My Three Songs: 03/25/11

1. KISS - Cold Gin
2. Van Halen - Take Your Whiskey Home
3. George Thorogood - One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer

Theme :: Alcohol. Enjoy your weekend!

Liquid Lunch Drink of the Day: Quarterback Sack

Perfect for watching the NFL Playoffs this weekend (or listening to the Packers game on 105.7 WAPL)!

Quarterback Sack Drink Recipe
2 oz Gin
2 oz Vodka
1 oz Triple Sec
4 oz Bloody Mary Mix
Splash tonic water

Fill a mixing glass with ice combine all ingredients except tonic water, shake and strain into four shot glasses. Top with tonic water. (Makes four 1 1/2-ounce servings.)

Liquid Lunch Drink of the Day: Amaretto-Cranberry Kiss

Yield: Makes 8 cocktails

The tang of the cranberry juice is balanced by the smoothness of the amaretto and vodka.

Ingredients
2 cups cranberry juice cocktail
1 cup vodka
1/2 cup amaretto
3 tablespoons fresh orange juice
Ice cubes
Clementines, peeled, separated into segments


Preparation
Mix cranberry juice, vodka, amaretto, and orange juice in pitcher. Cover and chill until ready to serve. DO AHEAD: Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Keep refrigerated.

To make 2 drinks, fill cocktail shaker with ice cubes. Pour in scant 1 cup vodka mixture. Cover and shake vigorously. Strain into 2 Martini glasses. Garnish each with clementine segment. Repeat 3 times with ice cubes, remaining vodka mixture, and clementine segments.

Bon Appétit, December 2007
Meredith Deeds and Carla Snyder
photo by: Kana Okada

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Liquid Lunch Drink of the Day: Pumpkin Pie Shots

Rock Against Hunger Food Drive going on today, so let's serve up some Thanksgiving themed Pumpkin Pie shots.

Drink Ingredients:

• 1/4 oz Cinnamon Schnapps
• 1/2 oz Coffee Liqueur
• 1/2 oz Irish Cream

Drink Preparation:

• Slowly layer the ingredients in the order listed above into a large shot glass.

Liquid Lunch Drink of the Day: Liquid Desert

These troops deserve a drink.
Screw that, they deserve a whole bar.

Since yesterday was Veterans' Day, here's a drink recipe fitting for any troops who have served in Iraq... the Liquid Desert.

Drink Recipe Ingredients:

• 1/2 oz. Vodka
• 2 oz. Midori melon liqueur
• 1 oz. Water
• 2 oz. Mountain Dew

Drink Recipe Preparation:

• Over ice in an 8 oz. rocks glass, pour in all ingredients.
• Stir and drink.
• Pray for the day when nobody's son or daughter has to go off to war.

Source

Liquid Lunch Drink of the Day: 11/05/10

Here's your Liquid Lunch drink special for this week.  Fall is here, so I'm pouring The Baileys Caramel Apple.

Drink Recipe Ingredients:

• 2 oz. Baileys Caramel Irish Cream (25 oz. per bottle)
• 0.5 oz. Smirnoff Green Apple Flavored Vodka (25 oz. per bottle)
• 1 dash(es) Goldschlager (25 oz. per bottle)

Drink Recipe Preparation:

• Pour Baileys® and Smirnoff® Green Apple into an ice-filled shaker
• Shake and strain into a collins glassed filled with ice
• Float Goldschlager® on top
• Garnish with a cinnamon stick

Courtesy of TheBar.com

Liquid Lunch Drink of the Day: 10/29/10

Here's your Liquid Lunch drink special for this week. With Halloween this weekend I'm serving up Zombies! (Brains served separately).

Drink Recipe Ingredients:

• 1/2 oz Bacardi® 151 rum
• 1 oz pineapple juice
• 1 oz orange juice
• 1/2 oz apricot brandy
• 1 tsp sugar
• 2 oz light rum
• 1 oz dark rum
• 1 oz lime juice

Drink Preparation:

• Blend all ingredients with ice except Bacardi 151 proof rum. 
• Pour into a collins glass. 
• Float Bacardi 151 proof rum on top. 
• Garnish with a fruit slice, sprig of mint and a cherry.

