Not a "Bad Idea"

Four or so drinks in one weekday evening, I said to Lance one evening, "Would you like a bad idea?"

"What's a 'bad idea,'?" he inquired as I began mixing an entire pitcher of Rob Roy.

"A 'bad idea'," I explained, "Is that last drink you have before bed."

"Does it have alcohol in it?"

"Yessssss."

"Then yesss."

"For example, this pitcher of Rob Roy." I continued "Inevitably, I will wake up tomorrow and say 'Ughhh.. that Rob Roy was a bad idea."

I've mastered the art since of avoiding the "bad idea." Instead, I've become interested recently in the application of fortified wine in cocktail form. Semi-innocuous and certainly less potent than other cocktails -- equally complex and enjoyable.

Bereft of ingredients necessary to make a trule classic port or sherry cocktail, I offer this substitute which I improvised this evening.

'Stacheville Rose
-----------------
2oz. port
0.25oz. grenadine
0.25oz. orange juice
gingerale

Shake the first three as hard as you can in a shaker filled with cracked ice. Strain into tall ice-filled glass and top with gingerale.

Green Tea Plum Wine Cooler

This recipe was half-created from a mythical world beverage that was once (and may periodically still be) available at EPCOT and half-created from a chilled version of a throat-soothing home remedy given me by the bassist of my former band Monte Carlo Method.

You'll need four green tea bags, honey, sugar, a bottle of Chinese plum wine, a bottle of coconut rum, water and ice. Hardware includes measuring implements, a tea kettle or appropriate saucepan, and a decent sized glass iced-tea pitcher.

First, how to make iced tea fast. In general, take your final vessel half-full with ice and water. If you intend on making 8 cups of tea, fill your pitcher with 8 cups of ice and water. This can be achieved by four times filling a two-cup measuring cup first with ice, then topping it off with water until the ice barely floats. Surprise! Two instant cups of ice water. Use twice as many tea bags per cup of boiling water, steep appropriately, sweeten and then add the hot double-strength, double-sweet tea to the ice water pitcher. The tea is cooled to roughly room temperature and may then be served over ice.

Using this formula to make the cooler, do the following.

Boil two cups of water, steep four green tea bags, adding two teaspoons of sugar and two teaspoons of honey (I use regional orange blossom honey). After steeping the tea, add to two cups of ice water in your pitcher. Add four cups of Chinese plum wine and one cup of coconut rum. Serve over ice.

Funny. It took longer to explain how to make sweet iced tea than it did to explain the cooler.

Beware, as with most tea, green tea contains caffeine. This is the reason I am awake at 12:45am writing a beverage blog.