A roaring good time
When a mellow Buzz just isn’t quite enough, try mixing boats and booze and Blue Angels. That’s Seafair!
– Jet Cannon
Photos: Komonews.com and Seafair.com
Boat: Courtesy of Maserati Mike
Food and Drink
IPA All Day
Get ready. The first Thursday in August is National IPA Day. Grab a pint and enjoy it with friends!
- Jet Cannon
Sideways
We recently took part in a small group wine tasting expertly paired with the movie Sideways. Host John, benefiting from years of experience as a wine distributor, enhanced the movie with background and trivia. But you don’t have to be a wine expert to enjoy sharing some Merlot with friends while you watch the movie. Or sample as we did a 2018 Cambria Pinot Noir. Per Wine Enthusiast, “A spearmint aroma meets pomegranate and raspberry jam on the the nose of this widely available bottling. There’s a rocky grip to the palate, where fresh mint and strawberry sorbet flavors are enhanced by turned loam and dried herb elements.” Like Jack, we didn’t experience all that but it sure tasted good!
– Jet Cannon
The Dangers of Iced Cocktails
There are no dangers of iced cocktails. In fact, they are perfectly delightful for hot summer days and nights. But back in the day, and even though ice was available for medicinal purposes, adding ice to a drink was not advised.
Tireless Buzzed Boomer Researcher and Beverage Tester, Maserati Mike, found an article excerpting the new Camper English book, “Doctors and Distillers: The Remarkable Medicinal History of Beer, Wine, Spirits, and Cocktails.” English writes early beliefs were that “adding ice to wine or water was thought by different cultures to cause colic, convulsions, paralysis, blindness, madness, and sudden death.” Yeah, but that’s better than a warm adult beverage on a hot day!!
Frederic Tudor, starting in 1810, exported ice from American lakes like Walden Pond to places like Cuba, India, and Brazil. “He offered bartenders free ice to get their customers hooked on cooling drinks.” That old trick. It worked.
– Jet Cannon
Ice Cream for Astronauts
Leave it to the New York Times to show us beer/wine/soda and basic cocktail amateur bartenders what’s what in creative, international cocktails. Two Schmucks in Barcelona shares the Ice Cream for Astronauts recipe which essentially adds basil and coconut ice cream to a gin and tonic. We wouldn’t have thought of that. For more recipes for imaginative summer cocktails read here.
- Jet Cannon
Corona Sunrise
We got this from sugarandsoul.co and it’s an easy, fun, and refreshing adult summer beverage. We like that it’s made right in the bottle! Drink the Corona down to the label. Great start. Add a shot of tequila then a splash of orange juice. A bit of grenadine adds color. Garnish with a lime after squeezing in a bit of juice. Drink. Repeat.
- Jet Cannon
Daiquiri Day
July 19 is National Daiquiri Day! Thank you NationalDayCalendar.com. Born in Cuba in the late 1800’s, the rum, lime and sugar cocktail evolved to become a favorite of Ernest Hemingway and John F. Kennedy. Today, toss some frozen limeade in the blender with some rum and ice and, voila, a refreshing summer delight!
Cheers!
– Jet Cannon
Atomic Cocktails
July 16 is the anniversary of the first atomic bomb explosion on July 16, 1945 in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Making the best of impending Cold War annihilation, bartenders back then stirred up wonderful libations like the Duck and Cover, the Atomic Fireball, and the Oppenheimer Martini. Luckily, today, the world possesses slightly less than 14,000 nuclear warheads. We feel so much safer now.
- Jet Cannon
Photo: Brittania.com
Corny “Cannabis” Cocktails
Roving, Raging Correspondent Hunter S. sampled some cleverly-named cocktails and shots at The Dogtown Roadhouse in Floyd, Virginia. Try the $5 shooter Dirty Bong Water (Spiced Rum, Blue Curacao, Melon Liquor, Sour Mix). How about a Liquid Marijuana shooter (Spiced Rum, Melon Liquor, Coconut Rum, Blue Curacao, Sour Mix, Pineapple Juice)? Got the munchies? Follow those up with a Dreamsicle Cocktail (Vanilla Vodka, Moylan’s Orange Craft Soda Topped with Whipped Cream and Sugar).