My Three Songs: 10/28/10

1. AC/DC - Have a Drink on Me
2. Judas Priest - Breaking the Law
3. Def Leppard - Bringin' on the Heartbreak (form the album "High n' Dry")

Theme :: Prohibition.  The Volstead Act, which put prohibition into effect in the United States, was passed (over the veto of President Woodrow Wilson) on this day in 1919. 

Nooooooooooooo!!!!!

Drink Whiskey. Save the Earth.

Want to help save the earth and still get drunk?  Scottish scientists are using the byproducts of the whiskey-making process to create biofuel.  And it's better than ethanol which needs crops to be grown specifically to harvest the fuel.  The whiskey-based biofuel, butanol, gives 30% more output than ethanol, is created from the waste products that we wouldn't use anyway, and can be used in your car's existing engine!
Click here for the full story.

Fried BEER???

I need to try this.  I really, really need to try this.

Fried Beer - Beer-filled pretzel pocket is deep-fried to a golden brown. One bite and the escaping beer serves as a dipping sauce. 21 and over, ID required.

 Gotta go to Texas to get 'em though... Here's the link.

Wanted: professional early-rising non-smoker with liver of steel.

The bad news: you can't smoke at work.  You also can't drink coffee.  Or wear perfume or cologne.  And work starts at 6am (did I mention you can't have coffee?).

The good news: you get to drink vodka.  Scratch that - you have to drink vodka, because you are a professional vodka taster in Poland, sampling more than 20 bottles in an 8-hour shift.  Quite possibly the best job ever.  And that's only because I don't think there's a quality control job in the adult film industry.  If I'm wrong, sign me up for that one instead.

Meantime, read about a lucrative career in the liquor-drinking business at this link.

Salmon Vodka?

Normally, it's simple math:  Meat + Booze = Awesome.  Burgers and beer.  Fish and wine.  Steak and a cocktail.  All delicious.  In fact I just made a Beer BBQ Chicken recipe in the crock pot and it was freaking delicious.

But the Alaska Distillery has taken things too far with their new product: Smoked Salmon Flavored Vodka.

I love salmon.  I love vodka.  I'm getting queasy thinking about Smoked Salmon Flavored Vodka.  Some things should just not be combined.

So don't expect to see this in the Liquid Lunch liquor inventory anytime soon.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=11040438

Chapter 70.6: Holiday Spirits

Though I enjoy reading the New York Times, I don't usually expect to find much that's funny. But I just came across a NYT City room blog entry that left me laughing and wondering whether I could find this party next year: SantaCon NYC.

It took place this past Saturday, but it sounds like an easy thing to put together. Take one part Christmas spirit (full Christmas regalia: a Santa Claus outfit -- not just a hat -- or some associated costume such as sexy elf, horny reindeer, etc.), add a dose of Christmas secrecy, and cap off with copious amounts of alcohol.

To be honest, I'm too old to party like that for eighteen hours. I don't even do that on St. Patrick's Day anymore. So I probably won't be joining the party, but it sounds like a lot of fun. Lots of Ho Ho Ho-ing, although there may also have been too many scenes that would remind folks of Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places.

But if anyone cares to share what they did this past weekend while partying in New York or anywhere, feel free to do so here. Photos requested but not mandatory.

A Toast To Wine and Wisdom

To drink, or not to drink; that is the question. Is it nobler in the mind to partake of the fruit of the vine, or to shun its intoxicating flavors?

No Drinking Allowed
Last year the Southern Baptist Conference voted to condemn all alcohol consumption among its members and declare imbibers unfit for church leadership in the SBC denomination. I recently read SBC seminary president Paige Patterson’s support of the resolution online at (http://www.crosswalk.com/pastors/1406944/). While I admire the Godly work of the SBC, I wonder whether the baby has been thrown out with the bath water regarding wine.

If the Bible condemns the consumption of all alcohol, then believers are wise to not drink it. A hearty toast to abstinence, if this is the case. To do otherwise is sinful disobedience. But what are we to make of the Bible’s commendation of wine? Although Patterson fails to mention any positive statements for wine in his exegesis, they abound in Scripture. Are we to reject that which God has blessed?

