use it to bait some teenagers who don't know any better, get them good and drunk, let them pass out in the tub, harvest their organs and use the proceeds to buy some actual alcohol worth drinking. Flavored vodka is God's way of reminding us of the dangers of alcoholism. If I have to choose between that and water... FUCK, that's a tricky one. Thank God I've got other things I can drink... just as soon as I finish this.
Last night, I made myself some homemade raspberry syrup (2 cups of demerara sugar, 1 cup of water and 1 cup of fresh raspberries, slowly stirred over heat until fully dissolved and strained per
this recipe, but if that sounds like a huge pain in the ass, just buy some
Torani) so I could have a proper
Clover Club cocktail. Most modern recipes have it as gin, lemon juice, raspberry syrup and an egg white, but the original recipes include a measure of dry vermouth, so I tossed that in as well, dry shook (to "cook" the egg white and foam it up), added ice and shook again and served in a chilled cocktail glass... Holy fuck. Why are these not a thing anymore? It's the girliest looking thing you will ever see, all pink and foamy, like a My Little Pony exploded, but it is DELICIOUS. The gin and the vermouth call to mind a martini, but the sweet raspberry flavor takes it to a completely different place, and the citrus from the lemon juice ties everything together, not unlike a piss-stained rug. Sorry, I think that shitty vodka is kicking in, and apparently it's making me channel The Dude.
Anyway, I highly recommend the Clover Club cocktail if you ever find yourself in the mood for a turn of the century cocktail that NO ONE (but you) will know how to make.
2 oz London dry gin
0.75 oz dry vermouth (I used Dolin dry)
0.75 oz fresh lemon juice (basically half a lemon, maybe a little less)
0.5 oz raspberry syrup (to taste; you may need a little less or a little more)
1 egg white (really a half egg white is sufficient, but how are you getting half an egg? One egg white will nicely make two drinks if split)
Dry shake everything for a minute (great arm workout), add ice and shake for another 15 seconds, strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Don't double strain, as the fine strainer will remove the foam, which is the sole purpose of the egg white. Serve garnished with a fresh raspberry. Fucking. Awesome. And so impossibly girly. This thing makes a Cosmopolitan look like Everclear and tiger blood.
Meanwhile, flavored vodka? It's basically alright. Incidentally, the sentence "flavored vodka is basically alright" is grounds for cut-off at any reputable establishment. Might be time to find myself a tub to pass out in...