Only in America. Cheers!
– Jet Cannon
National Dive Bar Day – 7/7
National Day Calendar says,
“On July 7th, raise a toast to the place where friends gather and memories are made. It’s National Dive Bar Day!
From the one-time speakeasy to the little hole-in-the-wall, the dive bar is like an old pair of jeans; it just fits right. During the week, we can stop in, our team will be playing on the TV, and the beverages will be icy cold. The same dart and pool leagues meet every year, and familiar faces go head to head.”
Started by Seagram’s 7 Crown, celebrate 7/7 with a Seven & Seven and support your local dive!
– Jet Cannon
Counting Cocktail Calories
We’re always watching our weight. Watching it increase more than it decreases. So we’re conscious of those calories in our cocktails. A shot of vodka has about a 100 calories. But that’s not the whole story. There are also calories in the mixers. Seven ounces of tonic will add another 90 calories. Same with 8 ounces of orange juice.
But what about mixing with diet sodas or diet tonic? Well everyone knows that diet sodas cause cancer, obesity, and diabetes. Except there is no evidence of that. So in keeping the calories down, just mixing with soda water and a little lime juice or mixing with diet drinks will basically cut the cocktail calories in half compared to traditional mixers. And that avoids the sugar. Which we know is bad. Or at least we think we know it’s bad. Hard to say these days.
– Jet Cannon
Fire up the grill on the 4th
Around 74 million folks will take command of their grill, beer in hand, this 4th of July weekend and over 150 million hot dogs will be consumed. Americans will spend $1.4 million on beer and wine and another $1.9 billion on consumer fireworks. Pretty soon we’ll be talking about real money!
– Jet Cannon
Keto Kocktails
Our new friend, Steve, recently shared his enthusiastic success with the keto diet. Keto is a diet of mostly good fats, moderate protein, low-carb and low-sugar. The goal is to achieve ketosis which burns fat because your body doesn’t have enough carbs for energy. Steve lost around 100 pounds over the course of a couple years.
We eventually steered the discussion to imbibing alcohol within Keto. The short answer is no beer, too many carbs, but clear liquors, while loaded with calories, are low carb and therefore keto-okay. But clear liquor and soda can get tiring so we looked up some ingredients to stay keto but tart things up in our summer cocktails…. Without sugar or carbs. We found lots of sugar-free flavorings online so we initially focused on sugar-free simple syrup and orange extract. This will allow us to cobble-up a keto Margarita by adding lime juice, a sweetener, and a triple-sec- substitute orange flavor to the tequila. Presto. Still not great for weigh loss, due to the calories in alcohol, but at least it’s a way to stick with keto. We found lots of keto cocktail recipes online so that should keep us busy for awhile.
– Jet Cannon
No Starbucks for You!
We read this Mashed article Starbucks Secret Menu Iced Coffee Drinks You Need To Try Next with great excitement. Junior Mints Cold Brew caught our eye. We figured it was like ordering Animal Style for your In-N-Out burger. Not on the menu but understood. Just ask for it. Not so with the Starbucks secret menu. It’s more DIY.
“Starbucks’ Junior Mints Cold Brew can be created by asking the barista for a Venti Cold Brew, then requesting the addition of three pumps of both regular and white mocha. Then, politely ask your barista if they can add some vanilla sweet cream foam into the drink, along with two pumps of peppermint syrup and one pump of matcha, which gives this drink an extra minty green color. You can also ask for a topping of mocha crumble if you want to add more chocolate to the drink. Ask for all this, and you’ll have a minty, chocolatey iced coffee perfect for any mint lover.”
Honestly, we’re afraid to ask our Barista for all that. Of course people do have very specific, complicated orders and more power to them. For us, “Iced Latte,” please.
– Jet Cannon