Cocktails of the week - Jolly Rancher and Evan

We had two different cocktails last night. First up is one from the Pick of the Week list found on DrinksMixer.com. I used to check out the drinks at Cocktail, but that site has fallen into disrepair. It's really unfortunate, because the writing was fun, and The Alchemist told some great bartending stories, recipes and hints. Each week, there would be a new cocktail to try, with suggested recipes for accompanying food and the works, but no longer. Oh well....

So now I check out DrinksMixer. The proposed drinks (there are three cocktails each week) are not quite as sophisticated, and there is little or no accompanying commentary, but it's a push into a new cocktail sometimes, so it's worth a visit. The drinks are often not that interesting, like two of them this week are for some kind of frozen mudslide thing and another concoction with 5 different liquors, topped with 7-Up - yech! But the first one in the list I decided to try, and Michael is always willing to join in.

The Jolly Rancher

• 2 oz. Vodka (Three Olives)
• 1 oz Midori
• cranberry juice

It's a little sweet and the color is unappetizing (a light brown), but it went down smoothly. Midori is a typical ingredient in many of the DrinksMixer cocktails, and to me is indicative of its lack of sophistication. It is a vibrant green liqueur, tasting of sweet melons and tends to overpower most cocktails. I use it sparingly, but it worked pretty well in this cocktail. But I could only take one of them, so we moved on to another one, this one a classic from the Cocktail site, suggested in the Cosmopolitan recipe (which again, given the disarray of the Cocktail site, you can't get to any more), where they said that it was a fine standby, but why not choose other, more modern cocktails, like the Lemon Drop, Petit Zinc and the one we tried:

The Evan

• 2 oz. Citrus Vodka (Ketel One)
• 1 oz. Cointreau
• 1 oz. fresh squeezed lemon juice
• splash of cranberry juice

This is a really good cocktail, one of my favorites. I like the sweet and sour cocktails that use lemon juice and Cointreau, and this one is very pleasing to the palate, and not nearly as overpowering as The Jolly Rancher. I highly recommend it.

After playing an XBox game for a few hours, we wrapped up the night with the season 2 Sopranos finale. There were a few too many dream sequences in it for me. I really don't like reading or watching dreams - they are often licenses for excess to the author or filmmaker. They get to do all kinds of symbolic voodoo that never seems to resonate with me, and instead comes off as awkward or just plain dumb. These weren't too much better, I'm afraid, but so far, The Sopranos on DVD has been a real winner.

Here's an interesting bit of foodlore I just came across while reading the Cocktail entry for The Evan - they like to make their own citrus vodka by steeping 100 proof vodka in lemon rinds, and they like to use the rinds of Meyer Lemons, which are a variety I've never heard of. I'm going to have to see if I can find a source here in the Northeast for these lemon/tangerine crosses.

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