Blessings and Curses of Wine
The Bible includes the advice of Paul to Timothy regarding the medicinal value of wine, as well as passages that depict wine as a desirable beverage.
“Spend the money for whatever you desire, oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves. And you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household” (Deuteronomy 14 26 ).
“You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man's heart” (Psalm 104:14-15).

On the other hand the Scriptures pull no punches in condemning drunkenness.
“Wine is a mocker, strong drink is a brawler, and whosoever is led astray by it is not wise” (Proverbs 20:1).
“It is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes intoxicating drink” (Proverbs 31:4-5).

John the Baptist, who Jesus considered “the greatest born among men,” was a total abstainer. Perhaps we should all do likewise. A toast to abstinence. But then, the Lord himself made wine and drank it. How about a toast to wine? No toast to drunkenness, though. Neither John or Jesus got drunk. Incidentally, Jesus was falsely accused of being a drunkard (Luke 7:33-34), which is evidence that the wine he made and consumed at the wedding in Cana contained alcohol. How about a toast to moderation?

Abuse, Not Use, Condemned
It does not take a rocket scientist to see the connection between the consumption of wine and the intoxication that can result. It does require a bit of logic to not equate consumption with drunkenness, because wine can, in fact, be consumed without the consumer getting drunk. I successfully tested this hypothesis recently with guests and a lasagna dinner. We enjoyed God’s good gift and obeyed His command to not get drunk. I’m not sure the SBC would approve.

Martin Luther once quipped, “Do you suppose that abuses are eliminated by destroying the object which is abused? Men can go wrong with wine and women. Shall we then prohibit and abolish women?”

Many of God’s good gifts to man are abused. The gift of food is abused by gluttons. The gift of rest is abused by sluggards. The gift of language is abused by liars and gossips. The gift of sex is abused by fornicators, adulterers and homosexuals. It’s no surprise, then that God's good gift of wine is abused by drunkards. And it is a sobering thought, indeed, to consider that drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:10). The solution to abuse is not to ungratefully reject God’s good gifts, but rather to use them properly.

It is interesting to note that for some 1,800 years the church used wine during the Lord’s Supper. Proponents of the abstention position have tried to claim that communion wine was non-alcoholic grape juice. However, Paul’s rebuke of the Corinthians who got drunk during the Lord’s Supper makes no sense if the wine contained no alcohol (1 Corinthians 11:20-21).

Keith A. Mathison, points out in his book, Given For You, that the substitution of grape juice for wine had its origins, not in the study of Scripture, but can be traced to the nineteenth-century temperance movement. Mathison describes the movement as largely an expression of Christian liberalism and cultural feminism marshaled against the abuses of alcohol. It ultimately failed to transform the culture because it placed the responsibility of sin in an external object rather than in the human heart. The movement’s only lasting “success,” according to Mathison, is found in the churches that used its logic to replace the wine with grape juice in the Lord’s Supper.

Practical Merits of Abstinence
If abstinence was good for John the Baptist, then I reason it must be good for others as well. Let me count the benefits. First, abstaining from all alcohol keeps one a safe distance from drunkenness and all its attending sins. Since sobriety decreases in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed, drinking no alcohol ensures no drunkenness. Second, total abstention protects a weaker brother from falling into sin as a result of his exposure to alcohol through our free exercise to drink it. Paul writes that “It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble” (Romans 14:21).

Be Filled With The Spirit
The Apostle Paul warned the saints in Ephesus, saying “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). Dionysus worship, which was common in Ephesus, was notorious for its unrestrained orgiastic combination of wine, music, dance and sex. It sounds much like today's sex and drugs and rock n' roll idolatry. Drunken Dyonisiac worshippers equated their frenzied, ecstatic state with being filled with the spirit of Dionysus. Paul condemned this as counterfeit spirituality. In contrast, believers in Jesus are to be filled with the Holy Spirit, who will lead them in the righteousness of Christ through faith.

Part of Paul’s letter to the Galatian church is worth quoting at length here, since it so beautifully contrasts the works of the flesh with the works of the Spirit.

