Original Cocktail Inventions, part 2: The Witch's Tit

Sexy witch

While I was conducting the experiments that led to the creation of the Yorkshire Guilt, Brenda returned home one day with a tin of gooseberries (in syrup). Immediately forming in my mind was a plan to use them for another cocktail creation. This time though, there was no overriding theme, no direction… I was going to have to start from nothing.

I began by blending the contents of the can, and storing it in the fridge, as I had with the tinned rhubarb. Beyond that, I had nothing. I just knew that I wanted to make something a bit different. I started thinking about multi-layered drinks where the different densities of the different liquids cause them to either sink to the bottom or sit on the top – like in a Tequila Sunrise.

I also thought I should use some ingredients that I have enough of to experiment with – I didn’t want to get close to a eureka moment, only to find that I would have to suspend trials because I’d run out of something.

The Witch's Tit with it's proud parents

A quick glance to the front left corner of my kitchen cupboard provided an answer. There was half a bottle of Tesco Imperial vodka (not considered essential, since I still had most of a bottle of Russian Standard) and a small bottle of Chambord liqueur that I hadn’t found much of a use for.

I put 5 ice cubes in a cocktail shaker, poured over 1 measure of vodka and 100ml of the gooseberry puree. I then shook until a frost formed and strained into a small wine glass. The seeds in the gooseberry puree were blocking the strainer, so I had to stir a little with my finger to make sure enough of the mixture came through. Finally I carefully poured a measure of Chambord into the middle, and it quickly sank to the bottom, leaving me with a green drink that tapered into a red and yellow mixture at the bottom (yellow from the gooseberry seeds).

I tasted it, and it was delicious. That’s it, no more experiments necessary. All that was needed was a name, and that came quickly – The Witch’s Tit – because the glass gave it the shape of a breast (if you use your imagination, see above). The main part of the breast is green (like a witch’s skin, see right), then there was the red of the Chambord like a nipple, and the seeds of the gooseberries like the yellow Montgomery tubercles of a lady’s nipple. Done and dusted.

It does look like a witch's tit, doesn't it?

A witch's skin is known to be green

That recipe in more digestible form:

5-6 ice cubes

1 measure vodka

100ml gooseberry puree (made from the entire contents of a tin of gooseberries)

1 measure Chambord

Shake the vodka and gooseberry puree with the ice until a frost forms. Strain into a small wine glass, stirring inside the strainer with your finger to ensure enough liquid and seeds come through. Quickly but carefully pour the Chambord into the middle of the glass, and let it sink to the bottom. Serve. 

 A bonus photo

Bwah! I said witches are known to be green, not make you turn green!

Vodka Test

Good afternoon. Good weekend? Good.

I’m running out of ways to introduce a new week here on Drink it How You Like it, so apologies if on future occasions I just wade right on in there and start talking about something. How do people do it? I suppose I’ll need to read a few more blogs to find out.

On Friday I told you I was planning a vodka taste test and, true to my word, that’s what I did. I stuck the three bottles in the freezer when I got home, and left them for a couple of hours. The test itself was a lot of fun, and as much as there ever can be a human winner in a taste test, I won.

Brenda was instrumental in preparing the test and photographing it, so today’s booze porn is courtesy of her. Here’s a picture of me cradling the vodka like booze-babies or vodka-puppies.

 

And here’s the three vodka brothers photographed with their respective glasses.

 

What you’re missing here is that Brenda stuck little post-it notes on each, numbered 1-3 so that she wouldn’t forget which glass contained which vodka, but she didn’t want to photograph the glasses with the post-its. That’s not quite in keeping with the half-assed philosophy that Drink it How You Like it espouses, but it’s good to know that someone has standards.

Well, the results are in. Yes, I know I told you that I won already, but there’s a bit of narrative to get through as well as announcing the best vodka. 

Brenda presented the three glasses of vodka, and I took a good look to see if there was any visual difference. As you might expect, there was none. Next I took a good sniff of each, and determined the vodka in glass one was more fragrant. The other two didn’t really smell like anything.

Then the taste test; I recognised number 2 as Stolichnaya straight away – it is one that I’m familiar with – and of the three it was easily my favourite. There wasn’t much to choose between the other two but nevertheless, I had to make a call, and ultimately I correctly identified glass 1 as the Russian Standard and glass 3 as Tesco Imperial. It really could have gone either way – both are drinkable, but there was just something that suggested glass one might be of slightly higher quality. It might be that its alcohol content is the standard 40% while Tesco Imperial only manages the standard budget level of 37.5%.

In conclusion, if you’re looking for a vodka to sip, of these three Stolichnaya is hands down the winner. I’d say Russian Standard is a little better than Tesco’s budget Imperial brand, but is it worth the price discrepancy? Well… that’s up to you. You do get the extra 2.5% alcohol, it looks a little bit cooler, it smells nicer and its taste was marginally preferable. Having just checked the prices at tesco.com, it costs a little over £3 more per litre but that’s not that much really so, do what you will. For me, the final test will be next time I need to buy a bottle of vodka, though to be fair, I’ll probably try a different brand altogether. So that’s not helping you much…

Before I go, I’d just like to apologise for the lateness of this post (not that anyone’s really been waiting for it), but I’ve been a bit pushed for time, and don’t really like posting anything before I’ve had a proper chance to agonise over it, but here it is now. I’m still hoping to put out two more posts this week, and there’s still plenty I’m working on, so please come back soon when there’ll be (or maybe there won’t be) a look at a weird chilli infused product, a fond farewell to a bottle of booze that’s no longer with me or a celebration of booze tourism in Spain. Or something else. See you then.

