What can I do with this bottle of... Tequila!

No Paul, I haven’t forgotten about the challenge you set me a few weeks ago, I just had other things I was excited about, and wanted to write about them first - and I was exploring that cask strength Caol Ila. Thanks for the request though.

For those readers who don’t remember, Paul has come into possession of a big bottle of tequila, and wondered if there are any simple drinks that he could use it for. He likes the Tequila Sunrise and Margarita, but feels they are just a bit too much trouble sometimes. I know what he means. Tequila Sunrise isn’t that difficult, but sometimes you just don’t want to get the cocktail shaker and the measuring cup out. You just want to stick some booze and a mixer over ice, and sit there enjoying it.

The thing about tequila is that it doesn’t come with a standard companion – you know, with the other strong liquors you have something that goes with it, almost to the extent that it’s a drink in its own right. You have rum and coke, gin and tonic, vodka and orange, even whisky and coke. But what do you have for tequila? Everyone seems to think you have to go through that whole rigmarole of biting a lemon wedge and licking salt, but why can’t we just enjoy tequila in a simple way, instead of having to act like you’re at a student party?

Well, we can, and there is one combination that comes to mind straight away that will do the job; tequila and lime. I’m a big fan of lime, and just adding the juice of half a lime (or 1 measure of lime juice) to a glass of tequila should produce the desired effect. Paul was unlikely to be satisfied with that alone though, so a little experimentation was called for. Until my Jose Cuervo Gold ran out - or longer if my financial situation improved, and there was sufficient spare funds to buy another bottle of tequila (along with all my other booze requirements) - I would be adding every soft drink I could find to a glass of tequila, and trying to determine if they were natural partners. Ay, ay, ay!

I did start by having a look in my various cocktail books to see if there was any singular ingredient that marries with tequila on a frequent basis, but that wasn’t leading me anywhere fast, and I decided it was time for some visceral experience. The only soft drink we had at home was a carton of pineapple juice that I’d had for a couple of months. I hadn’t opened it yet, but it was good until some time next year, so we may as well start there…

Tequila and pineapple juice – No! It doesn’t work. It’s just confusing, like if you brush your teeth and then immediately drink a glass of orange juice.

Tequila and lemon juice – a decent combination, but you don’t want to overdo the lemon juice. I did (adding a whole measure, to two measures of tequila), but I was able to rescue it by adding half a teaspoon of sugar syrup. Since lemon juice is such a powerful flavour, you’re not going to get a very big drink, but it’s a good fall back if you need it.

Tequila and cranberry juice – strong flavours battling it out here. It doesn’t taste bad, it’s just confusing. The taste of the tequila just about comes out on top, and overall it suggests that tequila doesn’t tend to mix too well – which is probably why it doesn’t have a natural partner.

Tequila and lemonade – I used the bottled, fizzy kind here and there isn’t really anything to report. The search continues.

Tequila and orange – it should really have been obvious that this one would work. It’s most of a Tequila Sunrise. The only thing missing is the grenadine, and in the Tequila Sunrise, that just sits at the bottom, so you’re drinking a lot of tequila and orange juice along the way. I’m going to stick out my neck a bit here, and say this is actually quite a complex (but complementary) flavour combination. Also, I don’t know if I’m just being daft, but there were elements of the taste that reminded me of a nice single malt.

Tequila and apple – it’s not that this tastes bad, it just doesn’t work. There’s something odd about it.

Tequila and tonic – not as successful as the vodka and tonic or gin and tonic, but if you did ever find yourself in an unlikely situation where all you had was a bottle of tequila and a bottle of Indian Tonic Water (like maybe if you’re stranded in deep space, and you’ve already drunk all the Pimms), you can rest easy knowing that you can mix these together. (I don’t even know what Pimms is, but I’m sure there will be a post on it sooner or later.)

Tequila and coke – not complementary of each other, I’m afraid.

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There you go, Paul. Hopefully you can find something in amongst all that lot. I could go on, but there are probably more types of juice and soft drink than there are spirits, so I’d have to start a soft drink blog if I was going to try them all. I’m not going to do that – cheaper though it would be, but I am going to leave it open to you lot. Let us know if there is anything you like to mix your tequila with. Keep it simple though.

If you’re not happy to stick with tequila and orange or tequila and lime, I do have some suggestions for other things you can do with that bottle.