Galatians 5:13-26 13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Freedom and Wisdom
As Christians are filled by the Spirit, it seems possible for us to drink wine in a way that glorifies God, and to thank Him for His good gift that gladdens the heart of man. The Holy Spirit’s gift of self-control enables believers to enjoy God’s gift of wine. By His power we exercise restraint, we avoid over-indulgence, and we avoid passing judgment on others for their use of God’s gifts (Romans 14:3).

To conclude, it seems there are really two options for Christians: no use, or moderate use. Abuse is not an option. One man abstains, like John the Baptist, and it is good. Another man drinks, like Jesus, and it is good. Both gave glory to God; neither got drunk. I think it would be wise for the SBC to modify its position and to forbid drunkenness instead of consumption. This would place it on rock solid Biblical ground and would restrict no one's legitimate Christian liberty. Ultimately, whatever we do, whether in word or deed, we are to do unto the Lord, giving thanks to the Father (Colossians 3:17). So abstain unto the Lord and drink unto the Lord.

I propose a final toast to wine and wisdom.

Chapter 60.52: A Vicious Hit

Murray Chass pulls no punches in this piece about the hypocrisy of baseball, which is now fighting to rid itself of steroids (after ignoring/overlooking/avoiding) that subject for at least ten years but avoids things like alcohol, which kills far more people.

In light of Josh Hancock's death, for which alcohol appears to have been a major contributor, Chass excoriates Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa, who was caught asleep at the wheel earlier this year with his foot on the brake at an intersection after drinking too much. LaRussa doesn't help himself with some of his comments about how reporters might try to turn Hancock's story into something "not all sweet" (I have a question about context, but I'll leave it for another time).

As someone who enjoys a wee dram or to crack open a cold one from time to time, I have to say that Chass's comments are sobering. It's hard to argue he's wrong; alcohol is not only a controlled drug but also is attributable to tens of thousands of deaths every year -- and probably contributes to the health problems of a million or more individuals. These are tragic truths, and Chass is right to call attention to them. He also could have enhanced his information about how smoking (cigarettes, cigars, pot) and smokeless tobacco also have held too comfortable a place in baseball and can be traced to the deaths of millions of people each year also. These things would be true.

I think there's something else at stake to the sport of baseball with steroids, however. We're not merely talking about a substance that threatens the health of the players, which is clearly bad enough, but it also undermines the integrity of the game. Alcohol is not a performance enhancer. Chass is comparing apples and oranges.

Driving while intoxicated is illegal, and those who are in the public eye who are caught doing that deserve to be ridiculed for their actions. I feel sad for those who die due to their stupidity in driving drunk and I'm angry about those who die because of the stupid people who drove drunk and caused their deaths. But the institution of motorized travel isn't completely undermined by drunk drivers. I know that sounds ridiculous, but the apples are apples. While some people choose not to drive because of the myriad dangers involved, that is all about personal choice, just like the fans who decided not to return to baseball after the labor strike(s).

I care about the game of baseball, and those who attack its integrity -- the admitted gambler Pete Rose, the admitted steroid user Jose Canseco, the alleged steroid user Barry Bonds -- all take a little piece of the game away. A game that was very helpful to them and enabled them to be wealthy. With great wealth comes great responsibility. I believe Pete Rose should not be voted into the Hall of Fame. Jose Canseco doesn't deserve to be there either. Barry Bonds? He may go down as a more tragic figure than Pete Rose, because what Bonds accomplished before he seems to have started juicing warranted Hall of Fame status, so he didn't really need to enhance his ability; he was already an all-time great. Now? ... well, I wouldn't vote for Bonds if it were up to me. (Of course, Rose was an all-time great too, but he broke an established, very well-known rule. That moron should have known better, but he thought he was above the game.)

Would I get into a car with Billy Martin or Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle or Hack Wilson or Whitey Ford or any of the other baseball greats who were later exposed as heavy, dangerous drinkers? Not a chance in hell. But I probably would have enjoyed watching the games they were involved in, because they seemed a bit more pure than what we were exposed to during the late 1990s.

Perhaps I'm deluding myself. There's probably a pill for that.