The Friday Post and... BabyCham! The Happiest Drink in the World!

With average booze blog comes great responsibility… for photographing bottles and cans like they are actual members of the family. I’ve taken more photos of booze since I started this blog than I took during my entire two weeks in Canada; a fortnight that incorporated Christmas, New Year and a wedding. 

 As a result of all these photos, I have started to notice the little messages that manufacturers include on their various receptacles.

The first was Carlsberg Special Brew’s, “Best shared well chilled”. I found that one funny – best shared. Because no one in their right mind would drink a can of Special Brew on their own, would they? And if they did, they certainly wouldn’t enjoy it. No. It’s far better to share it. A problem shared is a problem halved, they say. 

The point of Special Brew is that it is a big old can of strong lager. You’re going to buy it if you want to drink it – to yourself. Sure, someone else can be there, also drinking Special Brew, but they’re going to have their own and you’re going to have your own. If you’re going to share it, you may as well have bought the ordinary lager in the first place.

As for “well chilled”, well, that’s just good advice. 

The second little message I noticed was when Brenda and I bought a few bottles of BabyCham recently. I know what you’re thinking, but you know, I’d never tried it and I remembered the adverts from the 80s. Brenda had never heard of it, but it was on a documentary we were watching. We thought it would be fun to try it, and to write about it. 

I’ve mentioned before that Brenda is Canadian. What that means is that she is missing a lot of the cultural references that normal British people take for granted. She doesn’t know who Jimmy Saville was, she doesn’t know how good Only Fools and Horses is and she knows Ant and Dec, but not PJ and Duncan. All I’m saying is, if you’re playing one of those editions of Trivial Pursuit that focus on the UK from any time before 2001, you don’t want Brenda on your team. Ok? 

So she wasn’t aware of BabyCham, or indeed any of the adverts that were tattooed onto our brains during childhood.

I just did a quick phone test with Brenda:

ME: Brenda, can you tell me if any of these adverts mean anything to you?

BRENDA: Ok.

ME: The Milk Tray man.

BRENDA: No…

ME: Shake n Vac?

BRENDA: Yes.

ME: What does it mean?

BRENDA: I don’t know.

ME: Do you know the tune? [I sing the tune]

BRENDA: No.

ME: So how do you know it?

BRENDA: I’ve seen it! [she means on one of those nostalgic British TV shows like, “I love 1983” or something]

ME: What about Danny Baker’s Doorstep Challenge.

BRENDA: No.

ME: R White’s secret lemonade drinker?

BRENDA: What?

ME: [singing the tune]. What about Kia-Ora, “it’s not for crows!” and, “I’ll be your dawg!”

BRENDA: No.

So there you go. She almost got a point with Shake n Vac, but not quite. And she’d never heard of BabyCham.

Now, BabyCham is possibly the girliest drink there is. It’s perry (pear cider), and it comes in teeny-tiny little bottles. It’s like fake champagne – hence the name. However, across the top of the label is written, “The Happiest Drink in the World”. 

Quite a claim there. You sure about that? I’m not saying it’s not true, and I’m not even going to get into hardcore grammar policing but, what evidence can that possibly be based on? And what is the happiest drink in the world?

I would be tempted to say tequila, and that’s not just because it makes Tony from Terrorvision happy. It just is. It isn’t a maudlin drink, it isn’t ponderous, it’s just get-wasted-have-a-laugh-remember-nothing fun.

Or what about (real) champagne? That’s always drunk at happy occasions – weddings, lottery wins – and in films at least, the popping of a champagne cork is always greeted with a chorus of “Hooray!” You don’t get that at the click of a tequila cap being broken do you?

That champagne cheer thing is a bit of a private joke of ours. People don’t really cheer when a champagne cork pops in real life, but Brenda and I do, for fun. When strolling around Venice we heard a random champagne cork pop, and Brenda cheered out loud. I was in the middle of saying something, but I laughed heartily about it immediately after I’d finished talking. 

We need to get that joke out there, because I cheered when I opened a sparkling wine bottle for a friend at a party recently, and everyone just looked embarrassed and pretended it didn’t happen.

I’m rambling, but that was actually the most interesting thing I have to write about BabyCham. I can’t really imagine who buys it, but if you do; is it your happiest drink in the world? And if not, what is?

It’s sure been a long week, but it is the weekend again. Congratulations to everyone that made it [this far]. I don’t have any particular booze events going on this weekend, though I was thinking of doing a vodka taste test tonight. I have three different ones at the moment – the budget Tesco Imperial, Stolichnaya and the Russian Standard. I’ll probably get Brenda to pour them into three glasses, and I’ll work my way through. I know I like Stolichnaya, and the Tesco one is drinkable, but it will be interesting to see what the Russian Standard is like, and determine which is my favourite. Fun, fun, fun. I’ll probably try a couple of other drinks, too. 

Whatever you’re getting up to, have a good one and hopefully I’ll see you next week for another update (Monday), a post (Wednesday), and a look ahead to next weekend (Friday).