1. Give the bottle to me.
2. Take it out with you in a hip flask.
3. Use it just for taking big swigs to warm up before going out in the evening.
4. Use it for a drinking game – like alcoholic chess. 
5. Just hang on to it for when you can be bothered to make a Tequila Sunrise or Margarita. People say that spirits will eventually go stale in the bottle (once it’s been opened and the spirit therefore exposed to air), but I’ve never noticed any evidence of that. I had one bottle of brandy for about four years, and I never noticed any discernible difference in flavour.
6. Give the bottle to me – it’s the least you can do after I used all of my bottle trying combinations that didn’t work. Actually I didn’t use all of it, and I enjoyed the research, so thanks for that.

If you have any other things you’d like me to try before you waste your own liquor on it, or even if you just have any questions you think I might be able to help with, feel free to let me know.

Booze Pawn

It’s been another busy week for me, but last week I intimated that I might tell you what happened in the boozy chess I’d had planned. Well, the least I could do is try to fulfil that… intimation.

I’d been needing to restock my booze collection for a while so, though times are hard, I budgeted to buy bottles of gin and dark rum for the chess match. The only dark rum on offer at Asda was Captain Morgan, so I was happy enough to go for that, since I need it for mixing (and necking) more than anything else. As for gin, I’ve perused the selections at a few supermarkets over the last few weeks, and gin is just something I can’t get excited about. Not even wanting to spend £12 on a bottle of Gordon’s, I decided to try some really cheap stuff – Richmond Gin. Less than £10. We’ll see how that works out. Again, it is primarily for mixing, so it can’t go too wrong.

I had also decided the chess might be a good chance to rid myself of some of the things I’d been in possession of for far too long so, along with the obligatory bottle of vodka (Red Square), I also took my Tesco Value Brandy and my crap bottle of scotch (Glen Moray). It would have been nice to take something of quality for people to try, but in boozy chess it’s all about necking shots, so you don’t want to drink anything you could actually enjoy; that would be a waste – and potentially an incentive to lose pieces.

The chess passed off fairly successfully, though it was interrupted at one point by a dog fight – in the same room that the chess was taking place in. I’m not getting into all that. Despite the fight’s proximity to our chess game, none of the pieces were disturbed. Gav and I were just discussing what a relief that was when the wagging tail of the victorious dog pugilist knocked four of our pieces off the board. Between us, I think Phil and I managed to put them all back in the same place, but that was a definite, slow motion “No-o-o-o-o-o-o-o!” moment.

To be fair, even accounting for those things, conditions weren’t ideal. While Phil and I duelled mentally, Gav was noisily playing on the Xbox and Phil wasn’t paying any attention to the chess etiquette that says players shouldn’t talk to each other once the game has started – and they especially shouldn’t say things like, “you can win this in two moves” – whether you can or not – which, for the record, I couldn’t.

So, I know what you’re wondering; how much did the alcohol affect the game? Well, I must say it affected the concentration a little, but it’s hard to say, what with all the other distractions and the fact that we didn’t start with a level playing field. My plan had been for both players to start from a base of complete sobriety, but by the time we got back to Phil’s I was thirsty and itching for a beer, and Phil was desperate for me to try the 10 Canes rum that he’d been saving a couple of shots of. So it was more of a rolling start, really.

I’d certainly be up for playing again – with or without the lubrication. It was a pretty fascinating game- I lost (drinking 11 shots in the process) due to failing to protect my left flank and trying to bolster an attack when putting my opponent’s king in check might have been more beneficial in the long run. I guess I won’t know that for sure. Needless to say, we both made mistakes, and there were points where it could have gone either way.

At five o clock, we were done. I immediately drank about 3 pints of water, knowing that a little stamina would be required for the remainder of the evening. We headed into town (Sheffield), and continued with the drinking.

If you are thinking of trying boozy chess, allow me to make just a couple of recommendations. First, do try to start with a level playing field, and second, have something to do afterwards – if you’ve loaded up on alcohol, it’s good to be able to head out with your booze buzz already active. You don’t get to town still needing to get up to speed because you’re already wa-a-a-ay ahead, and ready to lead the conga line all the way down West Street.

That’s it for this week. Apologies for the lack of booze porn. I didn’t feel inspired to take any photos during the chess, and I haven’t even got a picture of the Richmond Gin or Captain Morgan rum for you yet. I’ll try and do better next week, when I think I’ll be discussing the phenomenon of ‘real’ cider in lieu of the upcoming Greater Manchester Cider Festival. See you then.

Weekend Activities

Happy Friday, everyone.  I’m afraid this week’s post is going to be something of an unfocused affair. Why? Because things are happening. And because I’ve been very busy this week, so I haven’t had time to work on all the posts I would have liked to have been able to consider for publication.

So, what is it that’s happening? Well, for one thing, the 2012 European Championships start tonight, so that’s very exciting, even though anticipation here in England has been particularly muted. It’s almost like we’re not expecting to win, or something.

I had a massive post planned for the Euros, but it was long, rambling and frankly, nothing that hasn’t been said before, so all you need to know is that it’s happening and I’ll be watching as much as possible. Brenda, you’ve lost me for three weeks. Oh – and I’ve drawn Greece in the work sweepstake, so that’s £2 I won’t be seeing again.

What else? It’s the weekend of Brenda’s hen-do, so I’ve been asked to vacate the premises for the weekend and allow all manner of girly things to take place – pillow fights in lingerie, probably. It means we can take a break from the DIY, and I can pop over to Sheffield to visit Phil for some drinking, maybe some golf and – more importantly from the perspective of this blog – boozy chess.

Yes, I’ve been planning it for a while, but it’s surprising how few people actually play chess, so this weekend will be my first opportunity to try it out.

I’m not immensely experienced at drinking games (just the drinking part), but it seems to me that they are based around the idea that games are fun, alcohol is fun and games are more fun when mental and physical capabilities are impaired by consumption of alcohol. It’s like fun to the power of fun.

Chess though, is a tough game, and I’m expecting it’s even more so when your brain wants to go to sleep under alcohol sedation. I’m not sure how this is going to work as yet – do you drink for the pieces you take, or when your pieces are taken? Well, I guess that will be up to me.

I think the ramifications for possible tactics are quite interesting. If your opponent is a more skilled player than you, and the rule is that your opponent drinks when you take their pieces, a good tactic might be to quickly take as many of their pieces as possible, and rely on the alcohol impairing their ability to coordinate attacks while effectively defending their king… but I guess you’d still need the basic ability to protect your own pieces… and build attacks. Such a kamikaze approach could just as easily backfire, since taking pieces willy-nilly invariably leads to losing your own pieces.

An interesting variation would be that you have to drink when you take a piece, such that taking a piece is both an advantage and a disadvantage.

I would expect that achieving a definitive outcome among two moderately skilled players who are taking the game seriously, quickly becomes impossible since chess is all about forward planning and coordinating attacks while ensuring your king is safe. It requires intense concentration, and because of that, I don’t expect we’ll play more than the one game. So for this first time, the rule will be drink when you lose a piece.

With most drinking games, you know roughly what is going to happen before you start – you just don’t know how much fun it’s going to be. With a game as fiercely tactical as chess though, I can’t really imagine what twists and nuances might result. It seems to me like the sort of drinking game that would benefit from repeated playing, since you could base your tactics on experience of how the alcohol affects the game. So this will hopefully be the first of many. My original idea was to have a four player knockout tournament – two semi finals followed immediately by a final, all played in one evening so how well you win your semi-final has a direct effect on your performance in the final. I’m still recruiting for that.

The chess game in this picture looks particularly impressive - all those different glasses representing the different pieces. In that scenario you have one side drinking white liquids, and the other drinking dark liquids. It does have a drawback though; in most chess games you have a number of pieces left at the end (unless you’re both completely crap at chess and end up with two pieces chasing each other round the board…), so you’re going to be left with some drinks that have been poured, but not drunk. Potentially the game could be over with very few pieces removed – I had a non-alcoholic game with Brenda recently, and I only lost 5 pieces in total, so that would have left me with 11 untouched drinks. And how are you supposed to remember which glass represents which piece when you're halfway through the game, you've had a few drinks and the pieces are all moved from their squares?

To deal with the practicalities and guard against wasted booze, I’ll be using ordinary chess pieces, though I haven’t decided yet whether to have different drinks relating to different pieces. Pawns could be a shot of vermouth, more valuable pieces could be a shot of rum, and the queen could be a double, I suppose. I think this time I’ll just stick with one drink, but maybe next time… you never know. Using ordinary chess pieces won’t look as cool, but you don’t need 16 identical glasses for your pawns and then 3 different sets of four and one set of two, all that fit onto a chess board – you don’t need a glass for the king, since that piece is never taken.

My plan is to get the boozy chess out of the way fairly early in the evening, so that we can ride the booze buzz into town for a few hours. Money is tight this month, but I think I’ve budgeted effectively enough for that… until one of those unexpected expenses pops up.

Next week I’ll be back with a new booze related post, and I’ll try to provide an update on how the chess turned out – if it’s interesting enough to talk about. I’ll leave you with a link to a variation on booze chess, in case you want to try that. It sounds pretty hardcore, so if you do, let me know how you make out.